Sarah Palin, Anne Kilkenny, Joan Baez, and me

September 9, 10:13 PMSF Music ExaminerDerk Richardson

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Joan Baez. Photo by Dana Tynan.

Thirty years ago, Holly Near released her album Imagine My Surprise. The title tune was a lesbian love song, its specific sentiments still relevant when same-sex marriage constitutional amendments "grace" the ballots of California, Arizona, and Florida this year.

I have an indelible link to Near—a beloved women's music icon alongside Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, and Margie Adam—having worked closely with her on her memoir, Fire in the Rain ... Singer in the Storm; and the phrase "imagine my surprise" carries all sorts of resonance any time it comes to mind.

For instance, imagine my surprise when I was surfing the Web after Sarah Palin's banshee-cheerleader nomination-acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention and I came across an Internet post by one Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla, Alaska, about Palin's real record of public service.

Talk about six degrees of separation! I went to bed wondering whether that could possibly be the Anne Kilkenny I grew up with in the 1950s and '60s in Pleasant Hill, the then-almost-entirely rural Bay Area suburb in the shadow of Mt. Diablo.

First thing in the morning, I emailed Kilkenny to confirm that she was indeed the same girl that I went to school with at Strandwood Elementary and College Park High.

Indeed she was.

What do I think of her post about "Sarah Barracuda," which you can now find all over the Internet? I think it's a lot more levelheaded than I would have come up with from the fearful and jaundiced "San Francisco values" perspective bred 3,000 or so miles away from the fabled bridge to nowhere.

Anne was always one of the smartest and most even-tempered kids in the class, no matter the subject. I suspect she still is.

And thinking of Anne made me think of another Pleasant Hill neighbor, Nancy Callahan. I grew up next door to her large Catholic family, and Nancy was the first person I knew who was so powerfully moved by the music and activism of Joan Baez that she took a stand against the Vietnam War, as I recall, in 1965 or '66, well before it was either a fashionable or consensus position among suburban high school students.

And here, at last, is the San Francisco music hook: Joan Baez is still at it. She has a remarkable new album, Day After Tomorrow (Bobolink/Razor & Tie), in stores as of Sept. 9, and she's about to embark on a tour that will bring her to the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco Nov. 18-19.

"Day After Tomorrow" is a poignant anti-war song by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and the Day After Tomorrow CD was produced by staunch anti-war progressive Steve Earle, three of whose songs Baez sings on the new album, as well as songs by Eliza Gilkyson, Patty Griffin, and Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett.

I've been equivocal about Baez's recordings since, oh, 1975's Diamonds and Rust. So, imagine my surprise that I find myself listening to Day After Tomorrow day after day. It's kind of like reconnecting with Anne Kilkenny. I'll say it again: Imagine my surprise.

Joan Baez singing Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" in 1966:

Joan Baez singing "Day After Tomorrow" in 2007: