Joan Baez: On Art, Activism, and Letting Things Go

By T. Cole Rachel, The Creative Independent

08 January 19

From a conversation with T. Cole Rachel

ou are in the midst of what is being described as your last tour. For someone who’s been touring and playing live for the past 60 years, what has this experience felt like?

A whole lot of different ways. The tour has continued because I wanted to visit places that I hadn’t factored in to begin with. But I believe that this summer, after some festivals in Europe, that will be it. I don’t know what it will feel like for this part of my life to finish, but I know that I can’t go on forever because the voice needs so much attention and I don’t think I’m willing to put that kind of work into it anymore. Plus, this time when I came home on a break from touring I thought, “Oh, my god. My lovely home.” People retire for a reason.

I also thought, “Oh, I get to spend time here, be calm here, and paint.” And so it may be that I have to kiss the whole thing off, period. Because my voice is at a stage where it takes a lot of work to keep it going. I’m really happy touring. I love my tour family. I love being on the bus, and all of that. That’s what I’ll miss.

So much of our identity is wrapped up in the things that we make, or the thing that we do. For a lot of artists, the idea of not doing that anymore, or not being able to do that in the same way anymore, would be very upsetting. It would be hard to be zen about that.

It’s hard to be really zen about anything. I do hang around a lot of Buddhists though, and that helps. I mean, it helps with looking towards getting older, and then getting old, and eventually dying. You’re gonna need some help thinking about that. And the sooner, the better. I try to surround myself with meditation, meditative people, and people who have dealt with death and dying. That helps you get out of the rock n’ roll head, and out of thinking about the money, and the touring—all of those things that you can’t build your identity around.

Now I would say I’m really excited about my painting. I got into the semifinals of a competition for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. There are 100 of us out of 2,600 who made the semifinals. I’m as excited about that as I’ve ever been about anything to do with music. I’m lucky. I have something else to look forward to and to do with my life. I’m still able to create and share things. Just because one thing ends it doesn’t mean you have to stop being creative and expressive.

For someone who has balanced art and activism throughout your career, what do you think about artists who, because of the current political climate, suddenly feel this urge to get political in their work?

Maybe that would be Trump’s gift to us—that people for the first times in their lives have been jolted into thinking, “Oh, my god. I’ve got to do something,” because they see the imminent demise of democracy. Suddenly there is that feeling of, “Oh, my god. What can I paint? What can I sing? What can I write?” It’s wonderful that there’s a reaction like that, because the other reaction is to just pretend it isn’t happening.

Yeah. And maybe the answer is to strike a balance. Making political art is great, but being politically active out in the world during those times when you’re not making art is also great.

I think it’s important. And I think that’s the harder part. I think political art needs to be followed up by real action. Putting the body where the paintbrush is, so to speak. But that’s harder to ask of people. All I would say is that for me, that work has provided the richness in my life. I mean, I was just lucky to be born with the gift of the voice and also with a gift of wanting to do something with it. I would only say to people that’s where my greatest gratification comes—the trying to do something meaningful with it. It makes life extraordinarily rich.

You have participated in all manner of activism over the past 50 years. How do you engage in this way, and still protect some part of yourself? How do you not burn out?

Well, I’ve never really burnt out on anything. I think that “doing something,” or being involved gives us the impression—false or otherwise—that we’re useful. And so I don’t think that’s tiring. I think people who burn out, who have a right to burn out, are people who work with death and dying. Or with refugees, where day after day after day, you’re seeing so much misery. I’ve never been in that position, but I’ve certainly seen misery. But I always know that I have somewhere to go. I can go home, and I can take a bath. Or go back to the hotel or whatever. I’ve always been very aware that I’m privileged.

Your most recent record, Whistle Down the Wind, is nominated for a Grammy. On it, you celebrate all sorts of other songwriters. You’ve been making records for a long time now, but do you find that your process—or the way you think about singing or writing or recording—has changed or evolved much over the years?

Well, first of all, I haven’t written a song in over a quarter of a century. It just stopped. It stopped. And there wasn’t anything to do about it, unless I tried to go to songwriting school or something and try to learn how to write. When it stopped, I didn’t try to pursue it. It felt ok to let that go. I’ve depended on other people’s music ever since—and a lot before that, actually. So that hasn’t changed much for me.

Now it’s really about the process of how you find the right songs to put together and make into a rainbow. It’s a whole process. And I would say in the beginning of it, I’m really lazy. I left it to my manager and a couple of assistants to collect songs and then send them to me. Then I would choose from what they sent. I look for songs, too, things I can sing.

How do you feel about the state of contemporary music? Do you still believe in music as an agent for change?

