Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Joan Baez

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Julia is joined by 85-year-old folk legend and lifelong activist Joan Baez, who is still dancing, still showing up, and still refusing to be quiet. They talk about singing before a quarter million people at the March on Washington in 1963, what made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. laugh, and what real courage feels like from the inside. Joan opens up about her decades-long struggle with anxiety, forgiveness, and dissociative identity disorder. Oh, and she sings. Three times. Afterwards, Julia calls her 92-year-old mom Judy — who, it turns out, was playing folk music on a portable Victrola in Sri Lanka when Julia was young. Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast. Find us on Substack at wiserthanme.substack.com. Keep up with Joan Baez @joancbaezofficial on Instagram. Pre-order the latest book from Julia’s mom Judy Bowles here: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/they-spoke-of-the-river-by-judith-bowles/   Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today by hitting 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or lemonadapremium.com for any other app. For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.  For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.

Lemonado. When I was on Saturday Night Live back in the day, we had some amazing hosts. I mean, we had Lily Tomlin and Robin Williams and Terry Gar and Ringo Starr and lots of others. We also had a couple of non-showbiz hosts. One of them was Senator George McGovern. Now, George McGovern's run for president was before my time. I mean, I was alive in 1972, of course. but I was a little kid when McGovern lost every state but Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. to Richard Nixon.

That loss was so catastrophic that even more than a decade later when he hosted S&L, he would still something of a national punchline. I mean, he'd kind of been redeemed when Nixon went on to be an horrendous president, driven out of office by hubris and corruption and scandal, you know, back when. and stuff like that could actually hurt your political career. But I think he was still mostly remembered as this huge loser with a thin, reedy Midwestern voice. So when he showed up at 30 Rock, and he was 6'1, and he was tan and lanky and handsome and smart and funny, it was a bit of a surprise.

I remember almost nothing about the show that week, actually. I do remember there was sort of a what-isle. sketch where Carl Sagan shows us what would have happened if McGovern had beaten Nixon. But the thing I remember most is late one night we were hanging out, probably in my then-boyfriend, now husband, Brad's office. And Brad loved McGovern more than anybody. And anyway, so we were all there together, just shooting the shit. And McGovern was sitting on the desk and he told us this story. His condo in Washington, where he lived with his wife, had burned down in a terrible fire. His son Stephen was staying with him, and somehow Senator McGovern and his wife and Stephen were all able to get out of the burning building.

But everything was lost, including his official papers and family photos, records of his military service. Nixon had tried to make McGovern out to be a peacnik, by the way, but McGovern was a genuine. War hero. He flew 35 combat missions in World War II and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving his entire crew. So this fire destroyed all the records from a quarter century as a U.S. Senator. It just destroyed everything. And he very simply and movingly told us the story, and he was spellbinding. And when he finished, it was silent until somebody said, Oh, how tragic. And Senator McGovern wiped away a tear, and he said,

No, no, it's a happy story. My son and my wife survived. Everything important made it out. Oh, man. Priorities. Right? How thrilled and lucky we are that today we talk to a woman who definitely Definitely has her priorities straight, and God knows that's not easy.

She's worked hard to do that. Joan Baez. I'm Julia Louis Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. In August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King gave the greatest speech of the 20th century to a quarter million people on the National Mall, the I Have a Dream speech. Just a few minutes before Dr. King began that day, a 22-year-old woman walked out onto the same stage in front of that immense crowd, barefoot, in a patchwork shift dress, a guitar slung over her shoulder and began to sing, We Shall Overcome. Yeah, she was basically a kid just out of college, but she'd been protesting for civil rights since high school. She'd already refused to play segregated venues, and she'd already been on the cover of time. magazine. Joan Baez was already a problem for the establishment. For Joan Baez, music and activism

are not separate things. For 60 years, her activism has never stopped, and that voice, that voice, is at the center of her argument. Civil rights, the draft, the war, the environment, indigenous people's rights, women's rights, she has longed at a force for change while also being the most famous folk singer on earth. What her biography doesn't always include is what it cost her. For decades, the music and the movement asked everything of her, leaving little room for the quieter work of tending to herself. Joan long suffered from anxiety and depression, an interior war that she finally, in her 50s,

decided to put her energy toward. In her quest to heal, she found comfort in her art, her poetry, her painting upside-down drawings, she found solace. In 2023, she handed three documentary filmmakers the keys to her personal archive, family films, journals, therapy recordings. The result is an excellent documentary. I am a noise, executive produced by Patty Smith. Joan is a close friend and collaborator of Dolores-Wertes and showed up to a no-kings rally alongside Jane Fonda, all wiser than me vets. Joan Baez sits at the epicenter of an old lady army that has refused to go home. They are our front lines.

Nine Grammy nominations, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center honors. And then there is a song, Diamonds and Rust, which is one of the greatest breakup songs in the American Songbook. So please welcome Mother and Abuela, activist, artist and an absolute icon who is wiser than me, Joan Baez. Welcome, Joan. Wow, do I have to do anything now or? No, we're done. Thank you for being here. It was a delight. It's been great knowing you. Fantastic. So, Joan, are you comfortable if I ask your real age? Yes, I am. I'm 85. 85.

And how old do you feel? Probably in my 70s. Oh, really? Yeah, early 70s, something like that. Mm-hmm. What do you think the best part about being your age is right now? Well, there's the best part and there's a difficult part. Okay.

The best part is what everybody talks about that you have accumulated, you know, a lifetime of stuff. Yeah. Information, some good, some feelings, emotions, connections, people. There's no denying. that you've earned something in those years. Yeah. But what's the, you said there's a worse part? There's a downside.

You know, I don't like my wrinkles. I mean, some women say, oh, I've made friends with my wrinkles. I really haven't. There's certain things. Yeah, uh-uh, I try. But there you are. That's not so bad, is it? No, it's not so bad, but it's refreshing to hear you say that.

Have you ever thought about getting plastic surgery? Not really. Sure. I mean, like every woman, I go to the mirror and I take my cheeks and I push them back, you know. Yes, of course. That's what I would look like. But, no, yeah, I think about taking a slice out of that flesh that's hanging over my eyelids. And then I change my mind. Yeah.

