As a teenager I rarely found anyone my own age who had the slightest interest in the music I liked, but towards the end of high school I discovered that one of my classmates, Perian Flaherty, sang folk songs, and we went out a couple of times and sang on the street together — at least, I remember singing with her once on Palmer Street in Harvard Square, outside Passim Coffeehouse. Perian’s repertoire was mostly from Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, and at that point I didn’t know any Joni Mitchell, so Baez was where we overlapped.

I had never really been a Baez fan. There was something about her voice that didn’t work for me — except when I saw her live, which was always magical and made me a believer — but my parents had Joan Baez in Concert, pt. 2, and my sister was a fan and got her songbook, and one way and another I picked up quite a few things from her repertoire. This is the one I remember singing with Perian — she sang the verses, and I echoed her lines on the chorus: “And only say (and only say) that you’ll be mine (that you’ll be mine)…

I later heard it by the Monroe Brothers and the Stanley Brothers, whose music is more to my taste, and I would have said I now did the Stanleys’ version — but listening back I find I still pretty much sing Baez’s verses. I don’t recall singing this with anyone but Perian and that was almost forty years ago, but I still hear her voice and miss chiming in with her on the choruses.