Hi hi —
I’m back in New York this morning after a whirlwind weekend on a mini-tour between DC and Minneapolis. In DC there was a press conference for the Committee for the First Amendment in front of The Kennedy Center. And in Minny, I found myself alongside 200,000 proud Minnesotans for the No Kings rally. There was a lot that happened and I’ve got a lot to say and process, so I’m going to do so slowly and take my time with this one…
I took the train down to DC on Thursday and was greeted by full blooming cherry blossoms. I was so happy to see my old friend the Potomac and went for a long run around the monuments weaving in and out of babies and loungers enjoying the blooms and listening to Amy Poehler’s podcast. More than anything, it felt just nice to be so close to home. Deep nostalgia for the land I love so much and see so little of these days. The humidity in the air. It’s almost like my skin recognized it, that resonant signature of home.
My friends asked me how DC felt energetically. This is a weird thing to say, but I told them it felt stinky. Going for a run around the white house, the energy felt… gaseous. Like there was some evil, green, low hanging odor that was creeping around the perimeter of the building and spilling onto the surrounding streets. Don’t get too close. Blegh.
I sat with Joan Baez and Jane Fonda that night, alongside the organizers who were painting signs for the podium the next morning. Jane’s father, Henry Fonda, was an original member of the committee that began in 1947 during McCarthy-era censorship when the government blacklisted artists from Hollywood. Jane’s revived it for this era of modern censorship. You can learn more about The Committee for the First Amendment here.
Joan and I sat in her room and worked on “Times They Are A’Changing” and decided who would take what verses and what the harmonies could sound like. We laughed and caught up. I haven’t seen her since the fall, when I made the pilgrimage to her house in the Bay Area for dinner. Before bed, she asked me to play her a song on guitar, and I sang her “Don’t Forget Me.” It was a good pick, but the thing I really noticed was actually how little I’ve been playing guitar. I’ve been writing new songs and working on this album tirelessly, but it’s been a lot of making beats and trying to write big choruses. That moment, that request from her, it made me want to sit in my bedroom again and write songs on guitar. Even if its just to have something new to show Joan in the quiet moments.
The morning was grey, but the rain held mostly. Every single time Joan and I have performed just the two of us, there’s been a tech error (no…seriously.. every time). The mic goes off. The monitor doesn’t work. We can’t hear ourselves or the audience can’t hear us. And so yes, it happened again. We joked we must just be so powerful that audio systems can’t handle us together. But aside from that, the program was beautiful. Jane Fonda spoke, as always, with so much inspirational energy and passion. I completely geeked meeting Ann Patchett (highly recommend Tom Lake for a fun read) and she spoke elegantly about book bans in schools. I loved meeting Griffin Dunne, whose book, The Friday Afternoon Club, I also loved as a passionate Didion-ite. Billy Porter and I caught up about the Mariah Carey tribute, where we both sang in January.
Jane stayed the night to host more gatherings in DC (whereeeee does this woman get her energy), but Joan and I headed to the airport where we sat and drank margaritas and ate Greek food in the back of a terminal restaurant for several hours. The thing about Joan that really struck me by spending time with her this trip was the way that she sees and loves people. The baby she stopped to coo over in the coffee shop in DC where we were looking for a restroom. The waitress at the airport who she went back to tip an extra $20 after we’d already tipped on the bill. The man next to me on the plane who slept the whole way, about whom she whispered to me later, “that’s somebody’s baby boy.” She’s got a life’s long record of showing up and speaking out when it matters, but it’s not just contained to the stage, it’s in the very fabric of how she lives her life.
We arrived late in St. Paul and were greeted with a rowdy lobby on a Friday night — apparently there was a biker conference going on at the same hotel. Yeehaw. In the morning, I bought a $5 drip coffee in the lobby from a young girl with liquid eyeliner and went to get my hair done at the local Juut Salon. I called my friend Willow on the way, asking for a second opinion on “if it’s okay to get a blowout for the protest” (lol) and like a good friend, she told me you can contain multitudes and to just be yourself. So for an hour, I hung out with this wonderful woman Jae at the salon, who made me feel relaxed and a little more confident. I asked her about the hard winter in MN and she told me that this would be her first protest. I booked the appointment under a fake name, but by the end, told her she’d be seeing me on stage later.
The energy in Minny/St. Paul was powerful. Not something I could have known or anticipated from my time in New York or LA where I’m reading about the news and witnessing it, but maybe not letting myself feel it completely. Self protecting. Trying to get through the day with a dose of disassociation. But there was no space for that in the twin cities. The pain and the fear were as loud as the kindness of the community. This community that has mourned the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good alongside the kidnapping and abuse of so many innocent people… but that has also shown the entire world what it looks like to be a good neighbor. To take care of each other. To show love in the face of hate. And to do so with humor and music and all the color of a life well lived.
In the morning, I met Tom Morello in the lobby. We first met in 2018. I had curated the first lineup of All Things Go Festival in DC with my friend Lizzy Plapinger. All women, which is how the festival got started with that great tradition. I headlined and Billie Eilish played before me. Crazy days. By pure chance the festival was the same day as the confirmation hearing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, despite many accusations against him of sexual assault. My band and I joined the protests in the morning, and after the festival we wandered to the Lincoln Monument around midnight with our heavy hearts. When we arrived, there was one other person there — Tom Morello. I was a Rage Against the Machine fan growing up, so this was big for me. We exchanged contacts, but I haven’t seen him since and I’m so happy he joined us.
