Joan Baez (Broken Record Live)

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Of all the groundbreaking musicians to come out of the sixties, few were as engaged socially and politically as Joan Bayaz. A lifelong proponent of non violent activism, Joan marched with doctor Martin Luther King Jr. And has continued to advocate for non violent civil disobedience ever since. With the release of her debut album in nineteen sixty, Joan Bayez became the pre eminent female folky. With just her exquisite soprano and her guitar, she reworked classic American folk songs and eventually wrote songs that helped fuel her activism. By the time she helped launch Bob Dylan's career by inviting him on stage with her in the early sixties, Joan was already an international sensation. In twenty nineteen, after a career that spanned nearly six decades, Joan announced she was no longer performing live. In recent years, she's turned her creative attention to visual art. Her new book of drawings, titled Am I Pretty When I Fly, features sketches rooted in humor, freedom, and sorrow, but in classic Joan by A style of course. Her drawings defy convention, they were all drawn upside down. On today's episode, you'll hear a live conversation I had with Joan Bayez at the Chicago Humanities Festival in May. Jones spoke about the emotional catharsis she finds in drawing. She also talked about juggling music and activism as a young artist, and what happened when she handed over access to her personal storage unit to a group of documentary filmmakers. Also, despite giving up live performance, she took a moment to serenade the crowd all with her beautiful, beloved voice. This is broken record line of notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richard. Here's my conversation with the great Joane by As. Thank you so much for making this wonderful book of your drawings. They're they're amazing and I can't wait to get into a lot of them. But before we get into that, it's we were both from California. We both flew here to Chicago to do this, and it feels very apt because in a lot of ways, this is kind of where you started in show business, right well, certainly this atmosphere of folk folk music, folk folks, and that was mine was mainly in Cambridge, and people associate me with the village, but I was only there a couple of times. It was mainly Cambridge and the folks scene there, Yeah, well, which is where you would have gotten into music. But then the Gate of Horn here in Chicago really feels like Albert Grossman's club. Oh my god. That was a big deal for me because I was eighteen or nineteen and I was scared to death, and also I was afraid that if I sang somewhere where they were still booze, I would go to hell. I mean literally, that's where I was at that point in my life. And I heard Albert grosswim trying to convince my parents that I should come and sing at the Gate of Horn, and I heard one of them say, oh, she'll never do it, she's too scared. So immediately I said, Okay, I'm going yeah, and I did. Two or three weeks or something like that. I opened for Bob Gibson at the Gate of Horn, legendary place, and a young Roger McGuinn was lurking around, and who was born and raised here, and I can't imagine what that must have looked like. That also led to you performing at the inaugural Newport Folk Festival, right, isn't It is the first one up Until then it had been jazz festival, just a jazz festival. And like the little club where I sang, Club forty seven in Cambridge, it had been a jazz club for years. These two women ran it and then they saw the writing on the wall and they put start putting folk music in. And I was the first artist, and I got paid ten dollars a night. I was rich broad, you know. And then and then pretty soon it was two nights a week and fifteen dollars a night. I and my family says, I would come home with this money and I'd throw it over. We had a balcony, and I'd hurl it over the balcony. I thought everybody would like that so much, and they all hated me for you must what was your parents Your parents didn't think you would actually settle into this lifestyle or to this career as a as a but what was their impression of you actually sort of starting to become an actual, a real like a working musician. I have to give my father credit. He didn't like the whole folk music idea from me. Same as you know, talk about your family. They want to make sure you're on straight and narrow and gonna make money or get married or whatever's appropriate. But after he was the one who took me into Harvard Square. It took the way had three daughters and his wife into Harvard Square because they'd seen this phenomenon of folk clubs. And they were filled with smoke and Harvard students playing chess and reading and you know, being very academic and philosophical and cool. And I saw a young man playing I think it was guitar or some stringed instrument under his yellow light, and he was singing Pleasier no More. And it was over for me. I mean, that's all I was interested in ever after. That was being there, got myself a guitar, copied everybody, stole everything they ever did. And my mother was my greatest fan. I mean, if I'd stayed in the crib and just played with beads the rest of my life, she was to have the best bead player you ever. But my dad realized that this was something real and he appreciated it. Wow. I was surprised going through the book, cause it seems to me you've lived a relatively, I should not even relatively like a very