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JOAN BAEZ ON AMERICA UNDER TRUMP: ‘IT FEELS LIKE TORN FABRIC’  
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Interview by David Browne
June 11, 2025
Rolling Stone
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_ The folk singer and social activist on the reasons protesting has
gotten “dangerous,” why it’s essential to still show up, and
what she felt seeing A Complete Unknown for the first time _

Joan Baez, Photo by Ulysses Ortega

 

Pull into the tree-cloaked driveway of Joan Baez
[[link removed]]’s home south of San
Francisco and roam around her house and the first thing you’ll
notice are oversize portraits she’s painted of Volodymyr Zelensky,
Martin Luther King Jr., Anthony Fauci, Gandhi, and the late
congressman John Lewis. For years, Baez would display two at a time in
her front yard, but now they lean forlornly on a porch. 

“Just after Trump got elected [last fall], somebody tattled to
somebody in the city, who says, ‘Does she have permits?’” Baez
says. “It was clearly a snitchy kind of thing.” While one of her
friends cut the paintings down, Baez went into the tree house in her
front yard and blasted recordings by soprano opera singer Renée
Fleming. “It was my way of civil disobedience,” she says with a
mischievous grin. “Just to do something.”

For decades in the public eye, Baez has been doing something in the
name of music, social justice, and civil rights. She’s been
lionized, condemned (even sometimes by the left), mocked, dismissed,
revered, and occasionally rediscovered. That part of her life seemed
to start winding down six years ago, when Baez wrapped up a farewell
tour that, she insists, is genuinely final.

At that point, Baez, now 84, entered what should have been her
chill-out years, devoted to painting and writing poetry, dancing daily
around her property to the Gipsy Kings, and spending time in the
rambling, funky-but-chic house where she’s lived for 55 years. The
place currently has 13 chickens that roam its grounds, provide her
with fresh eggs and, now and then, wander into her kitchen to peck
away at some cat food. “Now, I also get to paint my nails,” Baez
says, wriggling her hand to reveal aqua-blue fingernails.  

But as seen by the hubbub over her paintings of activists and public
figures, Baez keeps getting pulled back into the spotlight. Start with
the Bob Dylan
[[link removed]] biopic, _A Complete
Unknown
[[link removed]],_ which
thrust her fraught, long-ago relationship with Dylan (played by
Timothée Chalamet) back into the spotlight. Monica Barbaro’s
largely spot-on performance introduced Baez, her music, and her
folk-Madonna image to a generation born decades later. And then there
is, once more, Trump. When _Rolling Stone_ last visited Baez here,
he had just been elected president for the first time. Now that he’s
returned to the White House, more disruptive and alarming
[[link removed]] than
before, Baez has again found herself at rallies and released a new
protest song, “One in a Million,” with fellow veteran troubadour
Janis Ian. Baez is also helping devise a name for a new organization
she’s joining that would provide support for families of immigrants
whose breadwinners have been scooped up and imprisoned by ICE agents,
and she posts words of wisdom on her social media accounts,
including Facebook [[link removed]].
(Observing a newborn songbird in her driveway, she writes, “Her
beauty itself will offer us hope in the darkness and deliver us from
all that is evil.”)

But as Baez admits, both today at her home and in a follow-up
interview, she is also entering a new and challenging world. Brewing
up a fresh pot of coffee, Baez, in a black turtleneck with her hair in
a silver bob, settles in at her kitchen table. “This is an
interesting time,” she says, “because I’ve never been here
before.”

WHEN WE LAST TALKED HERE, IT WAS RIGHT AFTER DONALD TRUMP’S 2016
ELECTION. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT WE’D BE HERE AGAIN?
Surprised the shit out of me. Nobody could have dreamed this up.
Nobody could have predicted that it would turn into what it’s turned
into, because that’s for _other_ countries, the “shithole
countries.” This is turning into a shithole country because of them.
It’s all the evil things that shithole countries do. On the other
hand, we’ve all sort of known that the Heritage Foundation has been
plugging away and making plans, and we just weren’t prepared.

WHERE WERE YOU ON ELECTION NIGHT WHEN YOU HEARD THE RESULTS?
Oh, here. I didn’t hear the results. I saw my neighbor’s face. I
knew it was a disaster. But the truth is it’s been in the works for
50 years. It’s not even about Trump. He just turned out to be this
wizard of a disgusting human being who gives people the right to do
what he does.

