My husband and I recently saw the Taylor Swift film. Since tickets to her San Francisco show cost $49-499 (plus fees), were hard to come by, and averaged $3,801 on the resale market, we got quite a bargain with our senior rate of $13.25 each. Even the risk of a parking violation for exceeding the 2-hour limit would have made it a steal. And we got much better seats!
Here’s the sum total of my Taylor Swift knowledge before I saw the three-hour film of her last 2023 Eras Tour concert in the U.S, in LA’s SoFi stadium:
- She is about the same age as my daughters (who could pretty much care less about her)
- She is a young, pretty singer-songwriter who makes the Beatles-era screaming, underwear-throwing audiences seem tame
- She is super-rich
- Pod Save America host Jon Favreau’s wife, Emily, is a huge fan
- Heeding Taylor’s call, 35,000 people registered to vote in one hour
- She seems like a nice person
- She is either dating or not dating Travis Kelce, an NFL tight end, but is definitely messing with the media
Actually, they both have pretty tight ends. That much I picked up from the movie, as Taylor strutted her stuff, musically and physically, non-stop for an energetic 3-hour extravaganza. Early on, I leaned over and whispered to my husband, “Is this a prequel or a sequel to Barbie?” Taylor and her fellow female blockbuster bear a strong physical resemblance, and both can be interpreted as either sexualized objects or the embodiment of feminist power.
At any rate, my husband and I only made it through the first two hours not because we didn’t like the movie, but because (a) bladder size; (b) we were worried about getting a parking ticket; and (c) we wanted dinner. We didn’t feel we were missing out on that much since there’s no plot or character arc to complete in a live-concert film. We got the gist of her pleasant music, generosity toward her fans, sexpot/wholesome vibe, and fabulous production values.
Plus, according to Business Insider, some far-right commentators blamed Taylor Swift for election losses on November 7 after she encouraged her fans to vote. Swifties are also aiming their wrath at the far-right candidate in Argentina’s presidential election. So that alone makes me a fan.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Taylor ever missed the time when she was just a girl with the voice and a guitar alone on a stage.
Joan Baez was that girl. To a large extent, she still is. Right after we saw the Taylor Swift movie, we took in the new documentary, Joan Baez: I am a Noise (senior rate: $9.75 each). It makes for an interesting double feature if you’ve got five hours to spare and no fear of parking tickets.
The two—the films and the women–could not be more different. Although there’s music in I am a Noise, it’s by no means a concert movie. But it is a portrait of a full and complicated person—a sister, a daughter, a musician, an artist, an activist, an ambivalent lover, wife, and mother.
I knew a lot about Joan Baez before this film:
- Most of her lyrics by heart
- Her relationship with Bob Dylan as told through “Diamonds and Rust”
- She was jailed, along with my mother-in-law, for a month in Santa Rita County Jail, for blocking an induction center in protest of the Vietnam war–and sang for all the inmates, protesters and prostitutes alike
- She was briefly married to the anti-war activist David Harris, and together they had a son, Gabriel
- She was ubiquitous at civil rights and anti-war demonstrations
- She was Mimi Farina’s sister, and did a set most years at Mimi’s Bread and Roses fundraising concert, which I went to every year at Berkeley’s Greek Theater
- Mostly, though, she was the girl on the stage with a guitar and the voice of an angel
What I did not know is that Joan was also a great visual artist; came from a family with extremely complicated dynamics, including a father who probably sexually abused his daughters; had intense love and rivalry with her sisters; and suffered from debilitating anxiety and depression from a young age. She described herself as being great at relating to thousands of people at once, and pretty terrible at one-on-ones. The documentary was one of the most honest self-appraisals I have ever seen.
Although Joan’s inner life is rich with pyrotechnics, her stagecraft had virtually none. When did this change? Was it MTV? Skyrocketing ticket prices demanding more than just a great musician? Audience attention spans of fleas? More likely I’m just another old fogey who thinks things were better in my day. I am definitely of the Joan Baez rather than the Taylor Swift era.
Taylor Swift’s tour was built around her albums as eras, while I am a Noise covered the sweep of some of America’s—and Joan’s own–more turbulent eras. It is more of a Coming to Terms movie than a Coming of Age one. And how could it not be? Joan is in her 9th decade, Taylor just mid-way through her 4th. She hasn’t lived long enough for a true retrospective, but is as important to her era as Joan was to mine.
Long may they both reign. I hope they always hold dear the era of being the girl with the voice and a guitar, alone on stage, and already enough.
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