charmed life. And I was surprised to see the amount of under the heading of innocence and early in the book, the amount of sort of angst that comes from that you're drawing of children. You know, I was a Mexican down near the border in southern California, which is where you know an image like middle school would come from. And so I was an outsider, and I was those and our family moved all the time, so as a new school I was the outsider. There's a picture in there of a little girl at the door, a teacher saying, who wants to sit next to Juanita? Well, nobody's gonna want to sit next to Oneita. It was a terrible way to say it. And so I mean I appear to myself in these drawings a lot. I didn't know that ahead of time, because I don't know what's going to come out on that page when I started drawing. But I see me in a lot of it, and there was we were marginal our family. I was. My father was born in Mexico, and I look Mexican sisters didn't, so they didn't have as much trouble. But that's where that feeling marginal came from. It appears you're the way you think about children, maybe more largely, if not just your own childhood, is that there's this interaction with adults, that is, there's a tense interaction if anything. Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. Kids trying to communicate with anybody, uncertainly with their parents and that division, and you know, and a good parent keeps trying to find a way to their kid, often by listening. But we're all such bad listeners, you know. That's really what the kid wants. And the little kid there is basically saying mom, you know you who I exist. I'm here, and Mom's busy hanging out the longrty and she's not paying any attention and all all that is not my mom. Where do these I know you don't know exactly where these come from, but maybe we can start with all of the drawings in the book come from drawing upside down. How did that start? I'm thinking that it started we were talking about me finding refuge for myself from whatever was bothering me, and whatever happened in the process of a combination of that, and really not being bored with school. I mean I was afraid, yeah, but I was also just bored stiff, and so I started writing with my left hand. Well, that was interesting, and then I started drawing backwards. That was interesting. I wrote the entire Greek alphabet bathwards and you know, and now memorized in factors. If that gives you any idea of how important that math close was to me, that's how important it was to me. And then I just look at it as a sort of a graduation when I moved into drawing. Drawing upside down and putting the labels and the processes is not difficult. It's just confusing. If I'm seeing here and I'm drawing, you're seeing it right side up, I'm seeing it upside down off, and I don't know what it's going to be at all. Just start making these lines around the page, and then it begins to develop, and sometimes I think, oh, I get it. That's a guy and that's a dog. And then it we'll develop from there, and then I'll turn it back or look at it and see if there's something to fill in with, and or a phrase will come to my mind. That's the magic of it that I might have even started with one idea, but when I turn it around saying, oh, that's not what it's saying to me, it's saying something different. And then I turn it back and I write it upside down, all right there going When you add the phrase to the drawings at that point, are you are you analyzing where this might have come from within you? Or is it really then also just looking at it, almost as if anyone could have drawn it and seeing what it that's nice. Yeah, you know, I just don't analyze period any of this stuff. I'm sure I analyze some things, but it would kind of, my opinion, probably ruin it a little if I knew exactly, you know, the dynamics of Stephen Colbert said, Oh, do you stand on your head to do these drawings? I said, sort of picture me dangling off a jungle gym doing this myself side down. Do you find yourself revising any of the writings that you put above it, any of the oh good question. Once it's written down, I can't because it's in ink. Sometimes I look at and I think, oh, it should have said you know, but it's written, so I can't change. I'm sure we could find a way for you to do that and preserve the integrity of the drawing. But that would be less fun. I guess when do you find yourself drawing upside down versus right side up? It is there a reason that you drop side down? Like is it when you feel stuck or no? No, it's just fun. But I draw right side up as well, you know, mostly little sketch little things. And then I drew when I was in junior high in high school, and I drew my boyfriends, and I drew James Dean, and I charged five dollars for the drawings. But if you go back way far, and this is in the introduction to the book, but I would draw Bambi and Thumper from my little porcelain guys, you know, and then I would charged three pennies for each one. And that little place where you put your pencil inside the wooden desk, I would have pennies in it. That's amazing in terms of the creativity that goes into your drawings, the way you approach it, the sort of non analyzing, the wanting to sort of do it upside down to ensure that it's coming from like a real sort of subconscious place. Was that also the case with your music, in the way that it came naturally and untrained. And then it's very much the same. I mean, following that guy I saw on the coffee shop. It