Françoise on Bobby . . . . . . Bobby on Françoise

« Bob Dylan has composed and recorded a lot of marvellous songs – but Just Like A Woman is really moving. When he played his songs for me in a hotel room in 1966 he seemed very shy – and I was very shy too, so we didn’t say anything to each other. At the time, my English was worse than it is today, so I didn’t really understand the words for Just Like a Woman. I only understood, 

“You make love just like a woman/Then you ache just like a woman/But you break just like a little girl,” 

which was moving to me, very sentimental. He was impressed with me – but not by the singer, by the girl, I think. He had a kind of romantic fixation on a photo of me – but I didn’t take it too seriously at that time. Recently, I got two drafts of letters written by him for me – and I finally realized that he was very serious about this fixation when he was very young. It moved me deeply when I read those letters » 

– Françoise Hardy, 2018 (Pitchfork Magazine)

 well can you blame him?

Untitled 2

for françoise hardy

at the seine’s edge

a giant shadow

of notre dame

seeks t grab my foot

sorbonne students

whirl by on thin bicycles

swirlin’ lifelike colors of leather spin

the breese yawns food

far from the bellies

or erhard meetin johnson

piles of lovers

fishing

kissing

lay themselves on their books, boats.

old men

clothed in curly mustaches

float on the benches

blankets of tourist

in bright nylon shirts

with straw hats of ambassadors

(cannot hear nixon’s

dawg bark now)

will sail away

as the sun goes down

the doors of the river are open

i must remember that

i too play the guitar

it’s easy t stand here

more lovers pass

on motorcycles

roped together

from the walls of the water then

i look across t what they call

the right bank

an envy

your

trumpet

player

From The Bob Dylan Centre

The original typescript for the poem is on display in our Columbia Records Gallery. Two years later, Hardy and Dylan finally met in Paris during Dylan’s chaotic 1966 European tour. 

 

Bob Dylan - Just Like a Woman - Take 1