My love affair with Joan Baez, tonight

It is past my bedtime but I just returned from seeing Joan Baez in Oakland this evening. Left my house early this morning to get to work, left work at 5:20 and got to Oakland just in time to miss the first two songs, but it was worth every wrong turn. What a voice and what a person!

On stage Joan Baez is as natural as a bouquet of wildflowers, there is nothing tricky about her or pretentious or famous. She sips tea, chews on lozenges (and apologies for doing so.) She applauds her guitarist and her son, Gabriel Harris who plays the drums and a young singer who shared the stage with her for a few songs. But when she starts singing and playing the guitar, she is a force. It's not just her voice, it's her entire musical and political persona that resonates on the stage. She admits her voice doesn't have the range it once had but there were times when she hit the high notes and the audience gasped at the purity of that sound.

Yes, this all sounds so fan-like, and so be it. I have been a fan of Joan Baez for more than 50 years and will be a fan forever. How I even considered not driving to Oakland this evening (where I ALWAYS get lost, always, coming and going) is beyond me. I walked in, had a very nice aisle seat and as I sat she began talking about her mother and then she sang "Honest Lullaby" and I began to cry.  (Silently, of course.) It's a story about her growing up in the 1950's (lyrics below) and then experiencing motherhood, that you don't get through either of those lifetimes without some true and honest guidance. It's a song I have always liked, hearing her sing it brought the house down for me.  But then she sang more, some Bob Dylan, some Tom Waits, so many songs she wrote, many traditional tunes and she read a poem to California about the fires and smoke and ash and our duty as people to stand up and help and fight, the world needs us and our participation.  

I could go on and on.

For some reason, for many reasons, my emotions these days are not just on my sleeve but are covering my entire body, usually manifested in tears. I can't read a headline without tearing up nor can I think about the fires and the shootings and our corrupt political world without tearing up in anger and in fear. Things just seem out of balance, I just seem out of balance, waiting for that boulder to tumble into my path or onto my car or for the tree to fall on my house or to be pushed off the brink or ...... something.
Seeing Joan Baez tonight made that unease and latent anxiety go away for two  hours. It somehow made the future seem possible for that time.

I parked about ten minutes from the Fox Theater in a loading zone with some other cars who were taking the risk of being towed. Sketchy neighborhood would be kind, but that's probably just my white woman stereotypical fear. But walking back to my car after the concert a guy was walking the same way, same age as me more or less and we talked for a few seconds about Joan Baez.  He said "I cried through about half of it" and I replied "Oh, me too! I cannot believe I considered not making the drive tonight."  He shook his head slightly and said, softly "We won't forget this, will we?"  

Nope.  We won't.

Early early in the game 
I taught myself to sing and play 
And use a little trickery 
On kids who never favored me 
Those were years of crinoline slips 
And cotton skirts and swinging hips 
And dangerously painted lips 
And stars of stage and screen 
Pedal pushers, ankle socks 
Padded bras and campus jocks 
Who hid their vernal equinox 
In pairs of faded jeans 
And slept at home resentfully 
Coveting their dreams 

And often have I wondered 
How the years and I survived 
I had a mother who sang to me 
An honest lullaby 

Yellow, brown, and black and white 
Our Father bless us all tonight 
I bowed my head at the football games 
And closed the prayer in Jesus' name 
Lusting after football heroes 
tough Pachuco, little Neroes 
Forfeiting my A's for zeroes 
Futures unforeseen 
Spending all my energy 
In keeping my virginity 
And living in a fantasy 
In love with Jimmy Dean 
If you will be my king, Jimmy, Jimmy, 
I will be your queen 

And often have I wondered 
How the years and I survived

I had a mother who sang to me 
An honest lullaby

 
I travelled all around the world 
And knew more than the other girls 
Of foreign languages and schools 
Paris, Rome and Istanbul 
But those things never worked for me 
The town was much too small you see 
And people have a way of being 
Even smaller yet 
But all the same though life is hard 
And no one promised me a garden 
Of roses, so I did okay 
I took what I could get 
And did the things that I might do 
For those less fortunate 

And often have I wondered 
How the years and I survived 
I had a mother who sang to me 
An honest lullaby

 
Now look at you, you must be growing 
A quarter of an inch a day 
You've already lived near half the years 
You'll be when you go away 
With your teddy bears and alligators 
Enterprise communicators 
All the tiny aviators head into the sky 
And while the others play with you 
I hope to find a way with you 
And sometimes spend a day with you 
I'll catch you as you fly 
Or if I'm worth a mother's salt 
I'll wave as you go by 
And if you should ever wonder 
How the years and you'll survive 
Honey, you've got a mother who sings to you 
Dances on the strings for you 
Opens her heart and brings to you 
An honest lullaby

Songwriters: Joan C. Baez