Ani DiFranco is best known for getting up on stage and belting out hard-hitting feminist songs while playing her guitar. But when she walked out in front of an audience recently at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, there was no guitar in sight. She was there for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the picture book she wrote for young readers about a child who accompanies her mother to their local polling station. DiFranco was interviewed on stage by OPB’s Prakruti Bhatt.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Ani DiFranco is best known for getting up on stage and belting out hard-hitting feminist songs while playing her guitar. But when she walked out in front of an audience recently at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, there was no guitar in sight. She was there for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the book she wrote about voting. It’s a picture book for young readers about a child who accompanies her mother to their local polling station. DiFranco was interviewed on stage by OPB’s Prakruti Bhatt. She’ll take it from here.
Prakruti Bhatt: So, let me get this straight. You took over Broadway thanks to “Hadestown,”...
Ani DiFranco: …Took over...
Bhatt: Yes, you did. You released your new album, your 23rd, called “Unprecedented Sh!t.” You were a subject of a documentary called “1-800-On-Her-Own,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival…
DiFranco: And screened here last night...
Bhatt: Exactly. And you put out “Show Up and Vote,” a book that emphasizes on the importance of voting rights. All of this in 2024, alone – and the year isn’t even over yet. How did you put this all out, and still keep your skin flawless?
DiFranco: Menopause, baby. I can even keep my skin flawless and drink milk all day long, which I haven’t for 30 years. Come on, menopause, it’s cool.
Bhatt: That’s our new skincare routine, I guess…
DiFranco: Yeah, just wait.
Bhatt : We have a lot to cover here, but I’m gonna start off with our favorite topic at the dinner table: politics. How old were you when you first engaged with the political space, could you paint us a picture?
DiFranco: Yeah, I was a kid. My parents… I was really blessed to have parents who were very aware. I mean, they’re both immigrants to this country; my father’s family from Italy, and my mother from Canada. And my father was the first-born in America, but my mother actually went through the whole process of becoming a citizen and taking the test, and doing the thing, and getting the looks, and they taught me very early on that it was a great blessing to be here. They taught me that paying taxes is a blessing, because of all that it means and everything that you get when you’re in a democracy paying taxes. And as I got older, I saw my upbringing in such contrast to people around me, where there seems to be this mass resentment and avoidance of taxes. But how else would we have these things that the government takes care of us?
My parents, especially my mother, really participatory. She took part in forming a food co-op in our neighborhood. She was part of an organization called Women for Downtown, trying to revitalize crumbling, abandoned, Buffalo, New York. She taught me that cities are like the synapses of human society, of humanity, that they are the centers of ideas and culture and innovation, and so we celebrate and honor and care for our cities. We don’t abandon them for fear of difference. So we lived downtown. I went to public schools and I was, I think, just made aware that I’m a part of something bigger than myself very early on and it’s been a great blessing for me, and that’s sort of what I tried to express and pass on in this book.
Bhatt: Yeah, as you mentioned, politics can bring people together as a community, but it could also feel like an overwhelming and an alienating space for a lot of folks out there. What keeps you motivated and still engaging with the space, especially when it can get toxic?
DiFranco: Well, yes, it can get toxic, can it not? Yeah, I don’t know. I think the alienation comes from staying in your house, and focusing on a screen, and remaining isolated. For me, whenever people ask “How do you keep…whatever… your ‘joie de vivre,’ how do you get…” it’s just about leaving the house, even taking a lift to the airport and making my new best friend on the way to the airport, of all different kinds of people with all different perspectives and experiences.
You know, in a 20 minute ride, you can share so much, and that’s all I need to know and to believe in the goodness of humanity and the baseline of wanting to love and respect and care for each other, and then certainly to become involved, civically. To go out and find people in your community who are doing something you care about, that’s incredibly life-affirming and hopeful. I think it’s the way to lift yourself out of the doom and the malaise.
You guys are lively this morning. Thanks.
Bhatt: Speaking of leaving the house, you wrote a book on showing up and voting. What inspired you to put out this book during an election year?