But you look fantastic if you don't mind my saying. I mean, you really, as I say, you're aging very beautifully. And I know that you, one thing that stood out in researching you in your life is that you bring a lot of intention to taking care of yourself, your physical self, your mental health. And I understand that dancing, is that part of your self-care routine? Yeah, I met a guy in Germany was a medium. And somebody suggested that I talked to this guy. So I gave him all the information. He did this chart, you know, a big chart about which I know.

nothing. And then he came and talked to me. I said, well, what did you find out? And he said, you know, he's supposed to, pardon me, look at the chart, figure something out. He said, he had to look down inside the chart to get any idea what was going on because it was so full. And so he told me a lot of things that I don't remember. But the last and most important thing he said was the real reason, yes, you were here to paint, yes, you were here to draw, you're here to be an activist, you were here to sing. But the real reason the Lord put you on this earth was to dance. And I love that because the dancing is where my freedom comes. It's where everything else disappears. The troubles disappear. And I love that movement. I love the

music. And I love to dance. Do you do that like every day? I do some. Like very intentionally? Not intentionally. It just sort of comes naturally. And I have the music on, then I don't have to think about what other exercising I'm going to do. I've just done it in the most pleasurable way. By the way, when you go to a medium and you say you gave them information about yourself, are you always suspicious of that because you're a famous person? I mean, in other words, as opposed to just somebody that he wouldn't naturally know? No, and he's the only one I've ever talked to. And it was somebody else's suggestion. So I don't do that as a rule. Oh, I see. Yeah, I don't mean, I'm suspicious of all of it.

button, and then I take what I think sounds good. Yeah. I throw all the rest out. Yeah, I've done that too. I've been to, like, psychics, and sometimes I'm sort of gobsmacked by whatever it is they say. And sometimes I'm, but I don't take it too seriously. But, yeah, you take away what you feel is appropriate or whatever. Especially if they give you some grim information, then you just skip it.

Oh, skip it. Drop it. Drop it from the hard drive altogether. And you said you also said that posture is at the base of everything you do. talk about why posture is so important, I say, sitting up, God, I have the worst posture. I mean, you know about the core, right, and holding yourself. Yes. And there are just certain techniques from different things that I've studied.

And there see something where I would study because it really, really interests me. And sitting and hold a neck a certain way. And it's kind of constant. And what I do is set my watch for, oh, say 20 minutes, 25 minutes. And every time it buzzes, I do, you know, I realign my body, my neck and my head, et cetera. So I keep it on as much a constant basis as I can. Well, that is a lot of posture work.

How do you realign it? I mean, what I've studied is it's the neck going down. You hold your head a certain way and you readjust your shoulders. And you can find people who will teach you. And then you just have to do it. And you have to remind yourself, because, you know, as you said, if you start slumping, then it's, it's a sit up, honey. I know, exactly. I just slumped over for John. So I'm making a note to myself, I'm going to work on my posture. I really have to do that. I'm very hunched over. Oh, God. So you described your beautiful voice as a gift,

something, in fact, given to you. Can you talk about? the framing of that, how you came to frame your voice that way as a gift? Oh, that's simple. Tell. That I don't really take credit for it. I kind of say that my job has been maintenance and delivery. But the rest is kind of a magical thing that I was born with, and it is a gift. I barely consider it my own, and thus I just keep working with it.

And I love listening to the early music, to the early songs. when I was a high high soprano. And I think, oh, my God, that's astonishing what that young girl did. And then, you know, I've enjoyed my voice over the years. I've enjoyed being in the studio. I've enjoyed being on the stage. And, you know, hearing what somebody gave me. Yeah.

But is it something that you knew from a very early age that you had? No. Oh, you didn't? No. When I was in junior high school, I didn't. make the triple trio of girls because my voice wasn't substantial enough. Stop. Yeah, it was 13 or 14. And so I literally, I went home and stood in front of the mirror and I wobbled by Adam's apple up and down with my finger. Started developing vibrato. And I did that long enough. It began happening on its own. And that is, I mean, I probably would have come later. But I have.

I don't know. It was a straight, flat little, very true on the note. And then I started wobbling my Adams apple around. To develop vibrato at age 13. I mean, if those women are listening to this podcast right now, they didn't pick Joan Baez for their group. No, they did. That's bananas. That's crazy. So when you would perform as a young woman, as a young person, were you satisfied with your performance? Were you critical of your performance? Were you normally came to a feeling of satisfaction, or did you criticize yourself? I was very critical of myself. And on the other hand, I think at the end of a concert, for the most part, I thought, wow, you know, that was pretty good. The self-doubt was more about other stuff, but the voice was true, and I knew I could count on that. Even when I was nervous, got terrible stage fright.

I know, yeah. But I'd ask somebody just sort of pick me out. and shove me on the stage and get to the microphone. And then it would happen. And then I'd sing, you know? Wow. Mm-hmm. Can you describe the change in your voice? What actually happens to the voice as you age? Actually, I'm curious about that. What are those dynamics? Well, like all the other muscles in your body, it starts to lose its tightness. It starts to get floppy. And in the end, it'll do that anyway, but less if you keep working on it. If you keep tightening those muscles and cooperating with them and exercising them in different ways, if you have a good coach,

you'll exercise them better than if you had a lousy coach. But I would tell you that in the mid-30s, I didn't know what was happening. The notes weren't coming out as easily because when I started singing and started in public, the voice was so easy. It just came out any range. It just was there. And then all of a sudden, Yoohoo, surprise, surprise, it was getting harder to make those notes. They weren't sounding like I wanted them to sound. And I thought, what's going on here? And somebody said, we ought to go and see a coach. And I thought, ha, ha, ha, me, missed natural talent. And so guess what? I did. I went and found somebody and began the process, which I've stuck with until fairly recently. And I don't bother trying to reach high. notes anymore. That's what the battle was for to keep them capable of getting me up in the higher range, lower range is okay now. It's called a chest voice. Right. So you were in your 30s when you first started real vocal training with the coach. Did you say 30s? Yeah. Wow, that's incredible. All that massive career before even any sort of formal training. It was just so natural. Yeah, that's

Quite remarkable. Are you still working with the vocal coach now? No, because I have a different range. They ain't going to let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around. And that's all the low part. But I can't go up there. Turn me around. Thank you. And see, when I finally decided, okay, those notes that I've been longing for are no longer available to me.

okay, what is? And the little notes I just sang you are there and I don't have to exercise them. My vocal cords can flop around as much as they want. And that lower voice keeps coming out. Oh, God, that's so great. And that's such a good life lesson too, you know? Things change as you age, obviously. But if you can pivot with the change, you can find a new incredible thing. So it seems you were 13 years old when your aunt took you and your sister Mimi to see Pete Seeger. because they were afraid I'd never listen to anything but Rilliman Blues. And mother said, oh, they're all a bunch of dope addicts. And I said, they are not.

I didn't know what a dope addict was, but whatever she said, you know. At any rate, my auntie said, okay, we're going to take it to Pete Seeger concert and show it, you know, what music could really be. And I always look at it as though it was like a vaccine. Oh. And after Pete, then it was Odette. and Harry Belafonte. And that's where I would spend hours and hours of time learning their songs, and then it moved into ballads.

