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ull into the tree-cloaked driveway of Joan Baez’s home south of San Francisco and roam around her house and the first thing you’ll notice are oversize portraits she’s painted of Volodymyr Zelensky, Martin Luther King Jr., Anthony Fauci, Gandhi, and the late congressman John Lewis. For years, Baez would display two at a time in her front yard, but now they lean forlornly on a porch.
“Just after Trump got elected [last fall], somebody tattled to somebody in the city, who says, ‘Does she have permits?’” Baez says. “It was clearly a snitchy kind of thing.” While one of her friends cut the paintings down, Baez went into the tree house in her front yard and blasted recordings by soprano opera singer Renée Fleming. “It was my way of civil disobedience,” she says with a mischievous grin. “Just to do something.”
For decades in the public eye, Baez has been doing something in the name of music, social justice, and civil rights. She’s been lionized, condemned (even sometimes by the left), mocked, dismissed, revered, and occasionally rediscovered. That part of her life seemed to start winding down six years ago, when Baez wrapped up a farewell tour that, she insists, is genuinely final.
At that point, Baez, now 84, entered what should have been her chill-out years, devoted to painting and writing poetry, dancing daily around her property to the Gipsy Kings, and spending time in the rambling, funky-but-chic house where she’s lived for 55 years. The place currently has 13 chickens that roam its grounds, provide her with fresh eggs and, now and then, wander into her kitchen to peck away at some cat food. “Now, I also get to paint my nails,” Baez says, wriggling her hand to reveal aqua-blue fingernails.
But as seen by the hubbub over her paintings of activists and public figures, Baez keeps getting pulled back into the spotlight. Start with the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, which thrust her fraught, long-ago relationship with Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet) back into the spotlight. Monica Barbaro’s largely spot-on performance introduced Baez, her music, and her folk-Madonna image to a generation born decades later. And then there is, once more, Trump. When Rolling Stone last visited Baez here, he had just been elected president for the first time. Now that he’s returned to the White House, more disruptive and alarming than before, Baez has again found herself at rallies and released a new protest song, “One in a Million,” with fellow veteran troubadour Janis Ian. Baez is also helping devise a name for a new organization she’s joining that would provide support for families of immigrants whose breadwinners have been scooped up and imprisoned by ICE agents, and she posts words of wisdom on her social media accounts, including Facebook. (Observing a newborn songbird in her driveway, she writes, “Her beauty itself will offer us hope in the darkness and deliver us from all that is evil.”)
But as Baez admits, both today at her home and in a follow-up interview, she is also entering a new and challenging world. Brewing up a fresh pot of coffee, Baez, in a black turtleneck with her hair in a silver bob, settles in at her kitchen table. “This is an interesting time,” she says, “because I’ve never been here before.”
When we last talked here, it was right after Donald Trump’s 2016 election. Who would have thought we’d be here again?
Surprised the shit out of me. Nobody could have dreamed this up. Nobody could have predicted that it would turn into what it’s turned into, because that’s for other countries, the “shithole countries.” This is turning into a shithole country because of them. It’s all the evil things that shithole countries do. On the other hand, we’ve all sort of known that the Heritage Foundation has been plugging away and making plans, and we just weren’t prepared.
Where were you on election night when you heard the results?
Oh, here. I didn’t hear the results. I saw my neighbor’s face. I knew it was a disaster. But the truth is it’s been in the works for 50 years. It’s not even about Trump. He just turned out to be this wizard of a disgusting human being who gives people the right to do what he does.
Is there anything in particular this administration has done that has really shocked you?
In the first 100 days, sending people like that [snaps fingers] to prisons known for torture. All the work I did in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and the Eastern Bloc, and it’s the same mechanism, with all the ruthlessness and the steps to the dictatorship.
I’m worried about the speed at which they’re doing it and where they’re going, and the horrible cruelty that takes place every day. I really appreciated Bruce Springsteen repeating “It’s happening now” [during his concerts in the U.K.]. Because you tend to say, “Oh, it’s going to be a rough four years.” No, it’s now.
How often do you watch the news?