DiFranco: Well, I mean… I have been stomping around for a few decades encouraging people to vote. I’m no Taylor Swift, but I’ve done my bit, because I think I am a part of… I mean, I come from a disillusioned generation, and we’ve had so many since, but ironically, believing in democracy and investing your energy and your faith in it is what makes it real. If you just opt out, it disappears, it dissipates. It’s like love, it’s a verb. So I feel a bit out of step in recent times with how we even speak about voting.
For me, voting is this moment when we acknowledge that we’re part of something bigger, that it’s an act of care for our fellows, for people in our community, in our city and our state, country, world. And it freaks me out a little bit that this country is so hyper-individualistic, even compared with like democracies in Europe or Canada, even. We’re so about “me,” you know. And voting is when we put down “me, me, me,” and we pick up, “us, us, us.” Yet we’re so lost in this culture of the individual that we talk about voting that way, you know, making your voice heard as though it’s an act of self-expression, which is wonderful.
Self-expression is necessary and vital and beautiful, but to speak about voting that way feels counterproductive to me, because I feel that if you are expressing yourself and showing your brand with your vote, and that’s the point, it’s gonna be very dissatisfying, and it’s…
If I were to wait for the candidate that really represented all of my beliefs, I would be waiting a very long time. I would not be participating. And I think it’s important, as my parents taught me, to get out of the idea of yourself and showing the world who you are, or making your voice heard, and get into the headspace of being a part of something and taking care of each other, and it’s not about you, it’s about all of us together.
Bhatt: It seems like you wanna spread this message from the grassroots, and you’ve previously released a book ‒ a children’s book called “The Knowing” ‒ about identity, but I find it fascinating that you wanted to release a children’s book on voting rights with the awareness that your target audience essentially won’t be able to vote for many years to come. What was your intention here?
DiFranco: Yeah, just to give that gift that I was given, to re-gift it. Kids are, of course, aware that they are part of something. They’re part of a family, and maybe they’re part of a class at school, or maybe they’re even part of a team and play, and so I just wanted to feed that sense of belonging to things that are bigger than yourself, and serving things that are bigger than yourself, and maybe push that awareness further. In the book, the young protagonist, you see her becoming aware, “Oh, I’m also a part of a community and a city and a country. And I’m connected to everyone I see around me in that way, and there’s a real power to that, and to knowing that and living it.” I wanted to just start there with future voters.
Bhatt: Yeah, and I think that this is a good point to just sort of take a breather, and immerse ourselves in your new book. Would you do the honor of reading it out to us?
DiFranco: Yeah, baby. Alright. Oh look, signed! That really is my signature. Okay.
[Reading] As best I remember, here’s how it went. I learned what it meant to show up and vote. It was a nasty November, windy and raining. I was complaining about my wet coat. But Mama said, ‘Listen, we’re on a mission that by definition, no one can do for us. And I need you with me, no matter the weather, we do this together, this job that’s before us. It’s a very important job.’
When we got to the building, there were signs and labels and sitting at a table was our neighbor, Miss Cook. She looked happy and styling, busy and smiling. She was joking with mama as she paged through a book. And in that book she found my mom’s name. Mama signed her name again right next to it. It felt like we belonged there.
[Interjecting] Whew…I am,...this is intense times that we are living in together, and for some reason I’m picking now to cry about it. Okay, sorry, back to the job at hand.
[Reading] Then I discovered that we knew others, like my brother’s friend’s mother who works at my school, and I saw that bald girl who paints pictures on walls that are wild and tall and colorful and cool.
I said, ‘Looks like the whole neighborhood’s got the same job to do!’ Mama nodded. She looked impressed. She said, ‘Yes, you’re catching on.’ It made me feel proud that I figured something out. I felt proud to be there helping my mom. Then I got excited when we got invited into a booth and the curtain was drawn. It seemed special and secret that no one could see us. I felt kind of nervous, but Mama looked calm. Like Mama knew, we have a job to do. A very important job. She said, ‘Here’s the part where it all starts, where us people have a say about laws and rules. About parks and schools, about who’s gonna run them and in what way?’
