Songfacts®:

• Parallel with her career as a singer-songwriter, Joan Baez has been a human rights activist and antiwar campaigner. In December 1972, at the height of the Vietnam conflict, she spent 13 days in that country and returned home with 15 hours of tapes. According to Charles J. Fuss in Joan Baez: A Bio-Bibliography, Baez herself referred to the resulting project as a record company's nightmare.
• "Where Are You Now, My Son?" the title track of the album, runs to 22 minutes, taking up the whole of side one. It is more than a song, is spoken as well as sung, and includes actual recordings of the war, from the massive Christmas bombing raids on Hanoi. It was produced by Baez and Norbert Putnam.
• According to Fuss, Billboard described the title track as "a frighteningly uncomfortable poem-narrative."
  
  The May 12, 1973 issue of that magazine contains a full page advertisement, which it says "chronicles a major chapter in the life and work of Joan Baez." Sadly, though the Vietnam War is long over, her message remains unheeded. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3