48 LIFE BOB DYLAN
instrumental before their marriage, for instance, in the
Pennebaker documentary Dont Look Back. Pennebaker, in
fact, told biographer Robert Shelton, “The idea of the film
was from his wife.” Sara, after bringing Pennebaker in con-
tact with Dylan and Grossman, continued to serve as a liai-
son on that production. But mostly, when it came to Dylan’s
music, Sara served as muse. She was, in 1966, the “Sad-Eyed
Lady of the Lowlands,” a song Dylan once told Shelton he
considered perhaps his best. A decade later, in a plea for rec-
onciliation after their marriage had failed, she was overtly
the “Sara” on the Desire album. Those things we know for
sure. It has also been speculated that Sara was at the heart
of such songs as “Isis,” “We Better Talk This Over,” “Down
Along the Cove,” “Wedding Song,” “On a Night Like This,”He wrote “Like a Rolling Stone” in a heartbeat there: “It just
came, you know.”
Not long after the Hollywood Bowl concert, Dylan and
Sara wed, on November 22, 1965, in a civil ceremony that was
small and secret. (Dylan lied for a time to even close friends
about having married, and it fell to Nora Ephron to make the
news public the following February in a New York Post story
headlined HUSH! BOB DYLAN IS WED.) Exchanging vows in
Mineola, Long Island, Dylan had only Albert Grossman in
his wedding party and Sara had only her maid of honor.
Sara was content to suppress her ego in deference to her
star husband and his career—she had little in common, in this
vein, with Linda McCartney, Pattie Boyd or Yoko Ono—
but she was sometimes involved. She had already been36-59 LIFE_Bob Dylan 2020 Plugging.indd 48 FINAL 1/13/20 4:24 PM