Joan Baez discussing her favourite song of the 1960s: “I was addicted”
“Joaney was at the forefront of a new dynamic in American music,” Bob Dylan once said, trying to capture the monumental impact Joan Baez had on the counterculture era as someone who knew her well. Even someone as skilled at descriptors as Dylan would likely find it impossible to capture the extent of her impact, especially considering that she epitomised both the era’s hopeful attitude and desire to call out society’s shortcomings.
Although a large portion of Baez’s legacy became eclipsed by her virtuosic folk peer, her impact on the protest-heavy 1960s scene was undeniable, even when she delivered covers, which often arrived with even more resonant qualities than their original versions. In fact, you could say that her presence was cutthroat in her ability to embody authenticity, even if the ways she did so were smooth and tender.
Perhaps her resilience and calculated manner resulted from her early interest in classical music, which was her “mother’s doing” yet still became a largely important genre that shaped her own approach as a musician. In her view, classical music had the ability to put her into a trance, which isn’t a far cry from the impact she had on her own audiences.
As Dylan once put it, “She had crowds of thousands of people enthralled with her beauty and voice.” For many, holding onto cherished Baez records would be a no-brainer when it comes to choosing their own selection to take onto a desert island, but when the spotlight is on her, there’s only one song that has the power to cut deep.
Discussing how she resonated with Van Morrison and his album Astral Weeks in particular, she said she listened to this record “every single night for I don’t know how many weeks before I had my son,” adding that ‘Madame George’ was “the one I was addicted to”. Although it maintained its special place in her heart, it seemed to have been passed down to her own son, who, as she recalls, “knows it by heart somewhere in his system,” despite it being unclear whether he had actually listened to it at all.
Interestingly, when faced with the hypothetical desert island solitude, Baez also unexpectedly picked one of her own songs, not out of vanity, but so that she would never experience losing sight of herself or her own voice. The song that she picked, ‘Diamonds and Rust’, would be the perfect companion for someone who wanted to dive deep into who they once were, stuck in an endless cycle of watching the sunset on a desolate beach.
Introspective and filled with poetic lyricism, ‘Diamonds and Rust’ almost seems like the more obvious choice, despite it being one of her own. Written about her affair with Dylan, the song sees the singer reflecting on the relationship ten years later with an eye of knowledgeability that would make for the ideal source when looking for a way to experience an older version of yourself once again.