And I did nothing but lie on my back with a guitar on my chest and play the songs and learned new ones and learn new ones. Pete Seeger's voice reminds me of my parents, actually, because they used to play him a lot. But anyway, between then and the Newport Folk Festival at 18, you became a performer. But you were also going to school. So how did you manage that?

How did you do school and this phenomenal music and performance at the same time? How'd you pull that off? I wasn't really going to school. I was, you know, my grades are so terrible when I got out of high school that my poor parents looking around, where can this girl go to school? And it kind of got rejected from everywhere. So they were thinking, oh, well, we'll go. we'll go the artsy craftsy, and they took me to Bennington, I think, to talk to some poor woman who had

sit in a room with me and say things like, what are your study habits like? I say, well, I don't have any. And I'll tell you how that meeting ended was. It was my mother and father, my sister Mimi and myself, and I was just dodging questions. I just didn't want anything to do with it. And my sister Mimi knew how to swallow air and make her tummy rumble. So all of a sudden, you know, you know, The woman said, oh, you must be getting hungry now. Yes, it's about lunchtime. And that was the end of the meeting. That was it.

I thought you were going to say Mimi swallowed the air and she belched really loud. My sister can do that, by the way. Well, she's done that too. I can too. But she was being delicate and just made her tummy rumble. So, no, that's about the level I was with school, not interested. But I was living at home and allegedly going to school. of my parents would be okay with my leaving the house.

And I was hanging around Harvard Square, you know, fell in love with a Harvard student and ran around in the snow and sang at Club 47 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And actually, my first job was teaching people how to ride Vespas at the Boston Vespa Company. Yeah. No way. Yes, ma'am.

It was not an easy to even job. The first woman I took out there She said, I want to learn How to buy the best way. I said, okay, I'll show you And no idea what I was doing This is the first woman. I mean, I knew how to drive them And I said, listen, if anything happens, You pull this gear in and you put your foot there

And I repeated that about 20 times I thought, well, that'll be, you know, that's going to work. And so she pulled that in and push that And went and turn and flip And threw her onto the road and the Vespa was in the middle of the road going like that. Oh my God.

So she sat down on the curve and I sat down next to her and she had a cigarette and I said, can I have, I didn't smoke. She did you want a cigarette? And I said, yeah, I'll be big time. So anyway, so that was my... That's your Vespa experience.

It's my Vespa experience. Actually, it was my second job because the first one was being a house mother to blind children, the Perkins Institute for the Blind. Oh, for 24-7. Wow. So those are my two jobs.

And during that time, I started singing at Club 47. I see. And they would give me $10 a night, and then it went up to 15, and I just felt like it was the richest thing going. You're learning my real history of the beginning of my career. Yeah. It's time to take a break. My conversation with Joan Baez continues in just a moment. And by the way, we just launched a Wiser than Me newsletter on Substact.

where you can get behind the scenes details from my conversation with Joan and more. You can subscribe now at wiser than me.substack.com. You'll get photos, videos, letters from me. You know, just think exclusive bonus snippets, blimpses behind the scenes of the making of the podcast. It's a really deep dive into every guest, plus a place to connect with other wiser than me listeners. I hope you subscribe at wiserthamie.

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Hey, Prime members. Did you know you can listen to Wiser than Me, ad-free on Amazon music? Download the Amazon Music app today to start listening, ad-free. You do the Newport Folk Festival in 1959. You're 18 years old, and you're this huge hit immediately. You didn't have an album out or anything. It feels almost like a cartoon or something. It's so lickety-split. Explain how that happens. Well, see, I don't know how that happens. Well, but I mean, like, obviously you nailed it. And then, like, what happened?

Producers come to you right away and say, make these albums? I think the press came first. You know, that's what shocked me. Oh, I see. That was overnight. And already, the international stuff already began at that point. Oh. But I was a phenomenon.

And they happened periodically. And everybody jumps on them. And then the trick is, how do you maintain your sanity? And I went overboard in the direction of not wanting to be commercial. I mean, it's kind of stunted me in a way because I was afraid that I would go commercial, quote, unquote, and not be pure to myself and to the music. So those are the stringent rules I'd set up for myself. Well, it's funny because I was listening to some clip of you, you were talking. because you were on the cover of Time Magazine when you were 21,

and you were talking about your sort of interior struggle about agreeing to be on the cover or not. And I know that you didn't like the painting that was of you on the cover of Time magazine. It was a painting of you that, by the way, is now, I think, in the National Gallery. It is, yeah. So I know you didn't like it then. Do you like it now? As a piece of art, I do. But at that age, it was way too vain to have somebody make me look like, you know, depressed or whatever.

Yeah. So, no, I wanted to look pretty. That did not look pretty. So who wants that, you know? Right. Was that something you were aware of, your looks when you were going out there? Was that something that was very much, was that an awareness you had? Yeah.

And I did not think I would look very good. Oh, really? Well, what woman does? Oh, my God. Yeah, exactly. It's exactly that. It's just that. And I, you know, wasn't sufficient for myself in most ways. In fact, as we're talking, I would say the only way I really, the only thing I really was sure of was that voice coming out. Never mind, you know, the stage fright and all the rest. I knew that. And then later on, it was the politics that I was steady there. I knew what I was doing. and all the other things were, you know, were, in a sense, questioning. I think.

Questioning them all the time, how I looked and how I presented myself to people and what they thought of me and so on. But in the politics, fuck them, you know, I knew what I was doing and kind of the same thing with the voice. I know that your mom, well, your parents were, your mother was especially radical, right? Well, no, she wouldn't have put herself, she was a pacifist. I mean, she was... Well, radical in her pacifism, shall we say? No, I don't think either my parents was particularly radical. They were social-minded.

They were willing to take risks. I think my father's difficulty with me was that I was too radical. So he was, you know, a little bit concerned about it. You know, because in his mind was I a good American citizen and about breaking the law. And then, you know, I'd tell him something about law if the law isn't any good. then you should break it. And so he was back and forth on this. But he was an activist, social activist.

And, yeah, he got me in my first demonstration. It was against bomb shelters, and somebody was dropping water balloons on our heads. So he was out there willing, you know, willing to be a professor at Stanford, and that's the only, you know, he was the only one who would do something like that. But you were arrested with your mother, weren't you?

In 1967, correct? Yeah, and my sister. And it was for aiding and abetting the draft resistance. And we were arrested early in the morning at the induction center. And the point was to be there to block the entrance to the induction center because these kids at 5 o'clock in the morning are supposed to show up. And they're really, really young and they're really, really scared. And we would say, you know, you don't have to do this.