was just my life, you know. I mean I would fall asleep playing the guitar or the guitars on my chest, and I would wake up and I'd go on playing. You know, I didn't didn't even move. It was just it was all I did. I was immersed. And then I get in a project, and I was pretty much immersed in this project while we were working on it. You know, I didn't really think about much else. I just wanted to put these drawings in the right place and categorize them and put them in a book. The drawings that are in the book, when did these happen? Are these older drawings newer? They went from maybe ten or twelve years ago up until now. And that's how come I'd find they made little bunches around the house. And I have found more since the book. You know, if I was little stashed with a rubber band about, I think little Goody, you know, some other insanity, and it is do you find Catharsis in the emotion of the drawings or do you do you find amotion? I guess in the Yeah, you know, sometimes I've cried the ones of the animals, you know, and that old horse this is being pushed along and the guy is saying, you know, come on, life is long, but you're you know, he's empathetic with the horse, and the horse looks tired, and for me it brings up, you know, every awful movie that's had horses hurt in it. So I it very moved by this stuff. But I can't pretend that it's myself who invented it. It's coming from somewhere else. So I can say that this is how it made me feel or you know, happy or sad or deep? Or do you cry often? Would you say? Just in life? Are you a crier? Oh? Not particularly? I probably was when I was younger. Yeah, so there is something about the quiet moments of turning a piece of paper upside down, And doesn't everybody, No, you know, my father other says scientist, very academic, you know, professorial, and he couldn't figure this out. He said, but I don't understand, And I said he probably shouldn't try. He said, but what are you doing? And how does that work? You know, I said, Papa, just you know, try it, try it, And took him one time to one of those places where you paint them pottery, do your own. He reluctantly came with me. I said, come on, you do one of these. Oh, I don't know how. I said, you don't have to know how. You got a nice big bowl like that, got a bunch of colors, and he was going like, he said, oh, I hate it. Oh it's awful. This looks horrible. I said, Pops is wonderful. But he couldn't explain it. So it was he was having a hard time with it. Was he sort of the odd person out in the family, it feels. I mean, you and your sister clearly had an artistic sensibility. Seems like your mother guy. Yeah, I mean he has three daughters and a wife who had no left rain, nothing there, nothing, not even a little p shape thing. And he I'm a father's passionate about standing waves and he would talk about it all the time. We didn't know what he was talking about. And a bunch of family went to one of his speeches and he thought, you know, support him, and he started talking about standing waves. He says, can anybody here tell me what a standing wave is? And my aunt got up and went like this if that explains anything to this day? Do we know what a stand what standing waves are? Not? Really? I guess I'll look that one up. I would love to go to the image. I think it's Image five. She's pregnant and he is not in the dad who got her pregnant. He's trying to say, you don't worry, honey, I understand. Let me tell your mom, which might mean we're not going to say anything and I'll protect you from that, or it means let me break that to your mom. I think that's what that's about. And it's just very it's very emotional. These works are highly emotional. I've been love you can call them works. I love that sounds so official and the piece new works you are your Joe bias. It does your life is though in your existence, and it wasn't this stuff though, or it was your works. I love that you know these are. I mean, you're you're very self deprecating, and I can appreciate that about you. I was reading something about your documentary and in it you say that the only great song you wrote, not in the documentary, but in this little piece about the documentary, you tell the interviewer the only great song ever wrote was Diamonds and Rust, which it's a great song, but that's not true. It's not I mean, it is a great song, but it's not true, you know. I mean, thank you David's song. I mean, yeah, you know. That only means that I think only one of my songs has a universality that it's it just catches in a different way and it's bigger than itself. No, I think I've written a lot of good songs, but I do think that one's head and Shoulder suppose the ones under what do I know? And that has to do with how you perceived people interact with the song. I guess probably you're right, yeah, yeah, but there's other songs. I mean, you've written so many gorgeous songs. Thank you. I really I almost wish you had written more gorgeous songs, or more songs in general that would then be gorgeous. You know, they picked the right guy. Hard questions are common. I'm just buttering, Yeah, okay, what your documentary. I'm just wondering about this period of your life post touring. You've wrapped up that part of your life, which was many decades long. You were barely a spark in your mother's eyes. Neither my parents were born. Now she's not gonna like me go back to buttering your up this part of your life though, post touring, where has it left you with? Processing both your life the things that have happened. And there's a documentary that you made with some friends that would be coming out that sounds incredibly personal. It is it is, and I sort of figure out I haven't got anything to lose, really seriously, and my family is all gone. Anybody who could have been hurt or confused or whatever. I didn't do that while they were alive. And it's very personal. And the women who directed it, one of them is a very close friend. And that's why it was possible, because I just held my nose and took a deep dive and said, because I wouldn't have control, they would have control. So I had to have that faith in The film was about the last tour. That's kind of the theme of it, the last tour, and then I cut them loose in my storage unit. I'd never been in the storage unit. I thought storage units has things like old lamps, you know, and this thing had a lifelong thing of tapes of stuff when I was twenty two, and I would speak and send it to my parents in place of a letter and write letters. And here's me at twenty two saying, oh, Mummy, I'm so excited because tomorrow I get to meet doctor Martin Luther King and we'll sing at this so and so Baptist ch So here's the kids. So we don't have me explaining what it was like. We have you know, voice of me. Then yeah, thank you. There's also you've been opened in the past about going to therapy, but included I've not seen it, but as as I understand, included, there's also you've recorded in the past. You've recorded some of your therapy sessions, and some of those tapes are on there. Yeah, those are kind of scary, But I mean, I didn't see this stuff till it's done. That's what they do. They say, oh, we'll let you see towards the end. So two days before it's towards the end, you're looking to say, ah, and there's nothing I can do. So it was really just faith. You didn't sift through any of that with them. Have you since since since it was screened for you, have you had a new second thoughts? Yes, there yet too late. There are a couple of things I wish they hadn't put that in, but you know, I can see that it adds to the quality of the film. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Joan Bayez in just a sec. We're back with my conversation with Joan Bayas. You mentioned Doctor King earlier, When did you first meet Doctor King? You know, I don't remember the first actual meeting. I remember when I saw him, which was a life changing event, and I was a gathering of high school students put on by the American Friends Service Committee, and they were from all over the country and we were discussed politics and non violence and that, and each year they would do this and they'd have a speaker in the year I went, so I was sixteen. It was doctor King and he was talking about I can't even say, getting tear he was talking about the bus boycott and I started to cry and I couldn't stop because he was doing what we've been talking about and studying. And there was this guy was twenty nine or something, twenty six, I was sixteen or twenty six, and he was he was just doing and engaged and with people and taking the risks. The risk is always to me, it's the point at which there will be no social change worth talking about until some people are willing to take a risk. Yeah, that's easier said than done, you know, but that's when I mean they were taking the risk, every single one of those folks, you know, including doctor King. As you move on into your career, and I mean, obviously I've always wondered did your activism feel separate from your music or did your music compel your activism both. When I was thirteen, I had a Yuku latele and I started play and not what I remember learning, but that UK Lately was a lot of different songs out of rhythm and blues because that's what I loved, and they had only four chords max. And then I learned Emma till and I realized that how connected I was to that. I mean, parents are Quakers, so that's pacifism, non violence activism, and so I to me this, you know, the dots began to connect. And then when I was fifteen, I stayed in school during maybe you're supposed to duck and cover. The Russians are going to send a missile over. It was not so out of the question. Now it was going to blow up my high school. I thought, this is so dumb, you know. And the kids are doing They're going to go home and the siren goes off, They're going to run home where they're gonna have bomb parties and there's swimming pools, and I thought, I'm going to stay in school to to you know, just resist it. And so I did. And that was purely political. That hadn't no music, you know, involved with it at that moment. So that age she was I was really waking up to activism. This is why doctor King fellas that your revelation. Sorry now I'm going back, but your parents are Quakers, and then you're seeing doctor King who essentially was schooled in non violent, non violent activism from Bayard Ruston, who was a Quaker. So of course that must have really really resonated. Yeah, it all resonated. Bayard was an extraordinary man, you know, behind the scenes because he was so sensitive. They didn't want his homosexuality to ruin anything in the public perception of the movement. And the guy was a massive force behind Doctor King and behind all of us. Really, I don't think any of that would have happened without without Bayards philosophies underpinned almost all of that work. Doctor King, Ralph, Ralph, Abernathy, all of them were we're doing Yeah, how was it toggling