Justin Barney here, and I need your help. Specifically your knowledge of Bob Dylan.
So the other day I interviewed John Cale. Founding member of The Velvet Underground. He who did the version of “Hallelujah” that Jeff Buckley covered. Producer of Patti Smith and Iggy Pop’s first records. The great Welsh experimenter John Cale.
And I think he might have told me that he learned his famous ex-girlfriend was in a relationship with Bob Dylan by listening to a Bob Dylan song.
So I don’t know the song. But I do have this confession of a love triangle between Bob Dylan, Edie Sedgwick and John Cale. And it came when I asked Cale a fairly innocuous question, one I ask many artists I interview: “What’s the last song that caught your ear and made you think?” And he says this. “
John Cale: There is a Bob Dylan song about, who I think at the time, was Edie Sedgwick.
It stuck with me because I couldn’t remember the words but I could remember the emotion of the lyrics.
I didn’t understand that there was any connection between him and Edie Sedgwick at the time. But it soon became apparent what the story was about.
Justin Barney: Did you know them at the time?
John Cale: I knew Edie. Yes.
But I couldn’t put two and two together.
It’s such an elegant poem that he’d written about her approach to life in general, which was kind of a mystery.
Justin Barney: So did you find something out about her life because of that song?
John Cale: I suspected. But I didn’t know.
I suspected but I didn’t know.
Edie Sedgwick was Andy Warhol’s “It Girl” in the mid sixties. She and John Cale did famously date at the time. And Bob Dylan was famously famous in New York in the late ’60s.
So it sounds like he’s telling me that he suspected that Dylan and Sedgewick were seeing each other at the time, but he didn’t know until he heard a Bob Dylan song that he think confirms it.
The thing is, he didn’t remember the name of the song. And I don’t know Dylan’s catalogue well enough to know the song. This is where you come in. We need to find this song.
We know it’s simple, well-crafted and emotionally conveys Eddie Sedgwick’s approach to life in general.
The internet will tell you that Dylan’s songs about Edie Sedgwick include “Just Like a Woman,” “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” It might be one of those. It might not.
If you think you know the Bob Dylan song that captures Edie Sedgwick’s approach to life, we made a post on Instagram. Our handle is @WNXPnashville. Please comment with the song and maybe why. We need to know this song. That is @WNXPnashville on Instagram. Let’s figure this out.