IS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE THAT HAS
REALLY SHOCKED YOU? 
In the first 100 days, sending people like that [_snaps fingers_] to
prisons known for torture. All the work I did in Chile, Argentina,
Brazil, and the Eastern Bloc, and it’s the same mechanism, with all
the ruthlessness and the steps to the dictatorship. 

I’m worried about the speed at which they’re doing it and where
they’re going, and the horrible cruelty that takes place every day.
I really appreciated Bruce Springsteen repeating “It’s
happening _now_” [during his concerts in the U.K.
[[link removed]]].
Because you tend to say, “Oh, it’s going to be a rough four
years.” No, it’s now.  

HOW OFTEN DO YOU WATCH THE NEWS?
When I was retired from touring, I thought, “I’ll watch once in a
while.” But it wasn’t like this. So, I dole it out. I read
Substack and watch Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and John Oliver. And
then I’ll turn on a movie like _Twilight_. Just terrible. But
it’s wonderful to watch. It’s got nothing to do with fucking
anything.

DO YOU TAKE ANY—
Drugs? 

WELL, THAT, BUT ALSO CONSOLATION IN SOME OF THE PUSHBACK TRUMP HAS
RECEIVED FROM THE COURTS.
You have to take some heart in that. My beautiful granddaughter
Jasmine is a singer-songwriter but decided she wanted to be a lawyer.
She’ll be going to law school in August, and I’m thinking, “What
a time!” She wants to be a constitutional lawyer. We’re not going
to _have_ a fucking Constitution very likely. So, all I can do with
my son and my granddaughter is walk through this day by day and
encourage her to do what she’s doing.

I WAS JUST LISTENING TO YOUR PERFORMANCE AT WOODSTOCK, WHERE YOU TOLD
THE CROWD ABOUT THE FEDERAL AGENTS SHOWING UP AT YOUR AND YOUR
EX-HUSBAND AND ACTIVIST DAVID HARRIS’ HOME TO ARREST HIM FOR
RESISTING THE DRAFT. YOU EVEN HAD A PARTY TO SEND HIM OFF. IN TERMS OF
THAT KIND OF ARREST, DOES ANYTHING HAPPENING NOW REMIND YOU OF THAT
MOMENT?
You know, it’s so different now that I can’t even make that
connection. People say, “Is this like the Sixties?” I say the
Sixties was a garden party. For some people, it wasn’t. Some people
really got hurt. But this now is a machine.  

IN YOUR SECOND MEMOIR, YOU WROTE ABOUT THE IMPACT OF HEARING MARTIN
LUTHER KING SPEAK. IS THERE ANYBODY THESE DAYS WHO’S INSPIRED YOU IN
THE SAME WAY?
The Rev. William Barber came to dinner the other night; he’s a pal.
He has the spirit of God within him, and he’s determined to spread
it. We’re looking into this avalanche, and you [have to] stand up
like when he went in the Capitol rotunda the other day and got himself
arrested. He was praying in there, and he just said, “I had to do
it.”

WHAT ABOUT ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
[[link removed]]?  
She’s good. Smart. And I think she probably put herself on the line,
but on the line _now_.… I used to encourage people, “Come with
us. We get arrested, whatever.” But it’s just so dangerous. Taking
a risk now could be standing on the corner in a T-shirt that says
“I’m an illegal immigrant.” I’ve never experienced this kind
of fear. I wasn’t afraid when I went to jail back then. I’ve been
to places where I should have been scared: Vietnam, the South, Ku
Klux Klan.

WHY WEREN’T YOU SCARED THEN?
Denial and the need to push on, which was stronger than worrying. I
was afraid sometimes, but courage is a funny thing. It’s not because
somebody’s born courageous — it’s because you’re willing to do
stuff, even if you’re scared. To give you an idea of how dark I can
get now, my darkest joke is: The good news about climate change is
that if it gets us first, Trump won’t have time to build his death
camps. And you laugh, except he will. He’s moving so fast, my joke
isn’t even funny.

ONE OF THE CONCERNS NOW IS THAT ANY PROTESTS COULD LEAD TRUMP TO SEND
IN THE MILITARY, RESULTING IN A DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW.
He’s dying to have something. Nothing could make it easier for them,
because we can’t compete. Anybody who seriously thinks they can make
social change with violence is really innocent. No, you get squashed.
[Editor’s note: This interview was conducted prior to the ongoing
L.A. protests
[[link removed]].]

