I was most interested in seeing A Complete Unknown because of Joan Baez, and I finally watched it after learning that Marianne Faithfull had died. I thought about Joan and Marianne’s cutting-room-floor duet from Don’t Look Back when they sang "As Tears Go By” together in Bob Dylan’s suite at The Savoy in London in May 1965. It’s a beautiful moment—the only instance where two women are alone on screen—that didn’t make it into the film, possibly due to licensing issues or a lack of rights to the song.
In the two-minute clip, Marianne and Joan sit casually in armchairs, facing outward. Marianne appears demure, one leg crossed over the other, while Joan asks for her preferred key. It’s evident that they don’t know each other well or for long, and perhaps this is their way of bonding, singing a song written by Marianne’s soon-to-be boyfriend in Joan’s soon-to-be-ex’s hotel room. (Rock and roll is so queer.) Once Joan starts to sing, Marianne joins in with her smoky low harmonies, a natural complement to Joan’s signature levitating lead.
In the third verse, the camera suddenly pans to Bob, sitting and smoking, pecking at his typewriter the whole time. With his back turned, he seems impervious to the performance behind him, which existed only in legend until 2015, when the clip was finally made available.
If you’ve seen Don’t Look Back, you know there’s a whole party one room over, which gets much more play in the film. Marianne recalled in her 1994 memoir, Faithfull: “The room buzzed and crackled with high-voltage egos all playing off each other at the court of King Bob,” she wrote. Nobody introduced themselves: “A state of absolute coolness prevailed.” Until Joan, out of nowhere, picked up a guitar and started to play Marianne’s song.
By her admission, Marianne worshipped Joan—she’d gotten her start performing folk songs like Joan’s “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” in British Beatnik cafes. “I’ve never heard it sound better, even by whatsisname,” Marianne wrote. “It quite blew me away. Very unlike my version.” The way Joan sang it, Marianne said, “the meaning is flopped: instead of being a subjective thought, the words become beautiful artifacts.”
It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me
I sit and watch
As tears go by
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