When I was retired from touring, I thought, “I’ll watch once in a while.” But it wasn’t like this. So, I dole it out. I read Substack and watch Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and John Oliver. And then I’ll turn on a movie like Twilight. Just terrible. But it’s wonderful to watch. It’s got nothing to do with fucking anything.
Do you take any—
Drugs? [Laughs.]
“Courage Is a Funny thing … It’s Being Willing to Do Stuff, Even if You’re Scared.”
Well, that, but also consolation in some of the pushback Trump has received from the courts.
You have to take some heart in that. My beautiful granddaughter Jasmine is a singer-songwriter but decided she wanted to be a lawyer. She’ll be going to law school in August, and I’m thinking, “What a time!” She wants to be a constitutional lawyer. We’re not going to have a fucking Constitution very likely. So, all I can do with my son and my granddaughter is walk through this day by day and encourage her to do what she’s doing.
I was just listening to your performance at Woodstock, where you told the crowd about the federal agents showing up at your and your ex-husband and activist David Harris’ home to arrest him for resisting the draft. You even had a party to send him off. In terms of that kind of arrest, does anything happening now remind you of that moment?
You know, it’s so different now that I can’t even make that connection. People say, “Is this like the Sixties?” I say the Sixties was a garden party. For some people, it wasn’t. Some people really got hurt. But this now is a machine.
In your second memoir, you wrote about the impact of hearing Martin Luther King speak. Is there anybody these days who’s inspired you in the same way?
The Rev. William Barber came to dinner the other night; he’s a pal. He has the spirit of God within him, and he’s determined to spread it. We’re looking into this avalanche, and you [have to] stand up like when he went in the Capitol rotunda the other day and got himself arrested. He was praying in there, and he just said, “I had to do it.”
What about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
She’s good. Smart. And I think she probably put herself on the line, but on the line now.… I used to encourage people, “Come with us. We get arrested, whatever.” But it’s just so dangerous. Taking a risk now could be standing on the corner in a T-shirt that says “I’m an illegal immigrant.” I’ve never experienced this kind of fear. I wasn’t afraid when I went to jail back then. I’ve been to places where I should have been scared: Vietnam, the South, Ku Klux Klan.
Why weren’t you scared then?
Denial and the need to push on, which was stronger than worrying. I was afraid sometimes, but courage is a funny thing. It’s not because somebody’s born courageous — it’s because you’re willing to do stuff, even if you’re scared. To give you an idea of how dark I can get now, my darkest joke is: The good news about climate change is that if it gets us first, Trump won’t have time to build his death camps. And you laugh, except he will. He’s moving so fast, my joke isn’t even funny.
One of the concerns now is that any protests could lead Trump to send in the military, resulting in a declaration of martial law.
He’s dying to have something. Nothing could make it easier for them, because we can’t compete. Anybody who seriously thinks they can make social change with violence is really innocent. No, you get squashed. [Editor’s note: This interview was conducted prior to the ongoing L.A. protests.]
Ulysses Ortega for Rolling Stone
Have you had moments when you’ve thought everything you and others fought for in the Sixties has been dismantled?
I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the fact that things are sliding backward. Things don’t ever stay where you want them to be. Havel’s government, Mandela: Those are wonderful, amazing people, and they do this wonderful, amazing stuff, and it lasts sometimes for a good amount of time, and then somebody fucks it up.
We have to remember what’s sewn into the fabric of America. I keep picturing the Blacks and whites at the lunch counter in Mississippi. Those were enormous acts of courage, and they changed things, and that’s the commitment we need now. So in the midst of this, it feels like torn fabric.
Maybe there will be a pendulum swing in the other direction like there was with Reagan after Carter, or Trump after Obama.
[Soberly] This is different. I don’t know how you make up for what’s already been done.
You’ve sung at a few anti-Trump, pro-democracy rallies. What was it like performing again?
I have a lower register that I refused to accept because I couldn’t be my famous soprano anymore. So, I quit singing. But somewhere in there is the voice. I’ve dipped into the lower range and have found the songs that work for it.
Which songs can you still sing?
I can make different things work, like “Imagine” and all the Civil Rights songs. “We Shall Overcome” is a beautiful song, but it takes us so far back. There has to be something fresher than that.
