Monthly Archives: March 2007

7. You are the keeper of Earth zoo.

Song Blog

Where I first heard about Donovan is a mystery. It could have been at Cindy‘s – her parents were the closest to hippies that I knew – Cindy and her mom were vegetarians and Buddhist and they named their house Walden Oaks. Wherever I heard of Donovan, the idea of him caught my fancy. I bought myself his Essence to Essence album and played it in my attic bedroom, reading the lyrics as I listened to the songs.

I liked most of them, and different ones bring back different memories. Here’s one about the first track: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.

When a friend and I decided it was time Woodruff and Edwards, one of the local factories in town, stopped polluting the air and river, we made picket signs with some of the words from this song (which we were also going to shout to passersby):

Don’t pour filth into rivers,
Rivers are like the blood in our veins.
Don’t pour filth into the air,
Air is the best thing that we can breathe.

We tried to talk our other friends into joining us on our protest – we had signs made and even a chant planned, but no one was interested (not even Cindy). We chose a day that we’d be off school and were ready to do our bit for a better world.

My friend decided, the afternoon before our scheduled protest, to call the factory to tell them they’d better fix their factory or we were going to come down the next day and picket in front of it. That they needed special anti-pollution caps on their smokestacks to stop their smoke from causing air pollution. She also said she suspected they dumped their waste into the Fox River.

She called me that evening and said our picket was off. The factory representative she spoke to told her that if we came down and picketed that the factory might close down because they couldn’t afford to put the special caps on the smokestacks. Then the workers would be out of jobs. Did she want that on her conscious? She didn’t and canceled our protest.

But I still liked that song, and would sing it when I passed the factory – or any factory for that matter. It wasn’t until last year that I found out that the song was named after a book by R. Buckminster Fuller.

Some hippie I made.

6. There’s No Place Like Home

Music,

Each year, first around Christmastime then maybe at Eastertime, I eagerly awaited the annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz. Even before we had a color TV I loved this movie. I hid my eyes when the Wicked Witch of the West first appeared in the forest, cried when Dorothy had to say goodbye to her new friends, and laughed through my tears when she was safely home again. My dad used to make fun of my crying each year because, as he pointed out, I’d seen it enough times to know the ending.

When I was in elementary school most of the “walkers” went home for lunch. We had an hour to walk home, eat lunch and walk back. My dad sometimes came home for lunch too, and on one of those lunchtimes, my dad brought me a large, flat, square paper bag. Inside was the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz. The album cover opened like a book, and inside were scenes from the movie. I may have misremembered the time of day Dad brought this gift, but I won’t ever misremember my feeling of joy and excitement. Now I could experience the Wizard of Oz every day of the year if I wanted to.

Each lunchtime after I got the record, I’d finish eating my toasted cheese sandwich and bowl of tomato soup and run into the living room to put the record on the turntable. I always began with the first side of the album and by the time that was over, it was time to head back to school, so I learned the songs and words to the first half of the Wizard of Oz by heart. Often the sun would shine through the large multi-paned window on the south side of the house and those days I pretended the sunshine on the golden carpet was the yellow brick road and I’d skip around the path until I was worn out.

To this day I remember all the words (that were on the album) up to the poppy field scene. I annoy friends and family by quoting from the movie and reciting the words when we watch it (which is rarely these days).

It was a pure act of love that my father brought this gift to me. He was not a fan of the movie and didn’t necessarily like the music, but he knew how much I did and knew how much it would mean to me. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, and luxuries like this were somewhat rare, especially for a middle-of-the-year for-no-particular-reason kind of gift.