Then she chose the names and I pushed the buttons, and each little button lighted a light. We voted for the ones who will get things done, who will take care of things for everyone, and make things right. Before the last button, Mama paused and said, ‘Imagine all the people doing the same thing, right now.’ I imagined all those people in my mind. I felt connected to them.
On our way out, we got stickers that noted that we voted, mama and I. She stuck hers on her purse. I stuck mine on my coat, which I just noticed was almost dry. And on our way home I looked all around. The same things were there, but I saw a lot more. The rain had stopped. The street lights were on. I saw people in windows and walking through doors. I thought about everyone working together. I thought about each person doing their part. I thought about people looking out for each other. And how showing up to vote is how it all starts..
Bhatt: Thank you so much for that.
DiFranco: Yeah, thanks for listening.
Bhatt: Can you take us through the process of writing this book, from start to finish?
DiFranco: Oh man. It was hard, so hard. I think I just got lucky the first time around when I was working on “The Knowing,” but it still was a big learning curve for me to try to express myself to very young people, because I was confronted immediately with all the things that I do when I write, all the tricks that I like to get up to, like metaphor. And straight away my editor was like, “Mm…mm, okay, kids are literal…
Bhatt: Maybe similes…
DiFranco: Yeah, maybe, maybe.
And then from there, all the double-entendre, or messing with cliches, or thwarting convention, or all of these things that I subconsciously do as a writer that mean nothing, gloriously nothing to children. So I had to just start over with my writing game. Learn how to play a whole new way. Real direct, simple, and that was weirdly challenging.
And this book… The first time around with “The Knowing,” I actually wrote it as a song, so the book itself is also a song that you can hear, cause I was having such a hard time getting there and I thought, “My guitar will help,” and it did. Then I thought, “Okay, I’ll do that again with this book,” when I had the idea of a book about voting.
And of course, another convention that I decided to thwart at the time, was that this song was in the time signature of five, because I thought, 4/4, hurrumph. Why should we be so indoctrinated into 4/4? So, I’m writing this song and it’s the book, and my publishers are like, “This doesn’t read well!” “Okay, 4/4 it is.” Then I eventually just put down my guitar, because, I don’t know, it was a crazy sort of process to get to this book, and I had a lot of help from my wonderful editor guiding me to something that worked.
Bhatt: It still has quite a lyrical front to it.
DiFranco: Good. Yeah, some music in there, but it’s not in five.
Bhatt: So, speaking of “The Knowing,” your first children’s book explored identity. And in “Show Up and Vote,” you can weigh how there’s politics and identity and vice-versa. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you explored this relationship between the two?
DiFranco: Yeah, there is a sort of real connection, like you’re saying, between “The Knowing” and this new book, in that “The Knowing,” yes, it was about identity and the power of identity and of knowing yourself and where you come from and how you fit in. But there’s also a trap there. So I wanted to make a book that was sort of ‘yes, and…’ about identity. Yes, you’re all those labels and adjectives, but you are more than that. You are also, in some ways, not that at all. You’re something much more essential. You are consciousness, you are light, you are spirit, and much bigger than all the adjectives, all the labels, and one with all other beings of light and consciousness and spirit and God, or whatever.
So I think both of my books point to the “oneness,” the “us-ness,” that I believe children, when we get here, we’re very aware of that. And then we are ushered into culture. And we learn how to label things and how to separate into categories. So with both of these books, it’s… as an adult, I can hardly teach a child about “oneness.” I can only affirm their knowing, their sense that we are connected, beneath and beyond all the labels.
Bhatt: Keeping that context in mind, do you believe someone can truly be apolitical?
