“Diamonds and Rust” by Joan Baez

Joan Baez wrote "Diamonds and Rust" in November 1974 and made it the title song of her 1975 album, and it's a ghost story told in plain daylight. A phone call arrives out of nowhere from an old flame, and suddenly she's ten years back in a cheap Greenwich Village hotel, remembering the cufflinks she once gave him and weighing what memory leaves behind: something precious, something corroded. She has said the man in question is Bob Dylan.

Baez produced it with David Kershenbaum and set the confession in a polished band: Larry Carlton and Dean Parks on electric guitars, Wilton Felder on bass, Jim Gordon on drums, Joe Sample's electric piano and David Paich's harpsichord, with Baez on acoustic guitar and synthesizer. It became a top 40 hit, and plenty of listeners count it among her finest songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.