We really aren’t hearing many new protest songs these days.
I wouldn’t want to be a part of a movement without the music, but you’re right. What we need is an anthem, but it’s impossible to write an anthem. “One in a Million” comes closest, but you can’t drag that out of nothing. It has to come from somewhere else. “Imagine” is still so beautiful. The Dylan stuff is still internationally known, and it doesn’t have the same sort of thing for me that “We Shall Overcome” does. Way back then, I had the brains to know we were not going to overcome everything and have world peace. Now, it’s even more so.
In your poetry collection When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance, you wrote, in a piece about Dylan, “Who’s writing that kind of stuff today, Mister Creator?”
I asked Josh Ritter to write a song, and he wrote one called “I Carry the Flame,” which comes closest to a marching, Pete Seeger sort of folk song. I sang it a little at the May 1 demonstration [in Mountain View, California]. But we need more of those, and Janis’ “One in a Million.”
Have you listened to Jesse Welles, the politically outspoken troubadour from the South?
The young guy. Just amazing. That’s going somewhere. Gotta harness that little kid. How old is he?
“We have to remember what’s sewn into the fabric of America.”
He’s 30. What impressed you about his songs?
It’s real. It’s just coming out. He’s channeling that sort of stuff. It just comes through you. That’s what I saw, anyway.
Do you keep up with modern female singer-songwriters?
I listen to whatever my granddaughter sends me. I got to liking Lana Del Rey quite a bit. Chappell Roan I liked. When my son Gabe and Jasmine and I are together, we play Lana and Hozier on a loop on the long trip up and down the coast. I’m friends with Lana. Don’t forget to mention my crush on Hozier. Take me to church with that bad boy.
How did you come to know Lana?
Out of the blue, she asked me if I would be interested in singing at her show at the Greek Theatre. And I thought, “Where the fuck is this coming from?” I had no idea. I was joking with her and said, “Your audiences are all 16 years old. They don’t know me.” She said, “Well, they should.” That’s a risk for a young songwriter, because if they say “Ta da — Joan Baez!” one third of their public is not going to know what she’s talking about. But they take that risk anyway. Taylor [Swift, who invited Baez onstage in 2015] did the same thing. Some of Lana’s-age folks called me “badass,” which I thought was fantastic. She’s an interesting woman. She’s slightly on another planet, but I appreciate that and her and her music.
What’s the story behind Lana’s mention of you in “Dance Till We Die”: “I’m coverin’ Joni and dancin’ with Joan”?
She came up to hang out, and we had dinner and then went off to this Senegalese club in San Francisco where I’ve danced for years. She didn’t dance. Her sister danced. She was very, very shy, actually, in some ways. I did the dancing for her. She gave me a beautiful necklace, a little gold thing with “Joanie” on it.
A couple of years ago, a mini controversy emerged over “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the Robbie Robertson song that was one of your biggest hits. Since it was narrated by a white Southerner during the Civil War, some questioned whether it should be rewritten or canceled. What did you make of that?
I was thinking about that this morning when I played “One in a Million” for Karen O’Connor, my director friend. She said, “Let me listen to the words again.” I thought, “Jesus, I don’t even listen to the words to stuff.” It’s a feeling, and the feeling with “Dixie” was the same. I didn’t know what it was saying. I just thought it was wonderful. It’s like the stuff I do in foreign languages. Once I get the syllables down, I don’t even know what I’m saying, and it doesn’t make any difference.
“Dixie” wasn’t in demand, but if somebody wanted to hear it and I felt like singing it, I would have done it. I got to be politically correct in the right place [smiles]. I knew at some point somebody was going to make an issue of it. But who cares? Who gives a shit? Wonderful song.
Ulysses Ortega for Rolling Stone
Speaking of protest singers, when did you first hear about a movie called A Complete Unknown?
I heard a lot of talk about it. I guess I thought, “I don’t know what this is going to be, whether it would be right or a bunch of nonsense.” As it moved along, I thought, “People are getting serious about this thing. It’s going to be a real movie.”
Did anyone from the film or the Dylan camp reach out, especially since you’re a character in it?