And then we'd point, there's a place. They could go and talk to people about resistance, about going to Canada, about going underground, get information. And most of them never thought of anything except going through, you know, with the process. And I've seen a couple of kids who at that moment thought, oh, my goodness, and changed their minds. That was really hard to do at that young age. But that's what we were doing out there. and my mom and my sister were sitting out there doing that little demonstration. We got picked up.

We knew we did. We knew we would go to jail. Yeah. And so that was fine. But my mom, she was exceptional. I mean, we went to jail twice. The first time it was maybe 15 women or something. Next time there were 60 of us.

And a much longer stay, it was three months. I can't remember. Wow. We didn't stay that long. They kicked my mom and me out because they figured whatever ever political action was going on in that jail must have because of me. And it wasn't at all. It must have been a very bonding thing to have that experience with your mother.

I mean, what a remarkable woman to get out there and get arrested with her daughters. Right? That's true. Yeah. And of my sister too. Yeah. And meantime, by the way, I was running the Institute for the Study of Nonviolent. violence. And while my mom and I were in prison, my father, you know, started teaching there.

So. Oh, my God. Yeah, I know. So they were activists. Come on. They were. No, you said radical. Oh, I see. I guess that's radical, a housewife going to jail. It feels a little radical in the best possible way. You moved around a lot as a kid, which I understand was sort of a difficult thing. And I think you were, you were in Baghdad? Yes? Yeah, we spent a year in Baghdad Iraq and I was 10 and 11. Yeah. You know, it's a thing that's ingrained in you one way or another for all the years following it. I know that my distance from other kids came a little bit then because I was in Baghdad and I'm writing my schoolmates all about these, you know, these things that I saw and that I felt, and they never answered. And I realized years later, they had no way to understand what I was talking about.

Right. And so, you know, they got back to their lives with their friends and kind of didn't, I wasn't able to remain a part of that. That's interesting because I, when I was little, I moved around a lot. I was in, we lived in Sri Lanka and we lived in Tunisia and Colombia. And, there was a lot of poverty too that I witnessed when I was there. And as a child, that's a rough thing to absorb. It doesn't mean you shouldn't see it,

but it has its challenges, right? It's very difficult if you have a sensitive heart and my sisters and I did. So you just take it in and do the best you can with it. And, you know, we were always sneaking out trying to give money to the beggars and Yeah. You know, because it was hard to watch.

And it's funny you say sneaking out because were your parents opposed to you giving money to people who are begging? It's out of curiosity? No, they weren't. They weren't. But I guess it felt as though we were sneaking because it wasn't what the neighbors were doing. It wasn't what bag daddies are doing, you know. Right, right. Did you develop a kind of sense of responsibility to others based on all of that travel?

and witnessing those less fortunate? Absolutely. I identified with, you know, I remember one time, it's a little bit on the mystical side, but I was, I think, 10, 11, 12, something, bring it on. And I was in a train and either another train, and it's probably all fog in my mind now, but I saw a little girl my age,

and I thought that she's me, and that if anybody tried to hurt her, it would be the same as trying to hurt me, and people shouldn't be hurting each other. I mean, a whole thing came out of that experience, I think, in experiences like that, that I was intertwined with people, and at that point, many with kids, with children. I had this experience when I was in Tunisia, actually, where this girl who was also my age came to this gate of this place we were living in

with a bunch of other people. and she was begging. And because I, I think because I recognize that she was me or my age, I gave her my shoes. And then I went into the house and I snuck, that's why I asked you the question, I snuck food out and brought it to her. Because we had been told not to give to people who were begging because it was sort of a bottomless pit and then it would. Right, right. That was the line, yeah. That was the line. And so she took it all. And then the very next day, there was like triple the amount of people there that she had brought with her. So it was a hard thing to understand it that. It's a hard thing to understand now as an adult, you know, let's face it. Right? And you probably went on in your impossible and sneaked out more money and gave it to the beggars because it's impossible to not do, especially as a kid.

It's impossible, and I remember getting vitamins, thinking that vitamins would be good, you know? No, they would take the garbage cans. We would start putting my sisters and I would put food up in a tree in a bag so they could get it before the dogs did. Oh, a lot of thought went into it. Do you want to hear a Tunisian song? Yeah. Okay, I learned this in Tunisia a billion years ago. Yeah, jareda bar,

a lae yama. La jareda bar, a lae ya ma. And as d'et erguda, erguda. Sammer lique will be to lae ama. Esammeri he will be

to laa yama. Yeah. Bravo! That's phenomenal. What does it mean? What do the lyrics mean? Do you know? No, I don't know.

now. I mean, at one point, something about a taxi. It has no political meaning at all, I think, is absolutely meaningless. Is it the way they hail taxis over there, maybe? I think maybe that's it. You have to stand on the street corner and do that. But any Moroccan, Algerian or Tunisian, well, this song was like, you know, it was like a summer hit that went on forever. Oh, wow, that's extraordinary. See how your lower register is gorgeous with that. As long as I sing in a Tunisian Arabic language, right? Exactly. It sounds phenomenal. I know that when you became famous, you talk about your fame and

fortune, as it were, was a complicated thing in your family. At the time, did you have guilt about that? And if so, I'm wondering how you managed that. Well, I had guilt about everything, whether it was real or not. So, you know, no big surprise. Yeah, I think so that everything, after the age of 18, so much came to me so easily and so quickly. And I think the biggest struggle was for my sister Mimi, who really wanted that in her life. Pauline just went the other direction. She didn't have anything to do with it. But I felt guilty about both of them, you know, just in general that I was so, we didn't say blessed back then, but I was.

Do you still feel guilty? No, I gave it up. Oh, good. How do you give it up? Well, you know, I had this therapist and I was struggling a way to forgive everybody. I'll forgive my mother. I'll forgive my father. But I can't forgive myself.

And, you know, that was my mantra. I can't forgive myself. And one day he said, well, it makes you so special. You know, it's true. You have to be able to do that. And it's ongoing. I had another clever quote from a Buddhist friend of mine.

He said, you don't have to forgive all at once. You can do a little bit at a time. A little bit at a time. Which is very helpful, yeah. Very helpful. And actually kind of true. It's not like a light switch you turn on and off, right? That's right, right.

It's on a dimmer. Yeah, it's an odd dimmer. It can go up and down. Sometimes you think you've forgiven and then, oh, I guess I didn't. Exactly. You're still on my shit list. Yep. Yeah. It's time for another break. More with Joan Baez after this.

