Joan, still a fervent pacifist at 67, has a new album Day After Tomorrow (the title song is an anti war ballad by Tom Waits)
In an interview with CNN she talked about how she has grown with age, the changes in her voice, and about Barack Obama.
Joan’s MySpace page
Update[2008-11-07, 10:15 AM] Today, The Washington Post published a story, “Obama Win Gives Baez Something to Sing About“, noting that she was in the DC area this week for a couple of concerts and rushed over to the White House to be part of the impromptu rally there Tuesday night.
Forty-five years ago, at the Lincoln Memorial, Baez famously sang “We Shall Overcome” as she stood beside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington. Now, she was heralding the ascendancy of the country’s first black president, and you didn’t have to be a graying hippie to be nearly overwhelmed by the symbolism and symmetry.
The a cappella performance was stunning, even though her clarion soprano has lost some of its once-breathtaking power and lift. At 67, Baez works mostly in her middle range now, but she can still sound like an angel.
Day After Tomorrow
I got your letter today
And I miss you all so much, here
I can’t wait to see you all
And I’m counting the days, dear
I still believe that there’s gold
At the end of the world
And I’ll come home
To Illinois
On the day after tomorrowIt is so hard
And it’s cold here
And I’m tired of taking orders
And I miss old Rockford town
Up by the Wisconsin border
But I miss you won’t believe
Shoveling snow and raking leaves
And my plane will touch tomorrow
On the day after tomorrowI close my eyes
Every night
And I dream that I can hold you
They fill us full of lies
Everyone buys
About what it means to be a soldier
I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel
About all the blood that’s been spilled
Look out on the street
Get me back home
On the day after tomorrowYou can’t deny
The other side
Don’t want to die
Any more than we do
What I’m trying to say,
Is don’t they pray
To the same God that we do?
Tell me, how does God choose?
Whose prayers does he refuse?
Who turns the wheel?
And who throws the dice
On the day after tomorrow?Mmmmmmm…
I’m not fighting
For justice
I am not fighting
For freedom
I am fighting
For my life
And another day
In the world here
I just do what I’ve been told
You’re just the gravel on the road
And the one’s that are lucky
One’s come home
On the day after tomorrowAnd the summer
It too will fade
And with it comes the winter’s frost, dear
And I know we too are made
Of all the things that we have lost here
I’ll be twenty-one today
I’ve been saving all my pay
And my plane will touch down
On the day after tomorrow
And my plane it will touch down
On the day after tomorrow