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Rating: If we were to identify the most yearned-for among human rights with a female face, freedom, such a choice would devoutly fall on Joan Baez.
Pacifist and dissident, icon of the American anti-nationalist protest movement of the '60s, Joan Baez perfectly embodies the figure of the committed musician, combining the American folk revival with a deep dedication to socio-political issues of global interest. On her vocal and guitar strings marched the utopia of social change and the decade's longing for catharsis.
If history often presented her for her activism and for her consistency (big words nowadays), it should be clarified that her musical journey went hand in hand with civil struggles: musically raised in Boston, Baez rose to fame in 1959, very young, when she became known and appreciated at the Newport Festival for her profound interpretative pathos and the clarity of her guitar style in the rediscovery of the purest folk traditions. Interpreter then, and not yet a composer, she gave her most significant pragmatic and innovative contribution to folk music by introducing the world’s traditions into the Greenwich Movement culture, with the interpretation of songs typical of different countries’ cultures.
Here folk music ceased to be folklore and was imbued with every sort of musical ethnicity, thus anticipating that concept of sound globality so dear to World Music; the protest voice of the world's youth was taking on a universal accent. And Baez, Quaker blood and a style that was as much of the American canyons as the English hills, began to draw widely from world repertoires, moving polyglot between an Argentine “Bamba” and Neapolitan “Nu bello cardillo”, between a French “Plaisir d’amour” and a Japanese “Blowing in the wind.”
Her tenacious and charismatic personality merged with an innate artistic harmony, quickly making her a true American emblem in a context where she would only be equaled by Dylan; and it was precisely the meeting with young Bob that influenced both their careers: Baez, who discovered the compositional talent of that rising star, began to perform Dylan's songs extensively in albums and concerts across America, and Dylan himself, a true creative forge, who benefited from the support of an artist already nationally established as a launch pad. An inevitable love story would spark between them, as legendary as it was discussed, the end of which in 1965 would also be documented by director Pennebaker in the film “Don’t look back.”
In the same year, between a personal love at sunset and a global conflict at dawn, Joan Baez reached what is probably her artistic pinnacle: “Farewell Angelina.”
With folk-rock not yet in vogue, a certain wind of change in the musical world had been heralded by artists like the Byrds, the Leaves, Dylan himself, and the often forgotten Beau Brummels, so that in such sound pollution Baez, in her new album, abandoned those conservative standards that had characterized her in the past in favor of more complex arrangements, calling upon other musicians for the first time: Bruce Langhorne on electric guitar, Russ Savakus on bass, and Ralph Rinzler on mandolin.
The choice of the first three tracks to interpret fell on Dylan: the eponymous “Farewell Angelina”, a Dylan unreleased, is a poignant ballad built around the story of a young man who must leave his beloved to go to war; Baez's rendition is of such emphasis as to make it one of the greatest successes of folk in general. “Daddy, you been on my mind”, with country hues, and “It’s all over now, baby blue”, a folk in falsetto, are sad goodbye stories, again from Dylan's pen, in which Baez's vocal talent and intensity stand out. In “The wild mountain time”, a classic by Romoff, and “Colours”, a Donovan cover, Langhorne’s guitar drones are masterfully woven with Baez's melodies, and some additional touches could very well have made them hits.
“Ranger’s command” by Woody Guthrie, the father of folk-revival, enchants with its lyrical purity and Baez's sweet vocal lines; “A satisfied mind”, with an evident country accent, seems to foreshadow by a few years the musical choices Baez will undertake in the late '60s; conversely, “The river in the pines”, a traditional track, is almost a return to the simple and unadorned sounds of the past. The territories of world folk are explored with “Sagt Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind” and “Pauvre Ruteboeuf”, softly epic in Baez’s identification. And finally, Dylan returns in the closing track, a “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” somewhat gloomy in its relevance, being a bit the doctrinal summary of the protest movement that has extended over the years to this day, constant protest but unfortunately useless, since the world's problems have remained unchanged.
And if today her hair is no longer long and raven, and her crystalline soprano voice is no longer what it once was, she, a unique case in a musical environment where metamorphism has always been a necessity, has continued her consistent path of protest against the American system. Her social commitment, moral integrity, her living for and with the people, and not for convenience or façade, remain intact and current, today as in that August of '63, when she dreamed alongside Martin Luther King.
Five stars are for the folk-singer by definition, for the artistic mother of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Patti Smith, five stars of humility and consistency, five stars shining in a firmament of peace and freedom.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Farewell, Angelina (03:18)
Farewell, Angelina
The bells of the crown
Are being stolen by bandits
I must follow the sound.
The triangle tingles
and the trumpets play slow.
Farewell, Angelina
the sky is on fire
and I must go.
There's no need for anger
There's no need for blame.
There's nothing to prove
Everything's still the same.
Just a table standing empty
by the edge of the sea means
Farewell, Angelina
the sky is trembling
and I must leave.