You were there when Dr. King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. Did you have an awareness that this was a pivotal moment? moment in American history when you were in it? You know, I'm not sure that any of us really can see that. I knew that it was an absolutely extraordinary day, and I've never seen anything like it. Right. I haven't really much since then. Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, it was clear. It was monumental. I don't think at my age I thought about the future. Yeah, I know. Who does in their 20s, right? I mean. No, my idea of the future was the final. following Wednesday.

Exactly. It didn't. Yeah. No, it was a day, though. It really was a day. I know that you and Martin Luther King were friends, and of course, you were activists together. How'd you meet? How did that happen?

You know, I don't remember actually meeting. I remember seeing him for the first time. It was a gathering of high school students and, like, 250 students from all around the country. And we were, you know, we were studying, we were reading about politics and discussing. it and nonviolence and heavy on nonviolence. And I realized that's kind of already the direction I was going. And then every year this gathering, they would have a speaker. And that year the speaker was Martin Luther King.

And I can't even say it without getting weepy again because it meant so much to me. I started to cry. I cried to the whole speech. And I cried afterwards. And the reason was that he was doing what. we'd been reading about. We'd been studying Gandhi and all of the, you know, the active stuff that he did. And so here was this man. Yes, there were people in Mississippi, staying off the buses and striking, walking around barefoot. And oh, my God, it was,

to me, it was, yeah, that was pivotal. Yeah. When you've described him, you've said, you said he was fatigued, but he always had a great sense of humor. And of course, I understand why he would have been fatigued. But, I mean, like, what made him laugh? What was funny to Dr. Martin Luther King? I'm dying to know that. Well, there's just so much I can say. I'll tell you that yesterday I visited Clarence Jones,

who's one of the, he was one of the inner-surface. He's 93 now, I think. And we talked about back then. And I was absolutely knocked out and thrilled. He said, you know, I hung out with those guys and Andy Young and Jesse and Beville. I didn't know. And Clarence told me that they used to say I was one of the guys. Because I hung out with them and listened to their jokes and listened to their craziness and nobody else had access to it.

And one time I was lucky enough to go to the airport, pick up Dr. King. That was a big deal for me. Where was this? It was an SCLC concert in South Carolina. Okay. I was in South Carolina somewhere. And so we went to the airport. Now, this is so cool because they were going to have a march.

Two days after that, we'd have a march. I thought I am going to hear how these guys put together a march. And so we picked up Dr. King, and he told off Kull, jokes from the airport back to the CLC gathering and laughing hysterically. They couldn't do that in public. Of course not. If King laughed in the pulpit, you know, they were looking for anything to disregard or downgrade him.

Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, real, real laughter. And I was really, really lucky enough to be a part of that. part of the boys. So you were you were howling alongside with them right? No you know what I was in such a state of shock. Oh really? I don't know that I was howling. I was probably giggling and I was in awe. Yeah, no it was wonderful. Oh, it must have been incredible. You're so lucky. What did you learn watching him work? I mean, that's such a Pollyanna-ish question, but I really do mean it. I mean,

And what did you learn by being near him and watching him do his thing? You know, he once said, because I would get next to him to hear him in church, and he once said, and I love to have Joan Baez here because every time I say the word nonviolence, she started to cry. And it was true. You know, and I just sit there blubbering away because there was something about him that was so real and so true and so strong. and just being in his presence was, I don't know what I learned from that, but there I was.

I'm sure I learned something about courage, because on those marches, that's when you need courage, is when you're scared. If you walk through it and you're, you know, and you're okay with it, then you don't really need that courage as a backup, but he needed it and he had it. When you have courage in a situation like that, how does that courage speak to you in that, moment. In other words, are you laser focused on where you're headed? Are you not considering your worst fear in that moment? You won't allow yourself to go there? Is that what courage is? I'm just curious, sort of from a practical point of view, how you use it in those moments against your fear. I know that I have to spend time with myself when things are really, really frightening,

or when I'm feeling super discouraged that I need to get back to where it's a strong place for me. Yeah. So in those moments, you know, sometimes I think, yeah, I'm brave, but I'm also stupid. You don't strike me as stupid, Joan. But, I mean, to have walked into some of those things, I think, woo, did I know what I was getting into? Well, I really did. I mean, I did. I'd seen it.

And I was scared part of the time, part of the time. That's what I'm joking about. I was too stupid to be scared because you can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Are you someone who's comfortable with risk, generally speaking? Apparently. Yeah.

I mean, your life is, you've taken many risks. Yeah. I'm really curious about your relationship to risk. I'm convinced that social change on a large scale does not have. happen until people are willing to take a risk. Yeah. So these days, that risk is a real risk. It's not like anything I knew back then.

I mean, to get arrested now is a very different story. Very different. Or can be a very different story. So all of my instincts are to say throw myself between the ice and somebody. And I think, wow, what favor would I be doing if I skip my medication for 24 hours and I'm non-functional seriously you know and a lot of people my age you're depending on that and it's one of the reasons that I can't do what I want to do you know is to get right smack in the middle of it and say fuck all of you and then spend some time and paying for that but I can't do that now

but you've done so much of it and you could I mean and there is so much that you can do I know you were just recently in Minneapolis, and God bless you for being there. I mean, you have to do what's appropriate for you at whatever moment of your life you're in. You're still taking risk. You still went to Minneapolis and protested. But that's an interesting question, though, about those of us who still have those instincts and are wise enough to try to make a good decision, which is even if it's to be the anti-instinctual, which it is, but let's be realistic. Why is who are you really helping out if you dive into the fray? And there are other things I can do. I mean, I was so happy to have been invited to Minneapolis. It was very meaningful

to me. The people there were everything. Some people who said they were. They were warm and welcoming and neighborly and, wow, big learning experience that everybody should be able to have something similar to that anyway. Yeah, and to witness in Minneapolis, exactly what you describe, in the face of the violence that's been thrust upon them, is, it's a generous place that people have come together and stood up strong and straight against the violence

that's being perpetrated against them. I'm in awe that, you know, here in California, I did an anti-ice train. and it's scary because these people are so violent. Yeah. What was the word you used for them, not friendly, neighborly, but used another word. Generous. Generous.

There are, everybody, that was the feeling I had everywhere I went in Minneapolis was a sense of generosity. From the people I met or people in the lobby, even this motorcycle gang staying in the same hotel, they were called hamsters. And you couldn't have been different types. passing each other in the lobby kind of giving a nod. Incredible. God, there's a whole generation of really talented artists who are quite silent about the current assault on democracy. And there's a lot of people who are not silent, but there are those who are or step back from what's going on politically.