Ulysses Ortega for Rolling Stone

HAVE YOU HAD MOMENTS WHEN YOU’VE THOUGHT EVERYTHING YOU AND OTHERS
FOUGHT FOR IN THE SIXTIES HAS BEEN DISMANTLED?
I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the fact that things are
sliding backward. Things don’t ever stay where you want them to be.
Havel’s government, Mandela: Those are wonderful, amazing people,
and they do this wonderful, amazing stuff, and it lasts sometimes for
a good amount of time, and then somebody fucks it up.

We have to remember what’s sewn into the fabric of America. I keep
picturing the Blacks and whites at the lunch counter in Mississippi.
Those were enormous acts of courage, and they changed things, and
that’s the commitment we need now. So in the midst of this, it feels
like torn fabric.

MAYBE THERE WILL BE A PENDULUM SWING IN THE OTHER DIRECTION LIKE THERE
WAS WITH REAGAN AFTER CARTER, OR TRUMP AFTER OBAMA.
This is different. I don’t know how you make up for what’s already
been done.   

YOU’VE SUNG AT A FEW ANTI-TRUMP, PRO-DEMOCRACY RALLIES. WHAT WAS IT
LIKE PERFORMING AGAIN?
I have a lower register that I refused to accept because I couldn’t
be my famous soprano anymore. So, I quit singing. But somewhere in
there is the voice. I’ve dipped into the lower range and have found
the songs that work for it.  

WHICH SONGS CAN YOU STILL SING?
I can make different things work, like “Imagine” and all the Civil
Rights songs. “We Shall Overcome” is a beautiful song, but it
takes us so far back. There has to be something fresher than that.

WE REALLY AREN’T HEARING MANY NEW PROTEST SONGS THESE DAYS.
I wouldn’t want to be a part of a movement without the music, but
you’re right. What we need is an anthem, but it’s impossible to
write an anthem. “One in a Million”
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can’t drag that out of nothing. It has to come from somewhere else.
“Imagine” is still so beautiful. The Dylan stuff is still
internationally known, and it doesn’t have the same sort of thing
for me that “We Shall Overcome” does. Way back then, I had the
brains to know we were not going to overcome everything and have world
peace. Now, it’s even more so.

IN YOUR POETRY COLLECTION _WHEN YOU SEE MY MOTHER, ASK HER TO
DANCE,_ YOU WROTE, IN A PIECE ABOUT DYLAN, “WHO’S WRITING THAT
KIND OF STUFF TODAY, MISTER CREATOR?”
I asked Josh Ritter to write a song, and he wrote one called “I
Carry the Flame,” which comes closest to a marching, Pete Seeger
sort of folk song. I sang it a little at the May 1 demonstration [in
Mountain View, California]. But we need more of those, and Janis’
“One in a Million.”

HAVE YOU LISTENED TO JESSE WELLES
[[link removed]],
THE POLITICALLY OUTSPOKEN TROUBADOUR FROM THE SOUTH?
The young guy. Just amazing. That’s going somewhere. Gotta harness
that little kid. How old is he? 

HE’S 30. WHAT IMPRESSED YOU ABOUT HIS SONGS?
It’s real. It’s just coming out. He’s channeling that sort of
stuff. It just comes through you. That’s what I saw, anyway.

DO YOU KEEP UP WITH MODERN FEMALE SINGER-SONGWRITERS?
I listen to whatever my granddaughter sends me. I got to liking Lana
Del Rey
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a bit. Chappell Roan
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liked. When my son Gabe and Jasmine and I are together, we play Lana
and Hozier on a loop on the long trip up and down the coast. I’m
friends with Lana. Don’t forget to mention my crush on Hozier. Take
me to church with that bad boy.

HOW DID YOU COME TO KNOW LANA?
Out of the blue, she asked me if I would be interested in singing at
her show at the Greek Theatre. And I thought, “Where the fuck
is _this_ coming from?” I had no idea. I was joking with her and
said, “Your audiences are all 16 years old. They don’t know me.”
She said, “Well, they should.” That’s a risk for a young
songwriter, because if they say “_Ta da_ — Joan Baez!” one
third of their public is not going to know what she’s talking about.
But they take that risk anyway. Taylor [Swift, who invited Baez
onstage in 2015] did the same thing. Some of Lana’s-age folks called
me “badass,” which I thought was fantastic. She’s an interesting
woman. She’s slightly on another planet, but I appreciate that and
her and her music. 