Are you kidding? I reached out to them, to the actors: “Would they like to talk to me?” So, Monica called, and then Ed Norton. They both had long conversations with me. Monica said, “If you like it, please tell me. But don’t tell me if you didn’t like it.” I said, “Listen, if we don’t like it, we’ll throw popcorn at the screen, but I think we’ll probably like it.”
So, you didn’t hear from Dylan directly?
Come on. You’ve worked for Rolling Stone long enough to know the answer to that. [Goes into Dylan imitation] “Hey, Joanie, guess what, we’re doin’ this.” Silly question.
When did you see it?
Well, I didn’t go on Christmas Day [when the movie opened]. But sometime during that week, with my group of all women that started with my mom. [The movie people] asked if I wanted to see it privately. I didn’t.
What was the experience like, seeing it for the first time?
People in my camp, they’re outraged, and they’re fact-checking. And I said, “Don’t bother.” It’s a fun movie. Certainly got a feeling of the Village, but I never lived in the Village. The only time was that short period of time with Bob. And it wasn’t the Chelsea Hotel, it was the Earle. But details, details, see what I mean? Someone said, “Did you really do that to Bob?” [Flashes a middle finger.] I said, “No, I did this.” [Flashes both middle fingers.] But I was pleased they were getting the feeling right. The music was brilliant. I thought Chalamet did a good job. He was a bit too squeaky clean. I could have clued him in on that one.
Meaning that in his depiction, Bob didn’t look dirty enough?
That is correct. But then, that was part of the charm, I’m sure. The unwashed phenomenon.
What did they get right about Bob?
Oh, a lot. A lot of the movement, facial movement, talking, even some of the singing. The attitude. I mean, a bad attitude.
“Enjoying Yourself Has Become an Act of Resistance … We’re Supposed to Be Cowering.”
How about the depiction of you?
Some of the shots from behind of Monica and Dylan look startlingly like me. People said her speaking voice was really [close to mine]. She worked like mad to get it right. She even had this down [kneads her fingers together]. Dumb things like my nervous tic. I saw her at a press thing and called her and said, “Is that something you do, or is that something you picked up for me?” And she said she had picked it up from watching me.
Chalamet seemed to get Dylan’s own jittery hand gestures.
[Nods, then bends a thumb far back.] Bob has a thumb that goes like that. Not everybody’s going to have that. Somebody told me that the thumb bent back like that means you’re a murderer [laughs].
The movie also seemed to make a triangle out of you, Bob, and Suze Rotolo, but historically speaking most of us assumed it all didn’t overlap that way.
Well, it wasn’t happening in my face. I thought I was after Suze Rotolo, but I don’t even know. I didn’t ask. Don’t ask, don’t tell. I think that, from what I’ve heard, they really didn’t do her justice at all. But I’m glad Bobby Neuwirth was in it. And funny old [Albert] Grossman. [Actor Dan Fogler] looked like Grossman.
More than 60 years later, what still fascinates people about you and Bob?
If you look me up and Google me, there’s maybe one thing on me, and then it’s directly to “Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.” I had a great gift the other day. A 23-year-old girl who is an assistant at one of the clinics where I went was just finding out about me. She said, “You’re famous!” I said, “Meh … Google me.” Then she says [indicating a photo of Dylan], “Who’s this guy?” And I said, “Thank you.” Then I decided to explain who it was. If you’re in a room with Bob, anywhere with Bob, you’re diminished automatically. But there are worse people to be glued at the hip to.
In a recent interview, you talked about writing Dylan a personal letter that expressed your feelings. Then you sent it to him — but intentionally didn’t include a return address nor any way to contact you.
That was about 10 years ago when I wrote that. I was painting him down in my little studio, when he was really, really young. Had to be 21 or something. And I put on a record of his music, and I started to cry. And I cried forever and painted, and it washed it all away. Then it was done. There’s no more resentment. I was lucky enough to have him in my life and have those songs and have the voice to sing them. Gratitude was taking the place of frustration and hurt and bullshit.
What did you write?
I just told him exactly what I told you. Very simple.
When I interviewed you in 2017, you said your name was at one point a “jinx,” especially in the early Eighties when you were without a record contract.