As we approached the Minnesota Capitol, we got our first glimpse of the crowd. Over 200,000 people in one big, joyful, resistant sea. It was truly breathtaking and one of the most profound moments of hope I’ve had in a long time. The presence and power of the moment started to sink in. We met Bruce Springsteen backstage in our holding tent and the four of us caught up for a while. I confessed that I was struggling with my record and he told me the same thing I had surmised from my time with Joan the night before — go back to the guitar, just you where it all began.
We all went side stage to watch him deliver “The Streets of Minneapolis” to an eager and loving crowd. Joan told me the sheer size reminded her of the March On Washington. When it was my time, Jane Fonda introduced me. Before she went on, I went and stood next to her and told her that I loved her and thanked her for doing this with me. She told me it was her honor. And so I cried and watched her walk up to the podium to deliver yet another magnificent speech.
I cried because I couldn’t believe it was her. That Jane was introducing me. That I was there in that moment. I’m crying writing about it now actually. That I would be singing with Joan. These two giants of women who I’ve looked up to my whole life. The understanding that they won’t be here forever. And the depth of my love and admiration for them. Is there a word for mourning before someone’s gone? Maybe it’s just the preciousness of realizing that nothing and no one is forever.
I can’t imagine a world without them. Both as my dear friends and as these great leaders that I’ve looked up to for so long. This was part of my take away from the whole weekend. What happens when they’re not the ones leading the charge? I couldn’t stop wondering where my peers were. Even on social media (which is obviously a strange fabricated version of reality), I saw such little participation from my friends in New York and LA. Are we all just a little burnt out on protests? If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I would have shown up in New York or LA either. I know from years of activism that every single person counts and that it does matter. But what felt so urgent to show up for even three years ago can sometimes feel like an echo chamber these days. It’s so easy to sit out, but in my experience, all the disassociation melts away as soon as I’m in a crowd of people who are willing themselves to feel.
And that sense of meaning is what I felt when I got on stage to play “Different Kind of World.” Jane introduced me and as I walked up, I suddenly got incredibly calm. I was grounded and open and looking out into this ocean of people. I felt the most hope I’ve touched in a long time. It was genuinely one of the more inspiring moments of my entire life. Joan joined me for the Dylan tune. I played guitar and did so with pride, thinking especially of the middle school version of myself that learned chords off the internet in my childhood bedroom. We welcomed Tom to the stage. The three of us sang (with no tech errors). As the present now will later be past. Joan announced the Twin Cities Resistance Choir and the party got going.
There’s one moment I keep replaying. The face of a woman in the choir. She joined Joan, Tom Morello, and I on stage after “Times” and walked on in the middle of a “Who’s streets? Our streets” chant. The ferocity with which this woman yelled “our streets” shook me to the bone. The urgency of the moment. The preciousness of what there is to protect. The power of this community and the extent of the injustice they’ve witnessed and felt over the last many years. It was all there.
Jane and I danced as Joan and the choir sang. After many long speeches, the music brought so much life. It was the party I didn’t want to leave. And still, I sprinted to the airport, Gov. Walz putting us in the back of his SUV when our driver mysteriously disappeared. If that’s not midwest hospitality, I don’t know what is. I found my place on the plane, between Sen. Sanders Bernie and his security guard, just in time. We chatted about the day and how special it was. He fell asleep on the flight home while I scrolled socials, drank whiskey, and finished the latest season of Bridgerton on my phone.
When I got home, an interesting thing happened in the come down from all of this. I got embarrassed for being earnest. Earlier that day, as I mentioned, it felt like one of the most inspiring moments of my life to stand on that stage alongside my heroes for a cause that I believe in. But a little bit of time on Instagram on the plane, and I wondered if I was “uncool” for being someone that cared. My friends weren’t at the protests. And not many of my fellow artists were either. I run my own social media, I always have, and alongside the comments celebrating the day was a ton of negativity from both the left and the right. Some taunting for believing we could change things, and some angry about causes they felt I hadn’t shown up for enough. I’m usually pretty good at blocking out the noise, but 200,000 people is a lot of energy coming at anyone’s body. It’s not normal, no matter how professional any of us may pretend to be. I took a bath and a long walk and eased my nervous system back to baseline. The allure of cynicism can be so loud, but I know that if we listen, that’s when we’re truly fucked.
As I’m writing, it’s been 48 hours now and I’ve been able to dispel the wave of energy and voices. I still have questions about the ways that we’re all responding to this moment generationally. What to do with the apathy and the disassociation and how to keep my heart open and feeling and witnessing all the pain and all the joy and all the fear and all the everything. How do we keep hope buoyant and floating like a balloon on the horizon, always in front of us. I have no idea. But I’m back to feeling grateful and proud of the work from the weekend.
I’m heading to rehearsals now. Colbert’s invited back some of his favorite guests to do covers for his final episodes. I’ve chosen Frank Sinatra’s “One For My Baby,” but the version that Bette Midler sang on Johnny Carson’s final episode. If you haven’t seen this video, it makes me cry every time. See you Wednesday night.
Yours,
Maggie
How many of her own farts did she huff while writing all of that?
