There are certain songs that, when I hear them, well, I have this strong, sudden overwhelming desire to simply drop whatever it is I’m doing and head for the great outdoors.
Sometimes I don’t make it much further than my own backyard, but be that as it may. Not that I can or would literally drop things right then and there and take off, but the point is that I do have the desire.
Songs like Joni Mitchell’s River or The River, Mother Nature and Me by Jenny Lester or Sailing Down This Golden River, which was written by Pete Seeger and recorded by Arlo Guthrie, all make me want to be free of the shackles of my urban existence. When I hear songs like that, all I want to do is stand on the banks of a stream somewhere and either cast a line to a distant run or riffle, or breathe in the mountain air, smell the scent of cedar and listen to the sound of the water as it flows along over the rocks.
If I’m driving along and a song like Rocky Mountain High or Take Me Home Country Road, both by John Denver, comes on the radio, I feel like pulling into the nearest service station, filling up the gas tank and heading out on the open road – much in the same way that Four Strong Winds by Ian and Sylvia makes me want to go down by the ocean to stand on the rocks and watch the waves roll in.
Sometimes I’ll put on Jimi Hendrix’s version of Catfish Blues just to bring back memories of cat fishing on the Red River in Manitoba. It’s been a long, long time since I tied into a big old 30-pound catfish, but the memories are still quite vivid.
Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles not only reminds me of my teenage years, but also of the first time I stayed up at Dee Lake.
That was a good 25 years ago now.
Duff was a young dog back then, full of energy, curious, with a sense of adventure.
I have fond memories of getting up, opening the cabin door and looking out at the lake. I can still close my eyes and feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I remember standing there in the doorway, waiting and watching as the sun burned the morning mist off the lake’s surface.
The very first time I heard Bob Dylan singing A Song To Woody, I became a Dylan fan. I think I probably know the words to more than half his songs and he has written a heck of a lot of songs. Blowin’ In The Wind still strikes a chord with me.
About the same time I also became a Woody Guthrie fan. This Land Is Your Land is the kind of song that just sort of lingers in the back of your mind, and just sort of steps forward every now and then, of its own volition. I think I’ve sung that song more than once at a ‘do’ in someone’s living room when the stories start flowing and the musical instruments come out.
How many times have the words to Lake Marie or Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness by John Prine come to mind while I’ve been sitting out in my boat on a lake, casting my line to disinterested fish. There are quite a lot of songs that rattle around inside my head. The Big Rock Candy Mountain, originally recorded in 1928 by Harry McClintock, has been rattling around in there for well over half a century. That’s a long time for anything to stay in a person’s mind and memory.
English playwright William Congreve wrote in The Mourning Bride that “music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.”
All I know is how I feel when I listen to certain songs – and how I feel when I’m in the great outdoors.