DiFranco: Well, no. No, I don’t, really. I think that you can certainly choose to remove yourself, or separate yourself. I mean, many days, I want to just go into the woods and not return, and that’s cool, that’s a legitimate choice, but it’s also a political choice to opt out of society and its workings and citizenship. And that political doesn’t have to be a capital “P.” It’s choosing not to engage, or choosing not to make yourself accountable to things that maybe don’t even have to do with you but that you have power to change, to affect. So, any choice that we make in this collective life, this moment that we’re living together, is, in some sense, and in my mind, a political choice.
Bhatt: You also write in this book, “I thought about people looking out for each other.” How do we feel about that in this political climate, considering that it has been termed polarizing by some?
DiFranco: People looking out for each other is polarizing?
Bhatt: More like, there is not much of a conversation that’s happening between the two sides, I would say. And I wouldn’t just say that in the United States, but across the world.
DiFranco: Well, the thing about being part of a collective is it takes a lot of, I guess, starting with humility, to stay in and to be involved and to be accountable, is not necessarily to do what’s most gratifying or easy or fun for yourself. And so, you can build on that humility and that idea of service and care for each other when you’re in these spaces and you’re confronted with opponents who may be doing harm, maybe to you, maybe to people, others.
I’ve been thinking a lot, in the last few years of my life, about revolutionary love, a concept that my friend Valerie Kaur really helped me articulate for myself. You know, we can get back to some very basic concepts in these fraught arenas where we are confronted, and that’s where this humility idea that I’m feeling, trying to share, comes in.
The act of staying curious, for instance, about your opponent, even though you may really strongly disagree with their words or their actions. To really try to learn, “How did they get there? Why do they feel that way? Let me try to understand you.” That is an act of humility. It’s an act of respect, and even the expression of curiosity might find its mirror in your opponent in that space, and it’s not necessarily a solution or a “Kumbaya,” but It’s the first beam of a potential bridge.
Bhatt: Thank you so much for that. I wanna tap back into your parallels between songwriting and writing a children’s book like this, which has a lyrical front to it. Do you see any parallels? Did you have any takeaways from this experience when you go forward in your songwriting or vice-versa?
DiFranco: Man, I hope so, in that what I was speaking about earlier about just having to really distill and simplify the mode of expression in these books, and I would love to take that back to my songwriting. I don’t know, I’ll let you know if that works out. But, yeah, all of the tricks and the fun I’ve been having up till now, it’s been wonderful, but that would be it, to take this, the challenge that these books presented, back to writing songs, I think it would be a good idea.
Bhatt: I’d love to know more about it. Across the 23 albums that you’ve put out, you have quite a few songs like “Do or Die,” and “Baby Roe,” that are quite charged. How does that work in this day and age where labels emphasize on being politically ambiguous and sort of maintaining a sanitized profile online? And also, more personally, where do you draw the line between sharing your vulnerabilities on the internet and your music between those two things?
DiFranco: Jeez, well, it’s a wild landscape out there in those two dimensions, and I feel blessed to have become myself and found my path before the age of the internet and certainly social media. I really feel for young people trying to grow and change, change your mind. That’s something that I was thinking about when I was working on “The Knowing.” I have two kids. I have a 17-year-old and an 11-year-old, and I think our natural state as beings, when we are free, is one of flux, is one of change. Anything could come into our sphere and change us in any moment, and that’s the gorgeousness of being. And the need to identify yourself and perform the identity is a full-time job and it’s a deterrent to that amorphous freedom of flux, because if you keep changing your mind about what you know, this or that or the other, your brand is not as powerful and things like that. It’s sort of a pressure to label yourself, not just each other, and then to adhere to that.
So I guess for me, right from the beginning, I can look back to my very earliest songs and see a person who wanted to thwart all labels, all boxes, jumped out of every box. And I think I’m just trying to continue being my, I don’t know…”This moment is this moment, next moment might be different,” self out there in that world that’s so fixed. And how do I do it? Where’s the line? I have no idea, moment to moment, it’s just about trying to be honest.