between the glamor you could say, of music and you know, and you're in two worlds. You're dealing with luminaries and music, you're dealing with luminaries and sort of public life, and how would you toggle between those two things? You know? I kind of didn't. My battle was with not wanting to be commercial, you know, and I thought that was, well, we're going back too. I'd go to hell, you know. And if I sang at a place that had booze in it, that going becoming commercial was a really really bad thing for me. And I don't know where I do that line, but I mean, for instance, the stage had to be black with nothing on it, no flowers, no flags, no, And I thought, well, this is really simple for people. They said I was impossible because they set up these great sets on do TV and I say, strike everything, you know, all here, you know, I'm missed perfectly folk whatever, and really afraid to veer from that that I was doing something really bad, Almost like the way the gospel artists might have thought, or like Ray Charles might have thought about secular music versus gospel. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's very similar to that of yeah, dedication to like a higher cause and that level of silliness. I mean, you know, I didn't know that at the time, but I was over I overdid it at every turn, you know. I remember one time I decided, nor more limousines for me. This is not right, This is not what everybody does. They have normal cars. So I stuck to that for about two weeks, and then somebody picked me up in this battered old Volkswagen bus and it was so uncomfortable. Oh screw it, you know, bring on the limousines in the red carpet. Don't blame you, don't blame you. Yesterday I landed found out Tina Turner passed away, and I was just curious if you like, when or how or if you guys had crossed paths my great Tina stories. But when my career was tanking, she was just coming back up her second round, you know, as a lioness and she yeah. And so I met her in Germany and they were celebrating her and her success, and somebody asked her how she felt about all this. She said, I'm just so happy to be read at ikey. I don't care about the rest. And then, you know, she was really sweet with me. She realized that I was in a pickle, you know, and she came over and said, I said, what should I do? She did, a girlfriend? Get a wig? First of all? You need y'all need a wig? I said, good? Is that all I need? You know? And then we were on the same TV show together and I saw her performance. She performed steel Claw. Did you ever hear that song? It is as ferocious and evil and she's perfect for it. And she came off the stage and I said, Tina, your mother made it with a scorpion And I meant it as a compliment, and she took it as a compliment. That is the most accurate description of a Tina Turner performance I have ever heard. Was that TV show? Was it? I didn't realize that there was a sequel to The Tammy Show in sixty six, the Big T and T Show, And you performed on that with Knina with Tina and said, was it that show? No, no, no, no. This is years later and when she was she and I were on too in different parts of Germany. Yeah, and I had one night at the Olympia and she had two weeks booked there to rehearse. He said, oh boy, I got a long way to go. I see why you went to refer advice. Makes a lot of sense. Also yesterday Bill Lee past who understandably Tina Turners is incredible and just deserves everything. But Bill Bill Lee really intergral. It seemed to to the early folk scene that you guys were part of. This was Spichel's father, the bass player. The first time, first or second time, I don't remember. I went Newport Odetta and her husband, Danny was at his name. They drove me and he was believe was there her bass player, and so I was in good hands. Yeah, yeah, he's such a great bass player. Yeah, talking between jazz and folk kind of seamlessly beautiful. Back to my original point, you're hanging with you're hanging with Tina Turner, you're hanging with Bayard Rustin and Doctor King. I shouldn't say hanging, I should say that you're working with these people, and I imagine to some degree your career might have probably suffered to some degree or not suffered, but I imagine you probably could have if you had taken the advice of Albert Grossman and signed to Columbia and maybe just yeah. They were so sure, I mean, the Grossman's and the people at Columbia were so sure that I would go with Columbia because that had Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary and Janice Joplin, and we were just collecting him like that. So that was the place to go. And because of all these things about going to hell and going commercial, I chose Vanguard Record Company, which is basically classical music record company, and it was perfect. I was with him for a long time, so he's you know, I had a real sense about the folk music, did a lot of choosing songs with me and really got into it in a way that I know Columbia would not have done, or I think they would not have done. We should pull up image image one. If you can pull that up. You wrote this beautiful day, oh day, Harry Belafonte day like coming we want to go home, Harry. Similarly, I sent that to his wife. Did he die. Yeah, he was so happy. Yeah, did you get a respond he saw it? Oh yeah, well no he didn't. It was just after he died. Well, he saw him a couple of times in his mid nineties, and he was just when my son was with me and another friend and when we left talking with