Album: Diamonds & Rust (1975)

Charted: 35

License This Song 

• Well, I'll be damned
  Here comes your ghost again
  But that's not unusual
  It's just that the moon is full
  And you happened to call
  And here I sit
  Hand on the telephone
  Hearing a voice I'd known
  A couple of light years ago
  Heading straight for a fall
  
  As I remember your eyes
  Were bluer than robin's eggs
  My poetry was lousy you said
  Where are you calling from?
  A booth in the midwest
  Ten years ago
  I bought you some cufflinks
  You brought me something
  We both know what memories can bring
  They bring diamonds and rust
  
  Well, you burst on the scene
  Already a legend
  The unwashed phenomenon
  The original vagabond
  You strayed into my arms
  And there you stayed
  Temporarily lost at sea
  The Madonna was yours for free
  Yes, the girl on the half-shell
  Could keep you unharmed
  
  Now I see you standing
  With brown leaves falling all around
  And snow in your hair
  Now you're smiling out the window
  Of that crummy hotel
  Over Washington Square
  Our breath comes out white clouds
  Mingles and hangs in the air
  Speaking strictly for me
  We both could have died then and there
  
  Now you're telling me
  You're not nostalgic
  Then give me another word for it
  You who are so good with words
  And at keeping things vague
  'Cause I need some of that vagueness now
  It's all come back too clearly
  Yes, I loved you dearly
  And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
  I've already paid Writer/s: Joan Baez
  Publisher: Downtown Music Publishing
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 40

• Kimon from SwitzerlandI'm glad that I'm seeing some comments about the girl on the half-shell. I always interpreted it with Venus/Aphrodite (Goddess of Love, Beauty), she was painted on an open half-shell
• Rob Newell from Devon, UkI think you'll find this is by no means a fond reminiscence. The last couple of lines say it all. Also the reference to Queen Jane Approx is just a guess. Poem to Joanie is quite explicit in Bob's views about Joan.
• Dolores from MassachusettsI graduated high school in 1974. I was a wanna be hippie, peace loving flower child. But I was at least 3 years too young. I would skip school and go to Boston for a peace moratorium, as they called the gathering on Boston Common. I also skipped school to honor rhe 27 year old death club of Hendrix, Joplin etc. So young so idealistic I knew of Bob Dylan and purchased the album Diamonds and Rust. The album made by Joan Boaz about her history
  with Bob Dylan. It was beautifully titled to chronicle memories of her relationship with Dylan. You could hear the longing in her voice. I also remember going to summer school making up time lost to skipping school. On my radio was Dylan singing about" Lay Lady lay, across my big brass band". I had a inkling of what it was about but had to ask friends to make sure!
  We were young, idealistic, we wanted to change the world. I believed in peace , love, and experimenting with drugs. At night around the dinner table, the news would be on tallying the dead for the day from Vietnam. I knew war was madness and inhumane, but never blamed our soldiers, they were innocents drawn in to the war by the lottery of the draft. Or a sense I f honor and duty. It was heady times!!!
• AnonymousGirl on the half shell may (no source of confirmation) refer to Bottecelies painting, The Birth of Venus, picturing Venus riding on a clam shell. The bastardized title, "Girl on a half shell", is a painting found in the Efficie Gallary, Florence Italy. Spelling phonetic. An comparison to real spelling purely accidental.
• AnonymousWhat does the girl on the half shell refer to
• Agnello Noel from MumbaiCufflinks = Handcuffs?
• Mike from Washington StateYears after Judas Priest covering this song I covered it myself on the bass Guitar :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7IShGEXTYc
• Rob from Atlanta, GaI've read the comments... There are worse things than Judas Priest covering this song. For instance, the only reason I know of this Joan Baez song is because of a thrash metal band named Slayer. An uncredited, and unreferenced "Dissident Aggressor" is performed on Slayer's "South of Heaven" album. I traced that to Judas Priest's "Sin After Sin". Then becoming interested in Priest, I bought "Sin After Sin" only to have the haunting "Diamonds and Rust" become to me the most memorable song of the album. Never having investigated its origins, via sheer coincidence I only became aware 20 years later that it too was a cover when I typed the song name in a web search. I have found the original rendition haunting as well. I have no favorite here, and appreciate when any artist pays homage to what they consider great.
• Kramo from Toronto, CanadaI saw her play at a church in Toronto around 1964. She took some questions. Someone asked...what young people could do to help the struggle. Whatever that was. Baez told her to drop out of school for starters. What a commie idiot.
• Elias from Buffalo, NyFrom what i understand, the title has to do with time and its relationship with beauty, as in time can take a black, sooty piece of coal and turn it into a beautiful shiny diamond, but at the same time, it can take a shiny and beautiful piece of steel and turn it into rust, thus destroying it. so in the end, the former lover comes back, but the other person feels like they are just being offered time to either have a beautiful life together, or this is as good as it gets and it will just end in another heartbreak...they've already been down that road, they've already paid.
• D. R. from Okc, OkRecently got Judy Collins latest CD (She performed at the Woody Guthrie Festival in Okemah, OK July 2012), and she does a duet with Joan of this song. Wow it's good.
• Bob from Bismarck, NdI heard Joan Baez perform this live outdoors at Bayfield, Wisconsin in 2009. When she got tot he part where it says 'ten years ago, I bought you some cufflinks', she sang 'FORTY years ago, I bought you some cufflinks'. The song is that old and I think the cufflinks were a gift to Bob Dylan.
• Tom from Lebanon, PaHaving heard the fast and slow versions by Judas Priest, my son and I listened to the original tonight. I must say, I am very impressed by all three versions. Joan's seems more bittersweet and soulful, while Judas Priest's versions seems more bitter. The slower version by Priest has so much more power in it than the fast version. Joan seems almost tempted to relive the past in hers, while in the Priest versions they (Tim Owens does a VERY good version live on '98 Meltdown) seem to be rejecting the overtures of their former lover. All in all, very good song with very deep emotion no matter who is singing it.
• Lalith from Colombo, Sri Lanka (ceylon)This is one of my all time favourite songs. Brings back memories and yearnings for lost love.
  @Maggie
  The Bobby Kennedy theory doesn't work for me because whole chunks of the song do not fit. The original vagabond, the unwashed phenomenon? Kennedy?
• Rob from Walsall, United KingdomJudas Priest did this song a disservice?!
  