Bhatt: In a lot of your songs like “Face Up and Sing,” you are very vocal about, you’re very raw about frustrations and anger towards systemic oppressions. That’s what your fans really appreciate about you and your songwriting, but over the last few years it seems like you’ve explored writing about heavier issues in a much softer way, in the sense of, “Face up and Sing” has become “Show Up and Vote.” How has your attitude towards writing about such difficult and intricate topics and themes evolved over the years?
DiFranco: Well, I mean, life itself is humbling, and I think if you’re paying attention, you learn more and more and more as you go about the lives and perspectives and truths of people other than yourself. As young people, the anger and the outrage and the conviction of the young is so wonderful and powerful, but I’m not young anymore and I…
Did you mention, I think one more recent song about reproductive freedom, is “Play God.” And when I was writing that song, you spoke to my more gentle tone. I’m not sure what the right adjective is for my tone these days, but when I was writing that song about reproductive freedom, I was writing to and singing to my sister-in-law. My husband’s family is a lot of conservative people, and mostly anti-choice leaning, and I love them, they’re my family. And the older me is much more invested in trying to sing a song that my sister-in-law could hear, then just my fellows, but I think this is a part of anyone’s trajectory of, first you have to find your tribe, and strengthen yourself, and become whole before you can try to do any reaching across whatever chasm.
Bhatt: On that note, you’ve also emphasized the importance of education, and I’m curious what education looks like at your home?
DiFranco: Man, I wish I could say my kids were readers. Just one generation: “Poof.” Again, I try to stay humble to my kids' world, because it’s different and they have to teach me how it goes, and I think there’s something… I just get this aroma from my 11-year-old that’s reading, “ It’s not how this whole thing works,” and he may have a point there that it works differently now. But, sorry, what was your question?
Bhatt: Oh, it was in that tangent. It was more about what education looks like at your home when it comes to politics, and many other things as well?
DiFranco: You know, in my house, there’s togetherness. Just really spending time. I think I’m trying to give what I was given, in terms of unconditional love. It’s really about time and attention. And education, you know, I am excited about the world. I still get so excited about learning new incredible things to me, and I think just being that model for there’s always more to know and it’s so exciting, to go deeper and deeper in your understanding of things and yeah, maybe a gentle encouraging of any any expressed passion or interest. I certainly have discovered as a parent, Eureka! That pushing is not often the best tactic, so it’s about just trying to blow a little momentum behind any movement...
Bhatt: Gentle breeze?
DiFranco: Yeah…gentle breeze. Yeah.
Bhatt: Your fan base is very vocal with their love for what you do and what you stand for, but they also don’t shy away from holding you accountable when it comes to it. However, these days, seemingly again thanks to social media and the feeling of having constant access to someone that you don’t really know, this sort of connection could develop into a very uncomfortable para-social relationship as we’ve seen with your peers. Where does one draw the line?
DiFranco: It’s hard to draw lines, but I think the most important thing is to retain a sense of yourself, and then when people overstep the line and overstep the line and erase your line and put it somewhere else or whatever happens, you can keep returning to a sense of yourself.
You know, I was ‘canceled,’ years ago on the internet, and it was devastating. It was emotionally, physically, I mean, years of recovery, and I’m changed, but it was a very strong call for me. Ani, if you keep looking for affirmation about your own worthiness or goodness outside of yourself, this will happen. I had to, and I’m still working on it, but I think that’s the key, is to really have an understanding and a belief and a love for yourself that no matter what comes, you can return to it.
Bhatt: Do you have any advice for young artists who are facing a strong situation like that, to come back and give themselves room to grow and educate themselves?
DiFranco: It will pass. And as my mom said, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.There’s my advice, kid.
Bhatt: Just gotta give it time like menopause, as you mentioned earlier on…
DiFranco: That’s right, the solutions are coming. You just have to leave your body and ascend. I think maybe preparation is also helpful, of course, like preventative medicine, to know and understand going into life. And everyone has a public life now – some more than others – and maybe face public, all sorts of things. And I think certainly young people moving into this age of social media, or being public property in some way and suffering consequences with that, if you are prepared, if you know, okay, it’s gonna be really wild and really awesome and it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be scary. There’s mean forces that are coming your way… and maybe you can’t really prepare for those moments.