Harry, my son burst into tears. He said, I feel like I've been in the presence of a fucking prophet. And I said, well, that's because you have been, you know, but this is slightly divorced from that. But okay, So when I'm drawing that, there's this girl and I see she's got a flower pot. I thought it was a flower pot urtle basket, you know, where the flowers coming out, And so I turned it around and I see their palm trees sticking out, and so, okay, turn it back now I know they're palm trees. I'll stick something in. There's a little elf kind of dancing. Turn it back over and he's kicking her in aside, and so she's saying d o deo, and that's from the palm trees, right, and then that's just my sidekick. Then that's what came out. It's so whimsical. I love. It was Harry's Calypso music. Was that at all in your oh my god, your sphere of influences? Absolutely, I had not even heard oh dad, I hadn't heard anybody. Really it was rhythm and blues. And my mom brought home this album of Harry Belafonty. We just stared at it. Is nobody should look like that. He was gorgeous. It was so handsome. I don't need if we played it for the first two weeks, we just stared at it. Remember my father being a little unnerved by that. He was like, and then yeah, And then I played it and I the first it was kind of I don't think it. No of it got printed or not. But this first album I did one half of the songs. We were relevante songs that I had taken. Yeah, I took him right directly off that album. Wow, how was he thought of in the in the folk scene? Was he thought of in that? I mean because he was taking old songs and you know, yeah, in the early snooty folk days, he was off limits because he was, you know, banging on drums and having a good time supposed to do, you know, And then you know, and I didn't know. Of course, none of us knew at that point that he was gonna end up being political activists and working with doctor King. But what a lovely way too to arrive, you know. Yeah, after this last ad break, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation with the great Joan Bayas Live from Chicago, And now the rest of my conversation with Joan Byas speaking of the early snooty folk days as a person who was barely you know, glean in my in my parents eyes when you started your career. I came to folk music relatively late, and I came through the Kingston trio, who I love, and I was dismayed to find out I had to hide them at the back of the record collection. Really, yeah, because you're not something They were way too commercial. Had loved them, yeah, but I couldn't let anybody know, I mean, my snooty folks saying no, ma'am, no, I feel vindicated. I love that, I feel vindicated. Great. I couldn't hide them on my iPod in the day, so you know, I just took them off because I didn't want to be guilty guilty pleasure, yeah, yeah, yeah, replaced it with the latter day Dylan record or something to you know, a tone for my sins. Can we go to the next image. I think it's image. Make sure my image is right? There we go. Yeah, this one that's very Sophie's choice. Looking to me, they made me choose, so I'm assuming I'm thinking between her two kids or three kids, they made her choose which one she was gonna be able to keep. That's my guess. New my guest was much lamer than that. She kind of looked like Joni Mitchell to me, I tried to warn you. I didn't want to tell you she's checking which labels, which record label to go on. They may bee well, you know, I didn't know. I mean she's saying Columbia or Vanguard. No, no, it's not you know, no, So I'm not I thought, Okay, well, it looks at Jonny Mitchell. Maybe was she she feel like she was being did she ever feel like she's being pitted against other women in the industry? Or that is so wild? I mean, Kevin idea, what people go through looking at this stuff? You know, in a billion years, I wouldn't have thought that was Johnny Mitchell searching for record company someone else want to give an interpretation where if we go back to the genesis of this, where would you have started that oval means it's a head, So you start with the oval, I think, and then an ear or two. So by the time you do an oval, though, you know, oh okay, it's probably a face yep. And then you go to ears and I go to ears, I go to some weird hair thing. Eyes. A lot of the eyes are very similar, except they're looking in different places. You know, It's a lot of what's written on there will be determined by what their eyes are doing. Really, yeah, yeah, when did you add the tears? Had what the tears? Yeah? Probably early on to give it some character whatever it was going to be. It would make it, you know, would have some definition to it. And when did you decide that it wasn't Johnny Mitchell? Yeah, what points did you decide it was? That was my other guest. Yeah, yeah, Why why the color? Why the color on the scarf? Oh? I don't know. I just but each of them has a little bit of color. I just got carried away and started adding a little bit of color to each of these things. If I did too much red, then I'd skip over to it looks like orange and purple. But you know what I'm thinking is one of my mother's stepmothers was really horrible and her favorite colors were orange and purpule. So who knows? You know, that's interesting. Why was she so? What? Was she schizophrenic? Lunatic? And she was? She was very abusive to my mother and my mother's sister. My mother's sister the one who did the scant standing waves, so she pulled