WHAT’S THE STORY BEHIND LANA’S MENTION OF YOU IN “DANCE TILL WE
DIE”: [[link removed]] “I’M
COVERIN’ JONI AND DANCIN’ WITH JOAN”? 
She came up to hang out, and we had dinner and then went off to this 
Senegalese club in San Francisco where I’ve danced for years. She
didn’t dance. Her sister danced. She was very, very shy, actually,
in some ways. I did the dancing for her. She gave me a beautiful
necklace, a little gold thing with “Joanie” on it.

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, A MINI CONTROVERSY EMERGED OVER “THE NIGHT
THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN,” THE ROBBIE ROBERTSON SONG THAT WAS ONE
OF YOUR BIGGEST HITS. SINCE IT WAS NARRATED BY A WHITE SOUTHERNER
DURING THE CIVIL WAR, SOME QUESTIONED
[[link removed]] WHETHER
IT SHOULD BE REWRITTEN OR CANCELED. WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF THAT?
I was thinking about that this morning when I played “One in a
Million” for Karen O’Connor, my director friend. She said, “Let
me listen to the words again.” I thought, “Jesus, I don’t even
listen to the words to stuff.” It’s a feeling, and the feeling
with “Dixie” was the same. I didn’t know what it was saying. I
just thought it was wonderful. It’s like the stuff I do in foreign
languages. Once I get the syllables down, I don’t even know what
I’m saying, and it doesn’t make any difference.

“Dixie” wasn’t in demand, but if somebody wanted to hear it and
I felt like singing it, I would have done it. I got to be politically
correct in the right place . I knew at some point somebody was going
to make an issue of it. But who cares? Who gives a shit? Wonderful
song.

Ulysses Ortega for Rolling Stone

SPEAKING OF PROTEST SINGERS, WHEN DID YOU FIRST HEAR ABOUT A  MOVIE
CALLED _A COMPLETE UNKNOWN_?
I heard a lot of talk about it. I guess I thought, “I don’t know
what this is going to be, whether it would be right or a bunch of
nonsense.” As it moved along, I thought, “People are getting
serious about this thing. It’s going to be a real movie.”

DID ANYONE FROM THE FILM OR THE DYLAN CAMP REACH OUT, ESPECIALLY SINCE
YOU’RE A CHARACTER IN IT?
Are you kidding? I reached out to _them,_ to the actors: “Would
they like to talk to me?” So, Monica called, and then Ed Norton.
They both had long conversations with me. Monica said, “If you like
it, please tell me. But don’t tell me if you didn’t like it.” I
said, “Listen, if we don’t like it, we’ll throw popcorn at the
screen, but I think we’ll probably like it.”

SO, YOU DIDN’T HEAR FROM DYLAN DIRECTLY?
Come on. You’ve worked for _Rolling Stone_ long enough to know the
answer to that. [_Goes into Dylan imitation_] “Hey, Joanie, guess
what, we’re doin’ this.” Silly question.

WHEN DID YOU SEE IT? 
Well, I didn’t go on Christmas Day [when the movie opened]. But
sometime during that week, with my group of all women that started
with my mom. [The movie people] asked if I wanted to see it privately.
I didn’t.

WHAT WAS THE EXPERIENCE LIKE, SEEING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME?
People in my camp, they’re outraged, and they’re fact-checking.
And I said, “Don’t bother.” It’s a fun movie. Certainly got a
feeling of the Village, but I never lived in the Village. The only
time was that short period of time with Bob. And it wasn’t the
Chelsea Hotel, it was the Earle. But details, details, see what I
mean? Someone said, “Did you really do that to Bob?” [_Flashes a
middle finger._] I said, “No, I did this.” [_Flashes both middle
fingers._] But I was pleased they were getting the feeling right. The
music was brilliant. I thought Chalamet did a good job. He was a bit
too squeaky clean. I could have clued him in on that one.