Do you find that unbelievably frustrating? Or do you understand perhaps what those artists wear, they're coming from or, you know, the artists and musicians and so on. I think I understand where they're coming from. I mean, I think it's revealing that the one song that's used in all of these demonstrations is times are changing. I mean, the level of that writing from back then can't, hasn't been approached. Nobody's approached it. Right. You can't summon that up. I don't think. I think that's somebody else's gift. And the young people right now, or some are writing amazing stuff.

A few are willing to speak out. Brandy, Carlisle is, and Maggie Rogers, my pal, put right out there front and center on the stage at a rally against ICE, you know. That's been, yeah, I mean, I think I sort of cocked my head at these stadiums filled with, you know, brilliant young women songwriters. and why can't they just take that little step. Just that little step. Yeah, because they're already richer in God, you know, most of them.

So that little step. Is there something that you wish someone had told you at the beginning of your career of activism, that you wish you had known back then, that you've learned as life has gone on? What comes to my mind is not about activism, but about the singing. And I was singing for shriner's call. in high school, right? Somebody said, who you come do this thing for the Shriners? I said, sure. So I don't know what I sang, but I sang something for the Shriners.

They got quiet and they actually listened. Some old guy came up to me afterwards. He said, you know, honey, he tapped me on the shoulders. Don't sign cheap. You're okay, honey. You're going to do good. You're going to sign cheap. That's good. That's very good. It's time for one last quick break. We'll be right back with even more from Joan Baez.

Going backwards now, when you were 26, you met your former husband, David Harris. And then you guys got married and he was arrested for draft dodging and you were pregnant. And when they came to the, speaking of being frightened, when they came to the door to arrest him, were you frightened? No, that's not a situation. We were frightened. I just, no, I mean, we were all rattled because we didn't know. We wanted to do the right thing. We wanted to invite those guys in, give them coffee, you know, be generous. Yes.

And we were, I don't know if they took the coffee or not, but we did all of those things, and we did it all smiling and, you know, stay true to ourselves to the whole thing. But I don't think I was not frightened. Maybe David was, but he was pretty solid. And then I know you were out there making appearances. That's when you went on the Smothers Brothers show. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. And CBS refused to air either the whole show or you within it because you were talking about the war. And is that correct? And David, that's correct. Yeah. They got a chance to thank me years and years. years later. Who did?

Tommy's mothers for having kind of waken them up or made them take a stand. I mean, they chose it. But, yeah, they entered a whole different arena after they did that. Oh, interesting. Isn't this funny that it's CBS back then censoring you? And look at CBS now. What a trajectory from that moment to this moment with what's her face, Barry Weiss or whatever her name is and Colbert being canceled. I mean, it's just an amazing time.

I'm glad to get you while you're still on the year. Before my podcast is canceled. It's not going to be canceled. So David, your husband, was in prison when you had your son Gabriel. And so who was there when you had your kid? Who was there when you actually gave birth? Was your mom there? No, a friend of mine, Gail, who is still a pal, after all these many years. years. She did La Maze with me and was there in the hospital. Yeah. She was there through the whole thing and then help. You know, she's now as godmother, you know. Oh, that's nice. And it's been all these years. Yeah. No, she went through all of that with me and took care of him constantly. Oh, so she was taking care of him when you were out on the road and stuff like that? She was often with me out on the road. She would go with me when I went to visit David. Or she's staying home, taking home. Taking home.

care of Gabe. I see. I know you've said the easiest kind of relationship for me is with 10,000 people. The hardest one is with one. Was it hard for you to be married? Was it hard to be a mother for those reasons, for that reason? Yeah. I mean, I was incapable of really carrying out what I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to be the perfect wife. I wanted to be, oh, women's lib couldn't stand me because I was trying to be, I was trying to be a woman. I was trying to be a, I was trying to be a, a wife and a mother, you know, bake cookies and take care of my kid. And, you know, it wasn't possible. I would do it when I was home, you know. Right. But I wasn't, my intimacy issues were so strong that I really wouldn't have landed.

I wouldn't have managed in any close relationship, you know. And I didn't know that then. I kept thinking, well, I'm going to make it work. I can make this one work. it took a long time for me to realize. How long did it tell? I mean, I know that Gabe in the documentary, he talked about your absence and that he was raised by a bunch of people. And you were joking about starting a bad mother's club.

And I mean, is it speaking of forgiveness? Talk about forgiving yourself as a parent, because that's tricky. Yeah, no, I still bow to. with it. Yeah. But Gabe and I have really become friends, not in some sort of wishy-washy way, but done therapy together, worked our way through a lot of this stuff. And, you know, being able to say stuff that he couldn't have said all of those years.

That's nice. If you have the right therapist and the right platform, you can do that. We've done a lot of work together, and we are close. Oh, that's so wonderful. And you're a grandmother. I am a grandmother. I have one granddaughter. And what's your relationship like with her?

You know, it was Rocky for a while, but we are really close. And I know sometimes I'm the only one she really can talk to. Now, why was it Rocky? Because I wasn't available to a grandchild. Nobody would know that. Nobody would know it. And that it was difficult. And it was difficult probably for her.

And when she got a little bit older, I know it was hard for her. because I couldn't think the way she thought. I couldn't be present for her. But now it's a totally different story. And we both worked hard. You know, we both worked hard at it. And, yeah, now we're very close. How old is she?

She's 22. Oh, wow. Oh, I thought she was much younger. Oh, wow. That's fantastic. Yeah. No, but that's such a gift. Talk about gifts.

It is. It is a gift for both. of us. Yeah. So therapy has been a huge force in your life. And I know that you, well, when you were in your 50s, your sister Mimi called you to say that something terrible had happened in your childhood, her childhood. And she was talking about abuse. And did that when she she gave you that information. That was sort of the beginning of, I guess, a journey that you went on. Did that immediately make sense to you, or did you have to sit with it? No, it's really interesting because she said, I think something happened. We called him Popsie with Popsie.

She wanted to confront him. And my reaction was, oh, no, he's too old. By the way, he couldn't have done that. Yeah. And then I got thoroughly sick. I went to bed, pull the covers over my head, and wanted it all to go away. And then I realized that that was my reaction, which meant I better, you know, face up to whatever it is, yeah. Right. And so you did. You went into therapy and you were diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.

For our listeners, can you explain what that is? Yeah. Back in the day, we called it multiple personality, which is easier to understand because that's what it is in order to protect. yourself, you split up in these different personalities, each one of whom did, you know, saved you from something, took the trauma for you, basically. So they're all in there holding onto this stuff, which is why I was nuts, which is why I was curled up in a, like a fetal position before a concert, which is why I couldn't stay with somebody. It's why I couldn't be a wife. all that stuff was turning around in there.

