Joan Baez on Singing Out

"To sing is to love and to affirm, to fly and soar, to coast into the hearts of the people who listen, to tell them that life is to live, that love is there, that nothing is a promise, but that beauty exists, and must be hunted for and found. That death is a luxury, better to be romanticized and sung about than dwelt upon in the face of life.

To sing is to praise God and the daffodils, and to praise God is to thank Him, in every note within my small range, and every color in the tones of my voice, with every look into the eyes of my audience, to thank Him. Thank you God, for letting me be born, for giving me eyes to see the daffodils lean in the wind, all my brothers, all my sisters for giving me ears to hear crying, legs to come running, hands to smooth damp hair, a voice to laugh with, and to sing with...to sing to you and the daffodils...which are you." Joan Baez
photo by: J. Gordon Anderson 1969