through. Okay, good, you're good. Would your mother talk to you about those sorts of things she did? We'd push her a little bit. I guess she watched a lot of the abuse, and so it's maybe even harder. They say, if you were just seeing this stuff that you don't have something to grab on too to try and change or heal. Yeah. My mother discovered andy depressants when she was in her seventies, and when she realized she'd been depressed her whole like, she said, oh, oh, she's saying things like I didn't realize there are peppers growing on that pepper tree. Does Oh, there's just so really. I had a similar experience, similar experience with antidepressant, similar experience also with I finally got eyeglasses. Wow, I remember seeing things, you know, Wow, I remember being happy. Wow, this is great. Thank God for any different deepressants and eyeglasses two things that I've saved my life. Joni Mitchell, you've got enough of JOONI, you know, uh, I really well? Never mind, you're scoring a hundred, So go ahead, Okay? Did you well? Because I thought that perhaps this could have been a choice, Like did you ever feel in the industry in those days? A lot of women in the dustry that I've spoken to you still, I know they feel like they're pitot against one another almost, like when for a while there could be like one black comedian, Like now she's like there could be one like woman rapper, you know, like, did it feel like there could be Did that pressure to compete against women exist? Then? Mean for me, for you? I didn't think I ain't to compete against there's no competition in my and my you know, weird little brain, because I was so insecure in so many ways, but not about this voice, which also is a gift, and I can I can claim it as a gift. Can we hear some of that voice? No? No, no, no, no, no no, no, I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around. Keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to Freedom Land. Amazing. I can't follow that. We should follow that with Q and A, so you guys can try to follow that. Maybe we should. Should we turn it over to the audience for some questions. We got some people out there with the microphones. If you want to ask a question, and again question, not a comment. I will remind the story. Somebody game his T shirt and said, please don't tell me your story, and I loved it, and then he commenced to tell me the whole story of how he bought it and where he found it everything. Our first question will be up here. Hi, Joan, thank you so much for joining us. This is so cool. My question is what do you do when you don't know what to do next? Well of the things I do is I talked to this tree. There's a mighty oak tree in a field across from the house. And I don't see therapist anymore, but I will go and talk to this tree and I will get an answer. And I either go to the tree and say listen can you help me understand this problem so I'll feel better? And sometimes I just say I want to feel better. I don't care what the problem is. I don't want to I just want to feel better. And if it's what do I do next, that's where I would go, would be that tree. But generally I don't have to ask the question. It's a great question, Nicense is sinct too? Yeah, well we have someone up here. Hello. I've listened to Diamonds and Rusts many times, and every time I listen to it, I say, if that's not Dylan you're talking about. But then in your book you said no. When Dylan called you, if I remember the book correctly, you denied it. And were you kidding him? I mean, how could that night? I don't understand how I denied it in your book When you wrote about Diamonds and Rust in your book, you said that at least my memory serves, and my agent may not. You said that when he called you to thank you about writing about him in Diamonds and Rust, you told him, no, that wasn't about you. Okay, I got it now, I got it now. First of all, he would never call and say anything about the song. So rub the but but I was joking with him because at the beginning of Rolling Thunder and he hadn't paid any attention, had no hollone or whatever. Came directly over and said, are you gonna do that one about the guy with the blue eyes? I said, oh, you mean my husband? And it was not a happy camphor. That's the story, though. I have two questions. My first question is do you have any communications whatsoever with Joni Mitchell and Mitchell Yeah, I know. And my second one is what type of activism are you involved in today? Okay, First of all, I never had a closeness with Joanie. I've worked within a couple of times, and I admire her enormously and I was really happy to see here. Where was it Newport? Well she came out. I thought that was brilliant. What was the next question? What do you do for activism currently? Oh? What am I doing? You activate? How? I? Well, first of all, I wrote the book. I mean I'm thinking about that's probably more political than a number of things that I could have done. And if something comes along that I really think is appropriate for me to be out there with, then I'm sure I'll be out there and I can. You know, I would suggest to other people that they go make good trouble because it makes their lives really worth something. I believe what you got on yay, okay, any other questions, Yeah, I got a question up here up here. Yeah. So that was an interesting story about the box with the you know, tapes in it and so forth that the filmmaker's got. And I think that many people have boxes like that in their attics and