I had no idea. I had no idea that I'd been hurt when I was little. That's how it works. You know, you sit on, you've heard it over and over again or seen it on TV, a woman sang, and then suddenly, and then all of a sudden this happened, and it opened all the doors and all this stuff poured out. So I spent years, really, finding it.

And I was happy discovering, it through my inner people because I got to know them and they became my family. It's a little mind-boggling for people, but it is mind-boggling, but it is also extraordinary to consider what the brain does to protect itself. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And as far as, you know, I couldn't forgive, but my father was harder than my mom, but then little by little for me and for others, like me, you begin to realize that they had to have something terrible happened to them or they wouldn't be able to do this. Right.

And that, no, they do not remember it. So when you're thinking, well, they could apologize, they could, they don't remember. You know, if I didn't, for 50 years, I was not willing to look at it. So if I was really trying to find it and they're not interested, they're not going to have a clue. I mean, some parents do. Some parents knew it from the beginning and still know it. But in my case, I believe that in some weird sense, they were just these two innocent parents.

Did your sister Pauline have the same experience or it was just Mimi? It was just Mimi. Pauline wouldn't have anything to do with it. She thought we were nuts. It was her way of dealing with it, yeah. Once in a while, she'd say something that I thought, oh, my goodness, it would surprise me that somewhere in her something was going on that she wasn't aware of or didn't want to deal with. But I, you know, I joked about it. I said,

I know you're not interested in all this stuff. And she wasn't. And towards the end of her life, I got to know her better. When you had these, I think you refer to them or it is referred to as altars, right? Is that, is that the correct word? Yeah. As in alternative personality, I guess, but alters. Maybe this is a stupid question. So please forgive me, but would they come on you? Like, would you not remember them being there? It's a very good question, and I had what's called co-consciousness, meaning yes, I could watch what was going on, I could hear their voices, and it's more difficult for somebody who did not have co-consciousness because they don't know what happened, because the other person, and

literally crazy stuff, like one would need glasses, and the other, all to would not need glasses. And so where, you know, you suddenly wake up in somebody's daisy patch and don't know how you got there is because basically you're somebody else, yeah. But that wasn't your experience. That wasn't me. No, mine was really, I really could see, once in a while, that would happen and I wouldn't know. One time, I had a six-year-old in me, and I was at the grocery store and I had all proper groceries. I got home and there were a bunch of Twinkies in the grocery bag. Oh, Twinkies.

I didn't pick up these twinkies. The six-year-old wanted Twinkies, and I didn't see it happen. Wow. But that's the level of mine. I didn't have, you know, serious dissociation that way. Could you control them?

Sometimes, and, you know, the trick is trying to make a deal with them, figure it out. Sometimes, no. Sometimes it was overwhelming sadness. or overwhelming rage. Kind of if I let them do the raging, it got it out of my system.

Gosh. Yeah. But do you think that those altars had been with you your whole life? Or did they... Yes. Uh-huh. I think they've been there. They've been there at whatever age they came on board

because we had a two-year-old or a six-year-old. And at whatever point in my life, the trauma was too much to bear. whoever it was showed up and took that trauma. Yeah. And so whoever it was who showed up, were they able to recall the trauma? Yes. Holy moly. I mean, really, this is just extraordinary. And then do, but now you don't experience them anymore, correct? I do a couple of them, and I miss them. Oh, you miss them. I was trying to keep everybody together. and everything.

Yes. One day I got this sort of knocking on the inside of my head, somebody wanted out. They wanted to get out of here and go have a life. I was so hurt and so insulted

because I thought I was the perfect mom, you know, and they wanted another life. And one by one, they, I mean, I worked with them and therapists, and we said goodbye.

And some of them wanted to go to the sky, and someone wanted to go to the bottom of the ocean. And I had animals as well. They wanted to go to Africa. And so saying goodbye was very painful. And it is possible to kind of have a reunion periodically. But it's not, you know, they're not as present by any stretch as they were then.

How long did this process take? It was a few years of digging that stuff up. Yeah. And I would suggest for anybody, whatever their level of trauma, go deal with it with somebody who can really help you. Yeah. Right. It sounds like it saved your life in a significant way. Yeah. They did. Yeah. They did. I mean, that's how I feel beholden to my crew of altars. Did Mimi have this too? She did. You know, Mimi had altars to, and she had one called mistrust. Her name was mistrust, and mistrust wrote in poetry. And I was going through stuff the other day, and I saw one of these notes from Mimi to me, but it was all in poetry. It was from mistrust, signed by mistrust.

Oh, wow. And she died in 2001, Mimi. Yes, she did. You've said that losing her was among the darkest losses of your life. What did you lose when she passed away? Well, it was a difficult situation because Mimi and I had been so close for so long, and I think that's why she couldn't really have me around. I think I was too close and it was too painful to be leaving. So, you know, I stuck around anyway and kind of watched her go through this nasty business.

You know, I did what I could as a sister, which was mainly to just be there whether she want to be there or not. Did she have cancer? She did, yeah. She had all kinds of cancer. And Mimi was extraordinary when she was well into it, and she felt as though she really needed to let go. She called us all in. She called her family and sort of said,

is this okay with everybody? I'd like to end this. Yeah. So you've outlived almost everyone from the beginning of your life. I have. Yeah. I'm the last one standing. What do you do with that?

What do you do with that loss? How do you carry it? I guess when I remember that I'm the last one standing, I look back at when they were standing. I think that's fair enough to say. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, I just sort of communed with them, whether they're there or not, to say some of the things I didn't say or didn't get to say when they were alive.

And, you know, my feeling is that they're probably more comfortable now than they were in this life. Could be, I hope so. Are you a religious person? No, I don't think so. But I'm more than just spiritual, because I think saying, well, I'm spiritual is kind of a cop-out. But I'm not a churchgoer. But I believe there is a God, even if it's, quote, something power higher than myself, greater than myself. But there is definitely something there.

And I'm happy to say that that's God. You said this incredible thing that I was wondering if you could talk about. You said pain saves us. Do you remember saying that? No. Maybe. Okay. Well, maybe I made it up.

I do not remember. I said it, Joan. I guess I said it. I think you said. It's pretty profound. You must have said it. All right, I'm going to ask you a couple of quick little questions, and then I'll let you go. Thank you for being talk about generous, so generous with your time. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's really, really fun.

