Best Songs Ever

ø 5 at 13 votes
What’s your rating?

▸ Alternative video Spotify

“Diamonds & Rust” is a song written and performed by Joan Baez - it was released in 1975, but had been written the previous November. In the song, Baez recounts an out-of-the-blue phone call from an old lover, which sends her a decade back in time, to a “crummy” hotel in Greenwich Village; she recalls giving him a pair of cuff-links, and summarizes that memories bring “diamonds and rust” (i.e. time leaves us with both happy and bad memories). The song, which was a top-40 hit for Baez on the U.S. pop singles chart, is regarded by a number of critics, as well as by Baez fans, as one of her best compositions. It served as the title song on Baez’s gold-selling Diamonds & Rust album in 1975. For her 1995 live recording Ring Them Bells, Baez performed the song as a duet with... Read on...