In a discussion with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, folk icon Joan Baez expressed understanding but frustration over the silence of many contemporary artists on issues like the Trump administration's policies. Baez highlighted the enduring power of Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are a-Changin'' in modern protests and questioned why wealthy young star songwriters don't more frequently use their platforms for activism. She also shared an early lesson from a Shriner about artistic integrity.
asked Baez about her feelings on younger artists who haven’t voiced concerns about the abuses of the Trump administration.
“There’s a whole generation of really talented artists who are quite silent about the current assault on democracy,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “Do you find that unbelievably frustrating or do you understand, perhaps, where those artists are coming from? ” “I think I understand where they’re coming from,” Baez replied.
“It’s revealing that the one song that’s used in all of these demonstrations is ‘The Times They Are a-Changin. ’ The level of that writing from back then hasn’t been approached. No one has approached it. You can’t summon that up, I don’t think.
”, put right out there front and center on the stage at a rally against ICE. I sort of cock my head at these stadiums filled with brilliant young women songwriters, and why can’t they just take that little step? Because they’re already richer than God, you know, most of them. So, that little step.
” Louis-Dreyfus then asked Baez what she wishes she had known about activism when she was younger.
“What comes to my mind is not about activism, it’s about the singing,” Baez said. She recounted performing for the Shriners during high school.
“I don’t know what I sang, but I sang something for the Shriners and they got quiet and they actually listened,” she remembered. “Some old guy came up to me afterwards and he said, ‘You know honey, don’t sign cheap. You’re okay honey, you’re going to do good.
'”Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl' Trademark War: Lawyers Clash Over ‘Reverse Confusion’Matthew Perry's Assistant Gets 41 Months for Actor's Ketamine Death: 'Monster Who Killed Him'and Tom Morello at the No Kings rally at the Minnesota State Capitol. The duo performed Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.
” Baez and Rogers also took part in the Artists United for Our Freedoms event in March in protest of Trump’s changes to the Kennedy Center.about the lack of a current-day protest song.
“What we need is an anthem, but it’s impossible to write an anthem,” she said. “‘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.
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Joan Baez Julia Louis-Dreyfus Protest Music Trump Administration Artist Activism The Times They Are A-Changin' Bob Dylan Political Silence Shriners Artistic Integrity
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