Yellow Dog

by: Eric B.

Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 12:10:08 PM EDT

Brown's performance was an intimate gathering featuring some of his "notebook songs," including three that hadn't been previously recorded.  The songs blend commentary on current issues, from national politics to conservation and protecting those places that hold a special place in our hearts.

Perhaps you, the reader, are wondering why plugging a CD is appropriate on a politically-oriented blog.  My answer is that most of the writing on a politically-oriented blog is poorly constructed to defend some of the things people who frequent this site find important.

I don't accept the premise that economic growth and jobs are always the most important things, even during hard times like those that we're in.  Eventually, hopefully, the hard times will pass and we'll eventually be left with the mess of what we do today.

I'm further guided, not by news articles, Op-Ed pieces, or scientific reports I can find online and link to, but by the sentiments of those who share my sense of value in these places.  I'm guided more by the words of fellow Michigander and ex-Supreme Court justice (the late) John Voelker (writing as Robert Traver)...

I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and I hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant -- and not nearly so much fun.

Emotional?  Sentimental?  Well, certainly.  Emotion and sentiment need not necessarily lead to sloppy argument, anymore than adherence to cold, hard logic automatically lead away from it.  Done properly, good music and writing -- inherently meant to tweak our sensibilities -- helps us question our priorities and whether things we're told are most important really are.  These days, we are just in dire need of this.

Perhaps the question is whether "Yellow Dog" qualifies as this.  Of course it does.  It makes as eloquent a statement about the value of rivers and the place they have in our hearts as any number of blog posts and links that spread out all across these intertubes like a spider web.  In its own way, as does all good art, it blows past right past what are supposed to be the terms of debates and strikes right at the heart of the matter ... what, in the long run, really matters?

(All proceeds from sales of the CD will be donated to the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve.)