Mick Hartley

Joan Baez is interviewed in the Times:

Her strident sincerity is something that doesn’t always sit well with audiences as radical politics fall in and out of fashion. “After 9/11 nobody wanted to hear anything bad about America,” says Baez, growing animated as she enters into political territory. “Nobody loves a war better than the President, and a few years ago it got to the point where if I said anything I truly believed about the Iraq war or global warming during a concert, people would get up and leave. That’s fine with me. Actually, it’s a badge of honour.”

"Nobody loves a war better than the President". So there you go. He got elected as the most isolationist president for decades, but hell, he just couldn't help himself: he just loves a war.

“Little by little it became clear that Bush was bizarre — and dangerous,” she says. “I would do concerts where I would see people in the audience sitting with their arms crossed, looking angry as I said: ‘I was right 40 years ago and I am right now!’ and throw my fist in the air. Now they’re listening."

The notion that Baez's concerts were packed with Bush supporters who couldn't stand to hear her criticise the Iraq war strikes me as a little implausible, but who knows. Perhaps they were more annoyed at someone who's resurrecting their career by pretending that we're back in the Sixties again.

After years of being written off as an unsmiling anachronism, Joan Baez is relevant once more. She thrives on political and economic tension — such as now. “At times of great uncertainty music and politics are fused,” she says. “I would never have sung We Shall Overcome to an American audience during the Eighties because it would have been a nostalgia trip. Now it’s appropriate again because it’s relevant. I’m happiest when that happens.”