The jack and the queen
have forsake the courtyard.
Fifty-two gypsies
now file past the guards
In the space where the deuce
and the ace once ran wild
Farewell, Angelina
the sky is falling
I'll see you in a while.
See the cross-eyed pirates sitting
perched in the sun
shooting tin cans
with a sawed-off shotgun.
And the neighobrs they clap
and they cheer with each blast.
Farewell, Angelina
the sky's changing color
and I must leave fast
King Kong, little elves
on the rooftops they dance
Valentino-type tangos
while the makeup man's hands
shut the eyes of the dead
not to embarrass anyone.
But Farewell, Angelina
the sky's embarrassed
and I must be gone.
The machine guns are roaring
the puppets heave rocks
and fiends nail time bombs
to the hands of the clocks.
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it,
But Farewell, Angelina
the sky is erupting
I must go where it's quiet.
03 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (03:25)
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind you, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue
Oh, it's all over now, Baby Blue.
05 Ranger's Command (03:18)
Come all of you cowboys all over this land I'll sing you the law of the Ranger's command. To hold a six-shooter and never to run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns. I met a fair maiden whose name I don't know I asked her to the round-up with me would she go. She said she'd go with me to the cold round-up And drink that hard liquor from a cold bitter cup. We started for the round-up in the fall of the year Expecting to get there with a herd of fat steer. When the rustlers broke on us in the dead hour of night She rose from her warm bed a battle to fight. She rose from her warm bed with a gun in each hand Saying, "Come all you cowboys, and fight for your land." Come all of you cowboys, and don't ever run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns.
06 Colours (03:06)
Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
In the morning, when we rise, In the morning, when we rise
That's the time
That's the time
I love the best
Green is the color of the sparkling corn
In the morning, when we rise, In the morning, when we rise
That's the time
That's the time
I love the best
Blue is the color of the sky
In the morning, when we rise, In the morning, when we rise
That's the time
That's the time
I love the best
Mellow is the feeling that I get
When I see her, uhh-hmm, When I see her, oh yeah
That's the time
That's the time
I love the best
Freedom is a word I rarely use
Without thinking, oh yeah, Without thinking, hm-m
Of the time
Of the time
When I've been loved
Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
In the morning, when we rise, In the morning, when we rise
That's the time
That's the time
I love the best
07 Satisfied Mind (03:27)
How many times have you heard someone say
"If I had his money, I could do things my way?"
Little they know that it's so hard to find
One rich man in a hundred with a satisfied mind.
Once I was waitin' for fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed for to get a start in life's game
Suddenly it happened, I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind
Money can't buy back your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely, or a love that's grown cold
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
Compared to the man with a satisfied mind
When my life is ended, my time has run out
My trials and my loved ones, I'll leave them no doubt
But one thing's for certain, when it comes my time
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind
08 The River in the Pines (03:37)
Oh, Mary was a maiden
When the birds began to sing.
She was sweeter than the blooming rose
So early in the spring.
Her thoughts were gay and happy
And the morning gay and fine,
For her lover was a river boy
From the river in the pines.
Now Charlie, he got married
To his Mary in the spring
When the trees were budding early
And the birds began to sing.
But early in the autumn
When the fruit is in the wine,
I'll return to you, my darling
From the river in the pines.
It was early in the morning
In Wisconsin's dreary clime
When he rode the fatal rapids
For that last and fatal time.
They found his body lying
On the rocky shore below
Where the silent water ripples
And the whispering cedars blow.
Now every raft of lumber
That comes down the Chippewa,
There's a lonely grave that's
Visited by drivers on their way
They plant wild flowers upon it
In the morning fair and fine.
'Tis the grave of two young lovers
From the river in the pines
09 Pauvre Ruteboeuf (03:37)
Que sont mes amis devenus
Que j'avais de si près tenus
Et tant aimés
Ils ont été trop clairsemés
Je crois le vent les a ôtés
L'amour est morte
Ce sont amis que vent emporte
Et il ventait devant ma porte
Les emporta
Avec le temps qu'arbres défeuille
Quand il ne reste en branche feuille
Qui n'aille à terre
Avec pauvreté qui m'atterre
Qui de partout me fait la guerre
L'amour est morte
Ne convient pas que vous raconte
Comment je me suis mis à honte
En quelle manière
Que sont mes amis devenus
Que j'avais de si près tenus
Et tant aimés
Ils ont été trop clairsemés
Je crois le vent les a ôtés
L'amour est morte
Ce sont amis que vent emporte
Et il ventait devant ma porte
Les emporta
Pauvre sens et pauvre mémoire
M'a Dieu donné le roi de gloire
Et pauvre rente
Et droit au cul quand bise vente
Le vent me vient le vent m'évente
L'amour est morte
Le mal ne sait pas seul venir
Tout ce qui m'était à venir
M'est avenu
M'est avenu
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