  I think you need to re-evaluate your position. Judas Priest is what gave me a love for this song. I'd never even heard of Joan Baez, and certainly didn't think much of her rendition of this song when I did. I guess it's "too each his own".
  
  In the end, the music stands for what it is. I prefer Halford's version. Without him, I'd have never experienced it. Speaks volumes Priest feels something for it. Kudos Joan, may your work live forever regardless.
  
  
• Suzy from Boca Raton, FlThis song is definately one of my favorites of all time. The lyrics are sad and bring back memories from my past. Throughout the song, I imagine Baez and Dylans broken love affair.
  "Speaking strictly for me we both could have died then and there". That is very heavy!!!!
• Vic from Las Vegas, NvThe people hyping the Judas Priest version.. I'm sorry to say but that version sucks.
  They really did this song a disservice.
  
• Alfonso from Santiago, ChileI know this song only for Judas Priest, and to all the non believers that have not heard the Judas versions, let me tell you that they are nothing less than GREAT. Do yourself a favor and listen to them.
• Maggie from Scranton, PaWell, I heard a rumor a long time ago, from someone in Baez's circle, that this song was about a very secret, intense, short lived affair with Bobby Kennedy. Listen to it with him in mind. It could really fit. He was from New York, was a phenomenon, was good at words but as a politician, also good at keeping things vague. He had robin egg blue eyes,"snow" in his hair as he grsyed slightly, prematurely.
• Nick from Bush, LaHey Jean, in Paris.... Go listen to Judas Priests version. Rob Halford CAN sing.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIC7KQPDuDc&mode=related&search=
• Jean from Paris, FranceARGHHHH !!!!! Judas Priest has sung this song. Do they really SING ? She's the madonna, and they are the Heavy Pigs
• Bob from San Diego, CaJoan Baez: "What would've happended if we'd gotten married?"
  Bob Dylan: "I married the woman I love" MOJO September 2006
• Mike from Modest, CaThis is one of my favorite songs of all time. Her voice is so pure, clear and ringing that I am in awe. This is a beautiful song; powerful lyrics, effective and mournful minor-based chord changes, a strong, intense bridge, a great arrangement with the moog in background, and so very touching and haunting that it brings tears to my eyes. I've never heard the Judas Priest version, nor have the desire to. I imagine it would ruin the basis of the very personal and bittersweet effect of the song.
• Kevin from Reading , PaThis song is so personal, I don't see how a Judas Priest version could make any sense. It's ludicrous that they even did it.
• Susan from Tampa, FlThis song was in the movie " Eulogy" and the scene stars Hank Azaria, great film, even better song.
• Fred from Laurel, MdLike this song a lot, but I like two others of hers better, that are on similar themes: Song for David (about then-husband and fellow jailed protester, David Harris), and Sweet Sir Galahad, about the marriage of her sister, Mimi, to Richard Farina (who wrote the folk-standard, Pack Up Your Sorrows). Despise her politics, but she sure could write some great songs, and what a voice!! In the early 60's, when she hit the scene, that voice was so stunning, many thought it was just too good for folk music. I believe she was classically trained in voice (though I am unable to find any confirmation of this; it may be apocryphal), and probably could have been an opera superstar. But what a loss for folk that would have been! BTW, her dad was fairly prominent physicist, Albert Baez.
  
