“SHEUSEDTOSIT ATTHEFRONT”
Fellow Rolling Thunder Revue alumnus ROGER McGUINN tells Peter Watts about sharing the bus – and songs – with Joni
ON the Rolling Thunder bus, Joni used to sit right at the front next to the driver so she could look out the window and write about what she could see. I remember watching her write ‘Coyote’. She had a composition book with a black-andwhite cover that was full of new songs, there were about 25 of them. She gave one of them to me, ‘Dreamland’. “She played ‘Coyote’ on stage a few times. She was playing a lot of new material and said one time, ‘McGuinn?’ – she always called me McGuinn, I think that was something she got from Crosby – ‘how come I get so scared on stage?’ I said it’s because she was always doing new material, songs she hadn’t even finished let alone recorded. She was adding new verses to ‘Coyote’ each time she sang it. There are no doubts that ‘Coyote’ was about Sam Shepard. She and Sam had a fling on tour. She had been living with John Guerin, my old drummer. Joni came to the Whisky to see me, but she wasn’t really coming to see me, she was coming for John. She romanced him away from me. I don’t blame her, he was a great drummer.