Nobody was interested in recording me. If we had made a demo of me and put on it “young woman songwriter,” we would have probably had more of a chance of being heard and taken seriously. In that sense, I was really hurting from being a legend, but not current.
Do you think the movie, which depicts you as pretty badass, will change that perception of you?
I hope so. I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to it, but I know it sparked a visibility on a certain level that hadn’t been around.
It’s been six years now since the last show of your farewell tour. Any regrets?
Absolutely not. I didn’t know what to expect, because everybody says, “Once you quit, they go back out and go on.” Elton [John] said to me, “I just can’t wait to be with my kids.” And he’s back on the road.… I can’t remember the first show I saw after I’d quit touring myself. But I thought, “Well, this would be an interesting test.” And I didn’t miss it, not a bit. It was time. I mean, 10 nights at the Olympia — time to quit. Don’t want to go back and do 20 [laughs].
Two years ago, you were the subject of a documentary, I Am a Noise, in which you revealed you and your sister Mimi had dealt with sexual-abuse issues from your father. What made you go public?
A combination of things. I was 79 when we started the movie, so how about an honest legacy and not make me try to look prettier than I am, or whatever it was? This is a life well-lived. It’s interesting how many people have responded, and it’s in the same way Trump allows people to be pigs. This [revelation] will allow people to maybe look in their past where they’d have not been willing to look. One woman came up to me and said her mother was seventysomething and had been in tears. She said, “My mother talked about stuff she never talked to me about,” meaning that kind of [abuse]. Karen [O’Connor, the film’s co-director] would say, “Everybody’s got something.” And if you can identify your own or give them permission … that was one of the nice results that came from it.
What did you personally get out of having that out there publicly?
In some ways, I was relieved because I’d spent so much of my life with people thinking, “Oh, she’s so calm, so peaceful.” And no! It was helpful for me to show that I have some idea the battles I went through and how utterly imperfect I am in every way.
People do see you as unruffled.
I do some serious ruffling on my own.
The film also explored your relationship with another woman, Kim Chappell, in the Sixties.
No one paid any attention to that [in the movie]. It’s old hat. We certainly weren’t going to say anything [in the Sixties]. We thought we were getting away with all this. Now, Jasmine has this friend of hers who just came out as bi, so everybody’s having parties. Back when Kim and I were together, you didn’t talk about it, but I think that it’s almost the opposite. You get to be part of clubs or LGBTQ and women’s rights. Now, it’s like points.
As the Trump administration moves forward, what do you see as your role in terms of activism?
I think my life will be defined now again by the state of this country in the world. I have encouraged people to not try and sit this one out. They have to go do something. How about showing up with a friend on a street corner wearing an “I’m an illegal immigrant” T-shirt? Don’t wait for 30,000 people to show up.
But I’ll tell you my dilemma. In the old days, when I briefly went to jail, they’d give you your meds, they have you make telephone calls. It wasn’t a heavy-duty prison, but a lockup. Now, if I’m in that position of civil disobedience, I have a problem encouraging people if I’m not going to go to jail with them. Like most people my age, I would be useless without the medication I take on a regular basis.
What advice do you typically find people ask you for?
It’s universal: “What can I do?” My answer is, find something that calls you that’s not going to be big-scale. The next time you hear yourself say, “I’m overwhelmed,” follow it with “and.” “I’m overwhelmed, and I need to do something.” Even “I’m scared to death, and I’m going to have a margarita.”
There’ll be little victories, and hang on to them and keep doing them, and we’ll see what develops. I really am an advocate of just keep doing it and don’t expect it to change the world. Just show your face now. Stand up. Show up.
Enjoying yourself has become an act of resistance. Action is the antidote to despair. We’re supposed to be cowering. I went to my granddaughter’s graduation in Miami, and I ended up dancing with drag queens. I thought, “OK, this is how we do it.” You get nuts. Drink a lot. I went to a strip club. That was my statement for the week. Dance with a big, lascivious drag queen and post it. It’s good trouble dancing with drag queens, because they want to abolish drag scenes. I’m sure [Trump would] like to abolish me, but I hope I will have earned that if it reaches that point.
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