It’s just very different. The singers and songwriters that are showing up right now, and having big success right now are a certain brand. It isn’t my brand. It’s not something I listen to and appreciate. I think probably within my brand there are those who are writing stuff that may not be being heard right now. I mean, this is not exactly the era of giving a platform to young songwriters who have something to say. However, if they begin to be heard it could be similar to in the ’60s when we were a counterculture.

We were sort of an interesting under-the-radar group of crazy people. And then all of a sudden it became the culture. And we became a serious part of the culture around civil rights, and Vietnam, and then just part of the culture, period. So who knows when that could happen in the face of what we’re facing now. I mean, we need some truths to battle the post-truth era, which is what we’re living in.

When things feel so politically and environmentally tumultuous, it can be hard to remember why art is important. The realities of the world can make being an artist feel very ephemeral and often not so important.

You can always kid yourself, and just say your work is important. Whether it is or not, it has to be to you. It has to be real to you. There’s something sort of cosmic about that. If that’s real to you, then in some way it’s out there as a little piece of reality in the face of all of this terrible stuff we’re in. And if you stay true to yourself, and true to your art, it’s got to mean something.

But the truth is, it may not mean enough. I mean, global warming is probably gonna wipe us off of the face of the Earth in the next 20 years anyway, so it’s not gonna matter who’s president. I’m serious about that. And if I think about it, I lament for my granddaughter. I worry she won’t have a chance at a real, normal life. My dictum is little victories, and big defeats. Every little victory becomes even more important in the face of what we’re facing.

That can feel like a grim acknowledgement sometimes, but it can also be this thing that makes you want to stop and appreciate what’s beautiful while you still can.

Yes, you’re right. I mean, it’s both. I also think part of the prescription is to spend a lot of time in denial, because otherwise you just shoot yourself. You know? And then whatever time you’re not in denial, figure out what you’re gonna do with your life that makes some meaning for yourself, and for others. I have a list a mile long of things that people could get involved in. What happens is people will ask, “Well, what can I possibly do?” It’s not my job to tell people what to do, but I can show them this list and hope they’ll say, “Aha!” Then maybe they’ll find somewhere that they feel comfortable doing something outside of their safety circle.

That seems like a role that you’ve played for a long time—being a person who could say, “Oh, here’s something you could do.”

Yes, I can say, “How about this?” Rather than say, “I suggest this for you.” It really is about presenting possibilities, because something will call from the heart. I just want to encourage people to follow that instinct when it comes. I have this thing that I would read at concerts, a statement, about ways people could get involved. I recently wrote a revised version of it for California because when I landed in Oakland recently, it was right in the middle of the fires and the smoke. I called it the Fire Brigade. Like, guess what? Now we are the fire brigade. We are the ones who need to take care of each other, be our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. We are the ones who have to take the risk. It’s not enough just to be an artist and it’s not enough just to tell people they need to get involved and take action. If you’re able, it’s good to give people options, to help point them in a good direction.

1.4 Million Felons Get Their Voting Rights Back in Florida Today, Whether Republicans Like It or Not

By Alice Speri, The Intercept

08 January 19

ore than 1 million Florida residents will become eligible to vote on Tuesday as the newly amended state constitution restores voting rights to most of its previously disenfranchised felons. That’s the largest number of people to gain access to the ballot all at once since American women won the right to vote in 1920.

Last November, Florida residents voted in favor of an amendment to the state constitution, known as Amendment 4, that restores voting rights to roughly 1.4 million felons in the state who have completed their sentences. (Individuals convicted of murder or sex offenses were excluded from the amendment.) But while the measure was approved by nearly 65 percent of the state’s voters, some Republicans — including Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis — have sought to sow confusion about its immediate validity.

DeSantis, who opposed the amendment during the campaign, indicated that its implementation would be delayed until lawmakers can write it into law during the next legislative session. “They’re going to be able to do that in March,” he told the Palm Beach Post. Some local elections in Florida are scheduled for as early as February, before the next legislature meets.

DeSantis’s comments followed slow-walking on the amendment by other state officials, like Ken Detzner, the Republican secretary of state, who indicated in December that he believed the ballot language was unclear and would require state legislators’ review. “We need to get some direction from them as far as implementation and definitions — all the kind of things that the supervisors were asking,” Detzner said then. “It would be inappropriate for us to charge off without direction from them.”

Lack of direction from the state department — and from exiting Gov. Rick Scott — also led to confusion among election officials across the state, with the Division of Elections director saying that “the state is putting a pause button on our felon identification files . … We need this time to research it, to be sure we are providing the appropriate guidance.”

