Sweet Sir Galahad

"Sweet Sir Galahad" is a song written by Joan Baez, which she first performed in 1969 at Woodstock; she subsequently included it on her 1970 album "One Day at a Time". The song tells the story of Baez' younger sister Mimi Fariña and her second marriage to Milan Melvin (the two were married at the 1968 Big Sur Folk Festival) after the 1966 death of Fariña's first husband, novelist and singer-songwriter Richard Fariña. Baez was inspired to write the song, after hearing of Melvin's courtship of Fariña, during which he came into her bedroom at night through the window. It has since become one of Baez's most well-known compositions.

In 2006, Baez contributed a "re-tooled" version of the song to volume one of the XM Artist Confidential CD series, available at Starbucks. In the new version, Baez briefly changes the lyric "Here's to the dawn of their days" to "Here's to the dawn of "her" days," a tribute to the song's subject, Baez's sister Mimi, who died in 2001.

A live version of the song appears on Baez' 1995 live album "Ring Them Bells".