• Pufan Alexandru from Dr. Tr. SeverinJoan Baez's version is better than Priest's version from Sin After Sin but not better that the acoustic version from Rising in the East
• Lester from New York City, NyJudas Priest's cover is intense
• Rik from Houghton Le Spring, EnglandI saw Baez a couple of weeks ago and she changed the last line to 'I'll take the Grammy'
• Benny from Seal Beach, CaNever was a huge Joan Baez, but I've always loved "Diamonds and Rust." The song stands on it own, but I think Joan really captured my relationship with a girl named Cindi.
• Fyodor from Denver, CoJoan's relationship with Bobby was a dozen years history by the time of this song.
• Greg from Victoria, CanadaA bit sappy for sure but a classic for old farts like me!
• Julie from New York, NyRebekah from Seattle. I am not a dyed-in-the-wool Joan Baez enthusiast but the woman has a beautiful voice and certainly can turn a song. For you to say that her version of "Diamonds and Rust" is terrible, just struck a bad chord with me--no pun intended! Her version was meant to be mournful as it speaks to a painful part of her past. Perhaps you should visit Joan's site to read the lyrics as she wrote them to gain some perspective. And isn't it ironic that Judas Priest is named after a song by her former lover Bob Dylan?(to whom the song alludes!)
• Rebekah from Seattle, WaJoan Baez may have written this song, but it was a terrible version. Judas Priest gave the song new meaning and passion. No slight against Joan, but it had no heat.
• Stefanie from Rock Hill, ScUm Steve. The song you're referring wasn't written by her anyway. It was written by the Band, and who knows what their motives were.
• Steve from Fenton, MoBen, do you want to see Joan Baez live? Just send her a note that you are going to tear down a building and she'll be there in a heartbeat to protest it. Isn't it ironic that Joan was such a protester for Civil Rights and her biggest hit song glorifies the Confederacy (The Night They Drove 'Ole Dixie Down).
• Ben from Eugene, OrI love Joan Baez. Haven't listened too much to her in years, but she is great.
• Tim from Charlotte, NcWhile Baez sounds quite bitter as she sings "Diamonds and Rust", and then sounds mocking as she sings "Simple Twist of Fate" later on the album, she finally comes to terms with Dylan in the song "Winds of the Old Days".
  
  All in all, this is a great album with the themes of bitterness, grief, forgiveness and understanding.
• Anthea from Boston, MaWhen Baez does this live, she sometimes plays around with the lyrics at the end. For example, when she sang with Mary Chapin Carpenter, they sang "and if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I'll take the diamonds," instead of "I've already paid," which makes the song sound somewhat more upbeat.
• Marion from Frankfurt, GermanyThere exists a cover version by Blackmore's Night.

More Songfacts:

Sloop John BThe Beach Boys

"Sloop John B" is a traditional West Indian folk song, and it was a huge hit for The Beach Boys in 1966. They tweaked the lyric, "This is the worst trip since I've been born" to "...I've ever been on" as a wink to acid culture.

Heaven KnowsRobert Plant

Robert Plant's "Heaven Knows" is a satirical look at the '80s, when style seemed to trump substance.

You're A Friend Of MineClarence Clemons

Clarence Clemons, who played the sax in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, had the biggest solo hit of anyone in the group - aside from Springsteen - when "You're A Friend Of Mine" (a collaboration with Jackson Browne) hit #18 in 1985.

I Got You BabeSonny & Cher

Cher had a habit of calling people "babe," which her husband, Sonny Bono, picked up. That's how "babe" landed in the 1965 Sonny & Cher megahit "I Got You Babe."

Crash Into MeDave Matthews Band

The Dave Matthews Band song "Crash Into Me" seems pretty romantic, but the guy in the song is kind of a stalker. Matthews calls him "the kind of man you'd call the police on."

LolaThe Kinks

When The Kinks released "Lola," most people didn't realize Lola was a man. "I was dancing with this beautiful blonde, then we went out into the daylight and I saw her stubble," Ray Davies said of the inspiration.

Editor's Picks

The Punk Photography of Chris SteinSong Writing

Chris Stein of Blondie shares photos and stories from his book about the New York City punk scene.

Country Song TitlesFact or Fiction

Country songs with titles so bizarre they can't possibly be real... or can they?

Francesca BattistelliSongwriter Interviews

The 2011 Artist of the Year at the Dove Awards isn't your typical gospel diva, and she thinks that's a good thing.

Cy Curnin of The FixxSongwriter Interviews

The man who brought us "Red Skies" and "Saved By Zero" is now an organic farmer in France.

Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica)Songwriter Interviews

The former Metallica bassist talks about his first time writing a song with James Hetfield, and how a hand-me-down iPad has changed his songwriting.

Ian Gillan of Deep PurpleSongwriter Interviews

Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan explains the "few red lights" in "Smoke On The Water" and talks about songs from their 2020 album Whoosh!