Asked for clarification, the Florida Department of State sent a somewhat equivocal statement to The Intercept, noting both that the amendment is now officially law and that the department would follow the legislature’s directive — a seeming contradiction. “Unless otherwise specifically provided for elsewhere in this constitution, if the proposed amendment or revision is approved by vote of at least sixty percent of the electors voting on the measure, it shall be effective as an amendment to or revision of the constitution of the state on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January following the election,” a spokesperson for the department wrote, citing the state constitution. But then she added, “The Florida Department of State will abide by any future direction from the Executive Clemency Board or the Florida Legislature regarding necessary action or implementing legislation to ensure full compliance with the law.”

That ambiguity, critics say, is deliberate and unnecessary. The amendment’s language makes clear that the change is self-executing, meaning that it became part of the state constitution the moment it won voters’ support and that it must be implemented without delay or legislators’ input. The amendment’s language was cleared by the state Supreme Court before the vote, and supporters collected more than a million signatures to get it on the ballot.

“It was designed so that there would be no requirement for involvement by any legislators, politicians, the governor, or anyone,” said Melba Pearson, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of the groups that drafted the amendment. “There is no role for the governor or any legislator in this amendment. Their only role is to make sure that the constitution is upheld and that the will of the voters is respected.”

A Deliberate Mess

Republicans’ belated questions about the amendment’s clarity and immediate validity were met with a barrage of criticism and stinging rebukes from many of the state’s editorial boards. “About the only thing worse than making a mess is making a mess unnecessarily,” a columnist for the Palm Beach Post wrote. “But here we are anyway, because Secretary of State Ken Detzner — who reports to Scott and whose department oversees statewide elections — won’t do his job.”

Andrew Gillum, who lost to DeSantis in November by a narrow 33,000 votes, also slammed officials who are creating unnecessary obstacles to the amendment’s implementation. “The people spoke & voted for #Amendment4 with an overwhelming majority,” he tweeted in December. “Those who fight the will of the voters are fighting democracy itself.”

The backlash only intensified after DeSantis’s comments added fuel to the confusion — an unsubtle effort at intimidating newly eligible voters, critics said.

“The reality is even though he does not agree with the amendment, it is his duty as the governor, the incoming governor of the state, to uphold the will of the people. Period, end of story,” said Melba. “Amendment 4 is now law in the state of Florida, so he needs to uphold it as is. Politicians or elected officials don’t get to pick and choose in that manner.”

Melba called on all new eligible voters to register on Tuesday and invited anyone experiencing issues to report them on the ACLU’s website. She said she hoped that no obstruction would arise to warrant litigation, but that the group was “prepared for the worst. … No options are off the table.”

Groups of formerly incarcerated “returning citizens” who drove the effort to pass the measure will be out on the streets once again this week, this time to register new voters, and several groups would run voter education campaigns, Melba added. “All people need to do on January 8 is register to vote, either online or at their local Supervisor of Elections office in their county,” she said. “There’s nothing confusing about it.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis, who is also to be sworn in on Tuesday, did not respond to a request for comment, but his office told other publications that “the Governor-elect intends for the will of the voters to be implemented but will look to the Legislature to clarify the various questions that have been raised.”

Before the amendment passed, Florida was the largest of three states that disenfranchised felons for life. As The Intercept reported in November, 1.68 million residents of the state were ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction: 10 percent of the state’s adult population and 1 in 5 African-Americans. Across the country, more than 6 million people can’t vote because of felony convictions, though most states restore voting rights at some point between release and the end of probation.

In Florida, a regular swing state where it’s not unusual for elections like DeSantis’s to be decided by extremely narrow margins, many believe that re-enfranchising felons has the potential to significantly tip the state’s political scales. But those who led the yearslong effort to pass Amendment 4, and particularly a diverse coalition of individuals with felony convictions, rejected the politicization of their effort and noted that the issue impacted people across the state and the political spectrum.

“We are not pawns for any partisan gamesmanship, we’re not pawns for any partisan bickering,” Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, told The Intercept. “We are human beings, we are people over politics. And we are citizens of the state and of this country that want to be able to participate in the democratic process without being set up like we’re just a token for a political party.”

Meade, one of the earliest leaders of the voter re-enfranchisement movement in the state, said he would finally register to vote on Tuesday.

“And when I go to register, I’ll be doing so under the authority of the highest law in the state of Florida, and this law is over any legislature, it’s over any political or public servant,” he added. “We’re going forward fully expecting that every public servant that serves the systems of Florida is going to number one, respect the rule of the law, and number two, respect the wishes of its citizens.”