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Raw, romantic and radical: Joan Baez’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!
With her Diamonds and Rust album turning 50, we rate the standout tracks from the strident American folk singer and political activist
Most of the Gulf Winds album leaned towards commerciality and a sound that would now be called yacht rock, but the 10-minute title track is something else: Baez alone with her guitar, singing a potent, moving reflection upon her childhood, her Mexican heritage, her father’s idealism and her parents’ divorce. Photograph: David Redfern/Redferns The sound of Fishing is standard-issue late-90s post-grunge US rock, but it’s a melodically powerful song: moreover, the barely contained fury with which Baez sings folk singer Richard Shindell’s sharp lyrics – about an undocumented Latin American migrant facing a US immigration officer – is quite something to behold. But for all its scattering of historical details, Diamonds and Rust could be about anyone: its cocktail of tender nostalgia, weariness (“here comes your ghost again”) and simmering anger provoked by encountering an old flame with whom things ended badly is perfectly fixed, universally applicable and delivers an emotional gut punch.
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