Just as I was saying that, I remembered years of hearing people that I work with saying, “Yeah, well, everyone’s looking for a chink in your armor,” those forces are out there. You’re not gonna get a pass. And maybe that can help to some degree, but when that moment is upon you, you just need your belief in yourself, you need your self-love, and often what that means because ourself is not separate. Our self is not what it looks like. You need your people. You need your near and dear to reflect back to you your worth.
Bhatt: Thank you so much for that. That is some very good advice, the strength in community and finding your circle.
DiFranco: You said it better.
Bhatt: No, I would hear your version multiple times on a podcast episode, for sure. Let’s shift gears for a little bit and talk about your new music, In this day and age, you still continue to push the envelope and experiment with your work and new formats, new forms of music, and it seems like a big part of your experimentation in your last album, “Unprecedented Sh!t”, came from your collaboration with BJ Burton. Could you tell us a little bit more about it?
DiFranco: Yeah, sure. I, after, whatever, 22 records of recording myself and my friends playing our instruments, and becoming more and more aware as the world changes around me that musicians playing instruments is one ingredient in how people make recordings now. It’s almost like a spice, and I’ve been really wanting, for many years, to explore all the other possibilities of making records. And these possibilities that came with all this technology, all this gear that I don’t even know what it is, what it’s called, where you get it or how it works, the on button… I’m done.
So, this time out, for “Unprecedented Sh!t” I just knew that I wanted to find somebody younger than I who knows what all this stuff is and how it works, and help me explore some of the more vast territories. And BJ… the process of the album was pretty interesting in that I basically made the recordings at home by myself, voice and guitar. Sometimes I’d just send him that, maybe I’d do an overdub or two. And with those very simple raw materials, he created what, in moments ‒ I mean, it’s really a study in contrast, this new record. But there are these moments, these soundscapes, these really big universes that’s all built out of these very primeval materials.
Bhatt: You mentioned in one of your interviews that you would send it to BJ, and just tell him to send it to Pluto.
DiFranco: Yeah, he put it in his spaceship. He went to Pluto, and he came back and I was like, w-o-o-ow.
And I’ve heard people…it’s amazing that with filtering and all these… You should see his studio. It really does look like a spaceship. I mean, he has these cool old analog synths, with the “e-e-e-e-,” and there’s just purple and pink twinkly lights. It’s just the craziest space and I just sit there with my guitar going, wow. Yeah, turn that, what’s that knob do?
Bhatt: And you have two shows coming up in Portland in January. What can fans expect? ,
DiFranco: Well, lots of costume changes, a big light show, dancers, the dancers are spectacular.
I do have a fourth member in my band, playing another instrument for the new year, and there’s a bunch of wonderful new artists on Righteous Babe and I’m getting some of them out to share the stage with me, excited to shine a light on some of these young artists.
We have been having meetings about… again, I have a young colleague who was telling me with excited tone and wide eyes about, “I went to this show and there was all this tabling in the lobby, they had all these political organizations there, and there was all this engagement, and they showed like a slideshow before, or some films before the show,” all these things that I’ve done over the years, and we’re like…
Bhatt: I did that already, yeah. I’m a pioneer.
DiFranco: But no, I think we are gonna try to invigorate all of that, too, so that the experience… I’ve long been aware that it’s the experience of each other that we come for as well, the community that has formed around my music and tours and so really reinforcing and engaging that.
Bhatt: Thank you so much. All the time in the world couldn’t be enough to talk about all the intersections of art, music, politics, and identity. So, I really thank you for your time and spending the morning with us.
DiFranco: Likewise, my pleasure, absolutely.
Bhatt: And we look forward to seeing you in the new year. Thank you.
DiFranco: Thank you, Portland. Thank you so much.
Miller: That was Ani DiFranco talking to Prakruti Bhatt at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall as part of the 2024 Portland Book Festival from Literary Arts.
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