MEANING THAT IN HIS DEPICTION, BOB DIDN’T LOOK DIRTY ENOUGH?
That is correct. But then, that was part of the charm, I’m sure. The
unwashed phenomenon.

WHAT DID THEY GET RIGHT ABOUT BOB?
Oh, a lot. A lot of the movement, facial movement, talking, even some
of the singing. The attitude. I mean, a _bad_ attitude.

HOW ABOUT THE DEPICTION OF YOU?
Some of the shots from behind of Monica and Dylan look startlingly
like me. People said her speaking voice was really [close to mine].
She worked like mad to get it right. She even had this down [_kneads
her fingers together_]. Dumb things like my nervous tic. I saw her at
a press thing and called her and said, “Is that something you do, or
is that something you picked up for me?” And she said she had picked
it up from watching me. 

CHALAMET SEEMED TO GET DYLAN’S OWN JITTERY HAND GESTURES.
[_Nods, then bends a thumb far back._] Bob has a thumb that goes like
that. Not everybody’s going to have that. Somebody told me that the
thumb bent back like that means you’re a murderer .

THE MOVIE ALSO SEEMED TO MAKE A TRIANGLE OUT OF YOU, BOB, AND SUZE
ROTOLO, BUT HISTORICALLY SPEAKING MOST OF US ASSUMED IT ALL DIDN’T
OVERLAP THAT WAY.
Well, it wasn’t happening in my face. I thought I was after Suze
Rotolo, but I don’t even know. I didn’t ask. Don’t ask, don’t
tell. I think that, from what I’ve heard, they really didn’t do
her justice at all. But I’m glad Bobby Neuwirth was in it. And funny
old Grossman. [Actor Dan Fogler] looked like Grossman. 

MORE THAN 60 YEARS LATER, WHAT STILL FASCINATES PEOPLE ABOUT YOU AND
BOB?
If you look me up and Google me, there’s maybe one thing on me, and
then it’s directly to “Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.” I had a great
gift the other day. A 23-year-old girl who is an assistant at one of
the clinics where I went was just finding out about me. She said,
“You’re famous!” I said, “Meh … Google me.” Then she says
[_indicating a photo of Dylan_], “Who’s this guy?” And I said,
“Thank you.” Then I decided to explain who it was. If you’re in
a room with Bob, anywhere with Bob, you’re diminished automatically.
But there are worse people to be glued at the hip to.

IN A RECENT INTERVIEW, YOU TALKED ABOUT WRITING DYLAN A PERSONAL
LETTER THAT EXPRESSED YOUR FEELINGS. THEN YOU SENT IT TO HIM — BUT
INTENTIONALLY DIDN’T INCLUDE A RETURN ADDRESS NOR ANY WAY TO CONTACT
YOU.
That was about 10 years ago when I wrote that. I was painting him down
in my little studio, when he was really, really young. Had to be 21 or
something. And I put on a record of his music, and I started to cry.
And I cried forever and painted, and it washed it all away. Then it
was done. There’s no more resentment. I was lucky enough to have him
in my life and have those songs and have the voice to sing them.
Gratitude was taking the place of frustration and hurt and bullshit.

WHAT DID YOU WRITE?
I just told him exactly what I told you. Very simple.

WHEN I INTERVIEWED YOU IN 2017, YOU SAID YOUR NAME WAS AT ONE POINT A
“JINX,” ESPECIALLY IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES WHEN YOU WERE WITHOUT A
RECORD CONTRACT.
Nobody was interested in recording me. If we had made a demo of me and
put on it “young woman songwriter,” we would have probably had
more of a chance of being heard and taken seriously. In that sense, I
was really hurting from being a legend, but not current.

DO YOU THINK THE MOVIE, WHICH DEPICTS YOU AS PRETTY BADASS, WILL
CHANGE THAT PERCEPTION OF YOU? 
I hope so. I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to it, but I know
it sparked a visibility on a certain level that hadn’t been around.

IT’S BEEN SIX YEARS NOW SINCE THE LAST SHOW OF YOUR FAREWELL TOUR.
ANY REGRETS?
Absolutely not. I didn’t know what to expect, because everybody
says, “Once you quit, they go back out and go on.” Elton said to
me, “I just can’t wait to be with my kids.” And he’s back on
the road.… I can’t remember the first show I saw after I’d quit
touring myself. But I thought, “Well, this would be an interesting
test.” And I didn’t miss it, not a bit. It was time. I mean, 10
nights at the Olympia — time to quit. Don’t want to go back and do
20 .