It's really fun to talk to you. I feel like I could talk to you for a very long time. I'm so fascinated with your journey and your brain and how you've done it and you've really done it. Is there something you'd go back and tell yourself at 21? Don't sign cheap Yeah, exactly That's a good one That's good A 21

It would be somehow If I could get myself To relax a little bit It was so hard You know, to just Take it easy It wasn't possible at that point Yeah

Is there something you wish you'd spend less time on No or then Then Then Yeah, I wish I had spent less time in a panic attack. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Of course. But I don't have them anymore. That's the good news. That is the good news. Yeah, really good news. Yeah. I'm just so happy that you've been able to, you know, overcome that. You did overcome.

You shall and you did. I did. Want me to sing to you? Yeah, please. Wade in the water, Wade in the water, children wait in the water, children wait in the water, God's going to trouble the waters. Who's that yonder dressed in white?

God's going to trouble the waters. Put down the sword and they picked up the fight. God's going to trouble the water. Wade in the water Wade in the water Children wait in the water God's going to trouble the waters God's going to trouble the waters

Thank you Gosh You made me cry I'm so happy to meet you Thank lovely to meet you Thank you for everything. And God bless you. This is amazing.

So happy to talk to you. Thank you. That was simply extraordinary. God. I have so much to tell my mom. We're going to get her on the Zoom now right away. Hi, Mommy. Hi, sweetheart.

Okay, mother. Yeah. Oh, my mommy. Yeah. Today I talk to Joan Baez. Oh. And let me just start out by telling you. in the following, I've just finished crying.

Oh. Because mom, first of all, she's 85 and three different times during the conversation she sang for us, three different times. Oh. Can you even believe what I'm saying? Oh. And at the very end of the conversation, she said, want me to sing to you? Oh. I was like, yeah.

And then she sang that spiritual song weighed in the water. It was so beautiful, and I just was crying, crying. Everybody was crying. It was so gorgeous. Oh, how wonderful. Isn't that a gift and a half? A gift and a half. But she's given gifts all of her life.

That's exactly right. She has given gifts. She has dedicated her art and her life to activism and in a way that is just unsurpassed, really. I mean, she traveled a lot as a young person. She was never, as a child. They were constantly moving around. They moved all over the world, didn't they? All over the world.

Yeah. And we talked about that because, of course, we traveled around a lot when I was young. And I mentioned Tunisia. And the next thing I know, she's singing a Tunisian song to me. Oh. Yes. And the thing that's so interesting, actually, and it's particularly good for our podcast is her voice has changed.

She has a much deeper, you know, she had that beautiful. angelic soprano voice when she was a young woman, and now she has this deep, guttural, fabulous, low, earthy, sounding voice. And it works so well when she sang the spiritual, when she sang this Tunisian song, for the life of me, I couldn't pronounce one word out of it. But there's beauty in aging, and there is much beauty in her voice, a different kind of beauty. from what it was, but 100% beautiful. So it was a great actual lesson, you know, just sort of on display she was singing, you know? Oh, wonderful. And there's always been something about her.

She's not too performative. You know what I mean? It seems as if the song is part of her when she owns a song in a certain way as if she's really here to give you the song. Well, she talks about her voice as a gift. She really does think she was given this gift and her job was to take care of the gift. but that it had in fact been given to her. But she talks, Mom, about seeing Pete Seeger when she was in high school, and her sort of a whole world opened up.

It was like all of a sudden then she kind of knew that this was going to be her journey. And it's funny because I think of Pete Seeger and Burle Ives and Peter Paul and Mary and Joan Baez, by the way, these were the records that you and dad listened to when we were growing up, right? Absolutely. And we sang those songs. We sang them in Sri Lanka. Oh, we did? Because we had a victola, a little portable victola. We had records of Pete Seeker and Burl Hives, and we took them all records with us.

Oh. And we played them and played them. And there, at one point, Carl Sandberg's daughter came through visiting. In Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka, yes. She came in and said that she was Carl Sandberg's daughter. And we had been singing. all along the Colorado Trail, which Carl Sandberg wrote, I immediately started to cry when she said that she, I mean, it was, the music was so touching. All of that music, to me, was so, so touching and just felt like it just brought up the soul of you.

Mom, here's something really interesting she talked about. She talked about forgiveness. And of course, she's had to deal with, well, who doesn't have to deal with forgiveness for Christ's sake? I mean, that's just. the human condition, you have to, right? But she talked about forgiveness really being on a dimmer switch, that it's not like it happens all at once. And it can, you know, you can forgive in little pieces. It's not just a sort of like all or nothing kind of experience. And I thought that was interesting that forgiveness is kind of on a dimmer switch. Don't you? I love that. I do, too. I think lots of life is on a dimmer switch. In other words, we can't take it some things we just can't take all in but you take for instance grief and i think you take it in little batches and then one day you you sort of face the whole loss but but it's almost

like your brain is a kind thing that that knows how to dose the spoonful of sugar but but how to dose life to you and and i think that's a that's a wonderful thing and we all have that i hope capacity because I think it's a way of being sort of tender and kind to yourself. Totally. Yeah, completely. What a day. I'm so happy I got to talk to her. I'm so glad she's saying to you, oh, and I want, any way I can hear her Tunisian song?

Oh, yeah, 100%. Oh, yeah, I can hear it on your podcast. Well, you can hear it on the podcast if you'd ever like to listen to the podcast. Oh, I always do on it. No, no, I know. I know, Mommy, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I know you listen. And I'm very grateful. You do. Okay, well, I love you a lot. And I'm going to say goodbye for now. I love you, honey. And thank you. It sounds like it was really, all of these are so special. But Joan Baez is a special, so special. And we should all listen to her all the time. I'll say. Talk about wisdom. She's chock full. Much love. Love you. Love you too. Love you. Bye-bye.

There's more Wiser Than Me with Lemonada Premium. You can now listen to every episode ad-free, plus subscribers also get access to exclusive bonus interview excerpts from each guest. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. Head to LemonadaPremium.com to subscribe on any other app or listen, add-free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. That's Lemonada Premium.com. Make sure you're following Wiser Than Me on social. media. We're on Instagram and TikTok at Wiser Than Me. And we're on Facebook at Wiser than Me podcast. We're also on Substack at Wiser Than Me. Subsdack.com. Wiser than me is a production of Lemonada Media,

created and hosted by me, Julia Louis Dreyfus. The show is produced by Chrissy Pease and Oha Lopez. Brad Hall is a consulting producer. Rachel Neal is consulting senior editor and our SVP of weekly content and production is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Paula Kaplan, Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and me. The show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans with engineering help from James Sparber, and our music was written by Henry Hall, who you can also find on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to Will Schlegel and, of course, my mother, Judith Bowles. Follow Wiser than me wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's an old lady in your life, listen up.