so forth, with old things, you know, and so forth. So I guess I'm curious how did you decide like you decided to give it to them to deal with, and then you also said, if I understood right, that you're not going to look at that stuff I ever, again, can you talk about how you made those decisions? That's quite profound. I can't wait to see the documentary. Thank you, thank you. I just meant that after this film is done and I've seen it all, and the stuff that I had never seen before I didn't know anybody had kept, I have no desire to revisit that and try to dres much more stuff out of those boxes. They think that's enough, though, what do you? Will you destroy them? You know? I don't know what I'm gonna do with them. It probably is the time to have a glorious bonfire with a bunch of prayers stuck you know, here and there, and it's right and it's sacred to do. I mean, otherwise, this stuff, it's just a museum. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear that shit. I promise you. I would like to ask you a question. I'm right here, I'm your sound engineer, Okay, I'm originally from Argentina, and I will like to ask you about if you see any differences or similarities in the activism and South America and in America. I think I don't know how to answer that question, except that I think that some places you pay a heavier toll. You know, it's okay for me to sit here and talk about taking a risk, and in your a country like Afghanistan or the Ukraine, taking a risk is a very different thing. And so in Latin America it's somewhere in between. No, but the bravery it takes anywhere to make that final you know, I'm just gonna do this. I just have to do this. I mean here it might be okay, I'm gonna go in a library and I'll pick out a banned book and I'm gonna read it out in the street corner. I'm gonna set up a microphone and a thing. I'm going to read the book, you know, something like that. And where gays are not supposed to get married, you organize, you know, a huge wedding of as many people as you can get. And those are forms of nonviolent civilist obedience, which which are invaluable and scary, and we got to do them anyhow. Read a couple more. Okay, I have a question. I'm gonna My question was, is our country doomed? And yes, and someone who has, you know, lived through the civil rights movement, what words of encouragement do you have for somebody like me who's really disheartened with the you know, state of affairs in our country today. Well, your question is an oxymoron. Do I have any hope? Not particularly? But the other day somebody said hope is a discipline, you know. I think that's because I don't consider myself a very hopeful person. I've managed to shift over from being a total pessimist to somebody considering hope. But it would be a practice. I mean, You're gonna have to practice it because this is not a hopeful world. This is not a hopeful country. This is this is heading towards and parts of it already are a fascist country. So what do we do? Actually, I made a list I was sharing with Justin because people say what do I do? And I've always given this dumb stare. But now I've made a list of which I will post on my Instagram and or Facebook page, which with suggestions. I mean from from gun violence to the Ukraine, to women's rights to they're all these things somebody you could get on different levels. You can donate, you can support, or you can at some point take a risk. No, all are valuable. All right, last question, My question is about women in Iran and non violence resistance. You know that they came non violent on the street and they face with the bullet in the ice acusha and it's going on for past two weeks. Fifty people have been executed only for being on the street. How do we have this answer, how we can deal with this violence, brutal violence that people around the world. Is not just Iran, but Iran I think is on the one of the top, on the top. Yeah, all we know, is it trying to deal with it with violence? Is im worse that you can't crush the state. I'm not telling anybody what they're supposed to do. I'm just looking at historically, what has been done and why we've arrived at the state where we looked at violence is the only answer. I wish I had an answer for you. I painted Musha among my mischief makers, and it's too overwhelming the sorrow to spend a lot of time thinking about these different places, certainly including around way high on the list. As you said, one last one, happy one. I hope what advice would you give to new singer songwriters you were a singer songwriter? Yeah, okay, No, I wish I had something brilliant to say except bravo and go make good trouble. Thank you so much. I want to thank Joe Bayez for the live conversation we had from the Chicago Humanities Festival. Be sure to check out her new book, Am I Pretty When I Fly? Available mostly wherever books are sold. You can hear all of our favorite songs from the great Joan Baez on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Venttaliday, Nisha Vencut, Jordan mc millan, and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Crank. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others some Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription service that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad free listening for only four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like the show, remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme musics by Kenny beats On, Justin Richard