TWO YEARS AGO, YOU WERE THE SUBJECT OF A DOCUMENTARY, _I AM A
NOISE,_ IN WHICH YOU REVEALED YOU AND YOUR SISTER MIMI HAD DEALT WITH
SEXUAL-ABUSE ISSUES FROM YOUR FATHER. WHAT MADE YOU GO PUBLIC?
A combination of things. I was 79 when we started the movie, so how
about an honest legacy and not make me try to look prettier than I am,
or whatever it was? This is a life well-lived. It’s interesting how
many people have responded, and it’s in the same way Trump allows
people to be pigs. This will allow people to maybe look in their past
where they’d have not been willing to look. One woman came up to me
and said her mother was seventysomething and had been in tears. She
said, “My mother talked about stuff she never talked to me about,”
meaning that kind of . Karen [O’Connor, the film’s co-director]
would say, “Everybody’s got something.” And if you can identify
your own or give them permission … that was one of the nice results
that came from it. 

WHAT DID YOU PERSONALLY GET OUT OF HAVING THAT OUT THERE PUBLICLY?
In some ways, I was relieved because I’d spent so much of my life
with people thinking, “Oh, she’s so calm, so peaceful.” And no!
It was helpful for me to show that I have some idea of the battles I
went through and how utterly imperfect I am in every way. 

PEOPLE DO SEE YOU AS UNRUFFLED.
I do some serious ruffling on my own.

THE FILM ALSO EXPLORED YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ANOTHER WOMAN, KIM
CHAPPELL, IN THE SIXTIES.
No one paid any attention to that [in the movie]. It’s old hat. We
certainly weren’t going to say anything [in the Sixties]. We thought
we were getting away with all this. Now, Jasmine has this friend of
hers who just came out as bi, so everybody’s having parties. Back
when Kim and I were together, you didn’t talk about it, but I think
that it’s almost the opposite. You get to be part of clubs or LGBTQ
and women’s rights. Now, it’s like points.

AS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MOVES FORWARD, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR
ROLE IN TERMS OF ACTIVISM?
I think my life will be defined now again by the state of this country
in the world. I have encouraged people to not try and sit this one
out. They have to go do something. How about showing up with a friend
on a street corner wearing an “I’m an illegal immigrant”
T-shirt? Don’t wait for 30,000 people to show up. 

But I’ll tell you my dilemma. In the old days, when I briefly went
to jail, they’d give you your meds, they have you make telephone
calls. It wasn’t a heavy-duty prison, but a lockup. Now, if I’m in
that position of civil disobedience, I have a problem encouraging
people if I’m not going to go to jail with them. Like most people my
age, I would be useless without the medication I take on a regular
basis.   

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU TYPICALLY FIND PEOPLE ASK YOU FOR?
It’s universal: “What can I do?” My answer is, find something
that calls you that’s not going to be big-scale. The next time you
hear yourself say, “I’m overwhelmed,” follow it with “and.”
“I’m overwhelmed, _and_ I need to do something.” Even “I’m
scared to death, _and_ I’m going to have a margarita.”

There’ll be little victories, and hang on to them and keep doing
them, and we’ll see what develops. I really am an advocate of just
keep doing it and don’t expect it to change the world. Just show
your face now. Stand up. Show up.   

Enjoying yourself has become an act of resistance. Action is the
antidote to despair. We’re supposed to be cowering. I went to my
granddaughter’s graduation in Miami, and I ended up dancing with
drag queens. I thought, “OK, this is how we do it.” You get nuts.
Drink a lot. I went to a strip club. That was my statement for the
week. Dance with a big, lascivious drag queen and post it. It’s good
trouble dancing with drag queens, because they want to abolish drag
scenes. I’m sure [Trump would] like to abolish _me,_ but I hope I
will have earned that if it reaches that point.

_David Browne is a Senior Writer at Rolling Stone, where he
contributes deep-dive reports, reviews and profiles on music. He is
also the author of seven books, including biographies of Sonic Youth,
Jeff Buckley, the Grateful Dead, and, most recently "Crosby, Stills,
Nash & Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock's Greatest
Supergroup."_

* Joan Baez
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* Social Movements
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* A Complete Unknown
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