Introduction:
For more than six decades, Joan Baez has been known as the voice of a generation. With her soaring soprano, she carried songs of hope and protest through the 1960s, giving strength to movements that demanded justice and equality. “We Shall Overcome” was not just a song she sang—it was a belief she carried deep in her heart, even as she admitted that the fight would outlast her own lifetime.
In 2018, Baez stepped away from the stage after her final tour, retreating to a quiet home near San Francisco. There, she found freedom in expressing sides of herself that the public rarely saw. Long before she became famous, she had drawn upside down and written backwards, quirks that evolved into full-fledged art. Today, her drawings and paintings have found a new life in published works, reflecting the same honesty that defines her music.
Now, at 82, Baez has invited the world to see her in an even more intimate way through the documentary Joan Baez: I Am a Noise. It is not simply a portrait of a career—it is an unveiling of her inner life, struggles, and the secrets she once kept hidden. She handed directors the key to a storage unit filled with letters, home movies, and journals she had never dared to open herself. In revisiting them, she confronted both light and darkness.
Among the most painful revelations was her acknowledgment of sexual impropriety from her father toward her and her sister, Mimi, when they were children. For years, she had no memory of it, only fragments that surfaced much later in life. Both parents denied it, but Baez felt the truth could no longer remain buried. In sharing it, she hoped not only to heal herself but also to encourage others to face their own unspoken pain. “Most people… we’re not going to talk about it. And then you can’t really heal,” she explained.
Her personal life was often as complex as her activism. Her romance with Bob Dylan ended in heartbreak, her marriage to journalist David Harris began with him going to prison, and her hopes of being the “perfect wife and mother” never quite materialized. Still, she built deep connections, particularly with her son Gabriel, and remained steadfast in her role as an artist-activist, standing on the front lines of civil rights, anti-war protests, and global human rights campaigns.
Remarkably, Baez has also discovered a new gift: a deeper, huskier voice that surprises even her. Singing Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” in a lower register, she finds joy in this unexpected evolution. At the same time, she has allowed herself to embrace peace. After decades of feeling responsible for the world’s struggles, she now admits: “I don’t have to solve everybody’s problems and make world peace and do a concert all at once.”
For Joan Baez, the music, the battles, and the love stories are part of her legacy. But at long last, so too is the quiet—an earned peace she once thought impossible.