DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21216#0135
from the movie about Baez and Harris. She would not have allowed it to be on
the album if she were at odds with what Harris stated. With Baez beside him, he
teils the film interviewer:
There are idols and there are heroes. And they serve two different functions
and are present in two very different kinds of societies, which is an idol is
something that exists beyond the people that does their living for them. An
idol is something that teaches people what they can't be. You know I mean
that exists in a sense as the negation of the people who worship it...[he then
gives Marilyn Monroe as an example of an idol]. The other one is hero, a hero
is something that teaches people what they can be. I mean a hero is really an
available model, you know that doesn't exist as something that's impossible
to reach but as the embodiment of what everyone could be. If I'm gonna be a
hero then I'm going to insist on making everybody a hero. I mean that's the
only way I can relate to it. (cut five side two of Joan Baez Carry It On VSD
79313)
If "hero" means being "an available model" it also means that others are in a
position to profit from modeling that person. Making everybody a hero would
actually mean doing away with all heroes and thus contradicts itself. Harris'
remarks are far from modest. Later, after their divorce, Baez was critical of her
own adulation of Harris. She told, in an interview with Playgirl magazine, she
"hero worshipped him". From the context it is clear that Baez views this, in
retrospect, as in some sense a mistake.
On various occassions Baez has refered to certain people as being her heroes,
e.g. I.F. Stone (Berlin interview with this writer, 1980), and Leach Welensa
(tape of Stuttgart concert, 1981). At the Stuttgart concert she introduced one of
her songs by saying "So there's one song Pve written to a hero of mine, Leach
Welensa". Most recently Baez has commented on young people's desire to have
heroes. Refering to the Ulm Rock Festival described above (Chp. III) she re-
counts that:
I meant something to them — I represented the sixties, that was clear, I stood
for John Lennon, Bob Dylan, people they needed as heroes. They are fresh
out of heroes in the eighties. (in Rolling Stone, Apr. 14, 1983 p. 18).
Taking these Statements together we can draw some conclusions about Baez'
view of having heroes:
1) She sees this as potentially dangerous when one picks the wrong hero, but
hero worship is not severly criticised as is leadership. This I would explain by the
fact that the hero-crusader is often not a political leader, and it is political lea-
ders whom Baez rejects.
130
the album if she were at odds with what Harris stated. With Baez beside him, he
teils the film interviewer:
There are idols and there are heroes. And they serve two different functions
and are present in two very different kinds of societies, which is an idol is
something that exists beyond the people that does their living for them. An
idol is something that teaches people what they can't be. You know I mean
that exists in a sense as the negation of the people who worship it...[he then
gives Marilyn Monroe as an example of an idol]. The other one is hero, a hero
is something that teaches people what they can be. I mean a hero is really an
available model, you know that doesn't exist as something that's impossible
to reach but as the embodiment of what everyone could be. If I'm gonna be a
hero then I'm going to insist on making everybody a hero. I mean that's the
only way I can relate to it. (cut five side two of Joan Baez Carry It On VSD
79313)
If "hero" means being "an available model" it also means that others are in a
position to profit from modeling that person. Making everybody a hero would
actually mean doing away with all heroes and thus contradicts itself. Harris'
remarks are far from modest. Later, after their divorce, Baez was critical of her
own adulation of Harris. She told, in an interview with Playgirl magazine, she
"hero worshipped him". From the context it is clear that Baez views this, in
retrospect, as in some sense a mistake.
On various occassions Baez has refered to certain people as being her heroes,
e.g. I.F. Stone (Berlin interview with this writer, 1980), and Leach Welensa
(tape of Stuttgart concert, 1981). At the Stuttgart concert she introduced one of
her songs by saying "So there's one song Pve written to a hero of mine, Leach
Welensa". Most recently Baez has commented on young people's desire to have
heroes. Refering to the Ulm Rock Festival described above (Chp. III) she re-
counts that:
I meant something to them — I represented the sixties, that was clear, I stood
for John Lennon, Bob Dylan, people they needed as heroes. They are fresh
out of heroes in the eighties. (in Rolling Stone, Apr. 14, 1983 p. 18).
Taking these Statements together we can draw some conclusions about Baez'
view of having heroes:
1) She sees this as potentially dangerous when one picks the wrong hero, but
hero worship is not severly criticised as is leadership. This I would explain by the
fact that the hero-crusader is often not a political leader, and it is political lea-
ders whom Baez rejects.
130