Joan Baez Urges Young Pop Stars to Take One Step
Joan Baez says modern pop musicians should use their platforms on political and social issues, and she wants them to do it with less hesitation. On Wiser Than Me With Julia Louis-Dreyfus, joan baez pushed back on silence from younger artists and singled out a few who have already moved into public protest.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the silence
“There’s a whole generation of really talented artists who are quite silent about the current assault on democracy,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus said in the interview that set up the exchange. Baez answered, “I think I understand where they’re coming from,” before turning to the wider pressure on artists who can fill stadiums but avoid public lines in the sand.
“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,” she said. That is the friction inside the pop conversation right now: major names can command huge audiences, but Baez is still measuring them against the older protest tradition she helped define.
Brandi Carlile and Maggie Rogers
Baez said “a few are willing to speak out,” naming Brandi Carlile and Maggie Rogers in particular. She said Rogers put her views “right out there front and center on the stage at a rally against ICE,” and she linked the broader moment to the repeated use of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in demonstrations.
She also drew a straight line to what she hears in the movement songs themselves: “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.” The point is not nostalgia for its own sake. It is a standard she still thinks younger writers are being asked to meet, even if she says she understands why some keep quiet.
March and earlier this year
Baez has already been on the street with some of the same artists she praised. In March, she and Maggie Rogers took part in the Artists United for Our Freedoms event in protest of Trump’s changes to the Kennedy Center. Earlier this year, Baez performed with Rogers and Tom Morello at the No Kings rally at the Minnesota State Capitol.
Last year, she told Rolling Stone that “What we need is an anthem, but it’s impossible to write an anthem.” She added, “‘One in a Million’ comes closest, but you can’t drag that out of nothing,” and called “The Dylan stuff” still internationally known while contrasting it with “We Shall Overcome.” For readers tracking where protest music goes next, Baez is making the bet in public: she wants younger stars to stop waiting for the perfect song and start using the stage they already have.
