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In Forty Days
Joan Baez
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Yesy, yesy. Mm-hmm. I will do that. What time does the meeting start? He may be a little
late because he's writing, writing, writing, but anyway he'll come down. I'll have him
do that. You're welcome. Bye bye. In 40 days I'm going to be busted for three years for
refusing to cooperate with the draft. I mean the initial presumption of something like
military conscription is that the lives of the people subject to it don't belong to those
people. I mean that those lives exist as tools and property of the state. I mean you know
when you're given a draft card it's a very simple statement. I mean it's like a deed
of ownership. It says the life of the bearer belongs to the United States of America and
its government and the society it represents to be used as those things see fit.
Ah, soul baby. Yeah, how come you're unsure about that? That's what I don't quite understand.
It's not being sure about that. It's that I feel like, I feel so I'm mimicking. Like I've
never seen the blues because, I mean what's an 18 year old middle class well-fed, well-dressed
American chick up doing, singing the blues, you know? So I know you're about right seeing it.
I mean the thing about fear is it really makes people blind. You know, it allows grown men to
drop jelly gasoline on children, which is what does happen every day. It's precisely that kind
of blindness that allows a few men to live off in luxury off the starvation of thousands upon
thousands. I mean maybe, I mean maybe the best way to explain why that process happens in the
world is to say we live in a blind society. I mean the society that's blind to itself is blind
to the rest of the world. When I get into music, there's spiritual and very spiritual music,
sort of mental spiritual music, which is all, you know, classical and then there are these funny
levels. Somewhere at the bottom of it, it's gut music. Not that it's bad because there are times
when gut music is the only thing that can move you, the only thing that you feel, but it's as
limited as any other one. Three years ago, non-cooperation with the draft was not a reality.
There were a few people who did it, but you know, by and large, nobody knew about it and nobody had
any idea that it was possible for them to do that. And I remember, you know, when I first sent my
draft cards back and I was student body president at Stanford, you know, and going out on White
Plaza at Stanford and, you know, saying I'd send my draft cards back and people, you know, people's
reaction was, you know, Jesus, the cat's crazy, you know, and then they watched and suddenly that
became a reality to the point where a lot of those people who thought I was crazy sent their draft
cards back. You know, I mean, it doesn't matter whether Richard Nixon wants to have an army. If
there are no soldiers, Richard Nixon can't have an army. I mean, if the people of this country decide
that they aren't going to be part of that army, then there's not going to be an army. Because it
has to relate to my life, it has to relate to the fact that I'm always trying to tell people to go a
step beyond entertaining and go a step beyond just filling people's heads with something, you know,
like I refuse to call myself an entertainer and I refuse to be an entertainer. I refuse to let
an evening go by with just having had people entertain.
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Artist
Joan Baez
Uploaded byUNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP
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