Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1969
Sweet Sir Galahad
Buy Sweet Sir Galahad now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'"Sweet Sir Galahad"' is a song written by Joan Baez that she famously performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, after having debuted it during an appearance in a Season Three episode of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', which aired on March 30, 1969. A recording of the song, first released as a single in late 1969, would lead off Baez's 1970 album 'One Day at a Time'.
History
The song tells the story of Baez's younger sister Mimi Faria and her marriage (her second) to music producer Milan Melvin. (Mimi's first husband Richard Faria had died in a motorcycle accident two years previously.) Mimi and Milan were married at the 1968 Big Sur Folk Festival. Baez was inspired to write the song after hearing of Melvin's courtship of Faria, during which he came into her bedroom at night through a window.
The song became one of Baez's best-known compositions. In her 1987 memoir 'And a Voice to Sing With', Baez described "Sweet Sir Galahad" as the first song she ever wrote (although she is credited as a co-writer on two tracks on her 1967 album 'Joan').
Mimi Faria and Milan Melvin divorced in 1971 and Mimi died in 2001. In 2006, Baez contributed a "re-tooled" version of the song to Volume 1 of the XM Artist Confidential CD series. In the new version, Baez changed the lyric "Here's to the dawn of their days" to "Here's to the dawn of 'her' days."
A live version of the song appears as a bonus track on the 2006 reissue of Baez's 1995 album 'Ring Them Bells'.
A cover version was sung by Sarah Lee Guthrie (daughter of Arlo Guthrie), and may be heard on youtube.
References
Category:Joan Baez songs
Category:1969 songs
Category:Songs written by Joan Baez
Category:Vanguard Records singles
Buy Sweet Sir Galahad now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1969