This Land is Your Land

I posted this on my Star Tribune blog recently:

I just watched a clip from the presidential inauguration in which Pete Seeger leads that huge crowd of people in a call-and-response version of Woodie Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land." It filled me with such joy to see his eyes gleaming as he intoned the less-familiar verses, the ones about private property, the relief office, people standing hungry, the people "wondering if this land's still made for you and me."

Seeger unearthed the forgotten verses, the ones which not only celebrate our country's beauty and its democratic ideals, but which challenge our country to do better.

One thing that really gratified me about that moment of the inauguration was that a song could once again have such a powerful presence at a public ceremony. Yes, it was fun hearing Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" at Bill Clinton's victory celebration, but I have to admit I found it a bit vapid. I found myself wishing for a song which could hold up its end of the bargain.

I remember reading an interview with Neil Young about a year ago. He said, "I think that the time when music could change the world is past. I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age."

I'm not sure that "This Land is Your Land" did it quickly, but I am damn sure that it has slowly and inexorably changed the world we live in, and for the better. And if will.i.am's "Yes We Can" didn't help to bring change to our country, then maybe Neil Young is right. But I think it did. Even now, I think other songs are being written and have been written which will change the world yet again, and for the better.

If there's a new "This Land is Your Land" out there, well, I hate to say it, but that song may have to wait sixty or seventy years to be played at a Presidential inauguration. That's fine; it's a mighty big honor for a song and, anyway, a song that great will have the patience to wait.

Star Wars, Muppets, Weddings

At the wedding I went to on Saturday, the processional (isn't that what they call the music played while the bridal party exits?) was, with perhaps some irony but much more glory and happiness, the "Star Wars" theme. The couple are in their late 20's I think. It really was a great way to send them off, I have to admit. If I'd had a hat, I would have thrown it in the air with excitement.



Lewis Hyde, author of "The Gift", (more about that lovely book later,) pointed out in an essay called "Frames from the Framers" that we are all flooded and soaked in a language of imagery and words which are owned by the entertainment and media industry. These phrases and pictures and ideas have now been woven into our consciousness and identity, but they are illegal for us to use for our own purposes. They're copyrighted and the companies that control them are very aggressive in protecting them. I'm not sure but my guess is that the church I was at on Saturday owes the writers of the "Star Wars" theme a royalty for the use of the song.

I guess that's why copyrights expire - a song or book or image belongs to the author at first, but after years pass and it has entered into myth, or in the case of "Star Wars" - religion - it becomes everyone's. (Yes, I like Wilco's "What Light.")

The night before the wedding, I was playing the piano in the living room of the big rental house where my extended family was staying, all 25 of us representing ages from 1 to 82. I was practicing my wedding reception number "You're Still the One," (which is the greatest 10th anniversary song ever written and that's good because the couple were actually celebrating the 10th anniversary of their somewhat private first wedding, this time with family included.)

After I'd run through the Shania Twain song a few times (despite my practicing, I still forgot a few words at the ceremony but that's another story,) I was kind of noodling around on the keys and ended up playing "Rainbow Connection" (from the Muppet Movie, yes, but written by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams: "We've Only Just Begun," "Just An Old Fashioned Love Song," etc.). By the time I was into the second verse, all of the generation Y-ers in the house had gathered around the piano and were singing along, through the (great, short) bridge and thence to the unbelievably moving last verse (only slightly less unbelievably moving than the faith-defining, -destroying, -and-then-reconstructing second verse) all the way to the end.

I enjoyed the fact that some of them sang in their regular singing voices, but maybe half of them sang in partial or full Kermit the Frog voices.

Now, it isn't news that "Rainbow Connection" is one of the best songs of the past 40 years. But when the night ended and I opened up my computer to say good night to my e-mail, I noticed a window open to an article about Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and I decided to read it. I turned to the second page of the interview, where he was asked who his influences as a singer are. The first singer he names: Kermit the Frog. I think in all seriousness. Or at least as much seriousness as "Star Wars" at a wedding.

"Star Wars" and Kermit are getting more and more substantial as time goes on.

The Long Now; The Short Now

The clock is ticking, ticking, ticking on our farewell to 2008. I thought it was a wonderful year. I hope 2009 isn't too bad in comparison (all the advance hype leaves my usual optimism with so little wiggle-room!)

In San Francisco recently, I went down to the headquarters of the Long Now Foundation.

I was excited to see their cool brass-and-stainless-steel clocks and planetary orreries, and the turning of another new year seemed like a good time to visit. Unfortunately, the museum/bookstore/headquarters was closed for the holidays. Since the Long Now Foundation is an organization dedicated to shifting our frames of reference from short-term and local horizons to longer and broader ones, I guess I shouldn't sweat the fact that I'll have to wait until later to visit the Long Now Foundation. I will come back sometime in the next thousand years or so, to contemplate the difficulties and complexities of the long-term protection and preservation of human knowledge and culture.

I've been reading about this organization with much fascination, especially since I've recently learned that it got its catchy name from Brian Eno, who seems to be a board member or some such thing. Another notable involved in the group is the wonderful author Neal Stephenson, whose recent novel "Anathem" was inspired by the Long Now Foundation's "Clock of the Long Now" project.

It's very interesting to think about how music fits in with a super-long frame of reference... I guess my favorite Bach two-part inventions are almost three hundred years old. But most of the music I love is a tenth as old as that, and I have to admit, when I think about who I'm writing for, it's not people three hundred years from now, never mind people ten thousand years from now. If I'm making music for people alive now, then my music is for the Short Now. Time can tell how the Long Now will deal with it.

"Your Voices" at the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Oh, here's the artwork for the Star Tribune's community blog.

The Strib is calling their community blogs "Your Voices." Here is the Dan Wilson blog at the Star Tribune.

"

My Voice on "Your Voices"

I'm going to be occasionally blogging on the Minneapolis Star and Tribune's "Your Voices" page. It's not going to be much different than this blog so I thought I'd post a link to those pieces when I put them up.

Star Tribune's Your Voices Page

Christmas approaching fast and everything seems under control. Illusion? If so, a lovely one.

Peace and Joy to you all!

Set List for Pantages Show

Here's the set from the Pantages, for those who asked. Read my reaction to the show on the previous blog.

DW

Solo set

Hand on My Heart
Turtledove
Across the Great Divide
California
One True Love
Honey Please
Brad Gordon joins
Singing in My Sleep
All Will Be Well

---break---

Band Set

Breathless
Easy Silence
Against History
Willie the King
Baby Doll
I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Secret Smile
She Can't Help Me Now
Free Life
band off
All Kinds

Encore

Everything Green - everyone
Eric & Steve off
John & Brad on pno, then Brad trumpet
Made to Last

Pantages Theater, Minneapolis, 12/13/08

What a night. My favorite show so far. Ever. It felt like the first truly rocking DW solo gig. I did the first set alone & then with Brad Gordon on piano for the last two songs. Then John Munson, Eric Fawcett and Steve Roehm joined in for the second half. The group moved like a school of fish through the dynamics - turning together and not knowing why, just going with it. Brad's clarinet on "Baby Doll" was pure joy. The "Secret Smile" jam still makes me smile.

I snuck in some Bob Dylan in the middle of "Hand on My Heart" and then later in the set sang Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" with the full band in nasty, groovy, greasy stomp mode and it was hilarious. I had never been able to cover a Dylan song but after I spoke at the "Blood on the Tracks" event in November, I got inspired to try again. And this song seems like I can get inside it pretty well.

Did you hear the travelogue in the first four songs? "Hand on My Heart," "Turtledove," "Across the Great Divide," "California." I felt the room was with me all the way. Thank you.