Music and water: blog action day

Water. It might be something you take for granted; it might be something you struggle for. Lack of it might cause your crops to fail, too much of it might wash your house away. Perhaps you make your living on the waters, or perhaps you live landlocked or dry country. Whatever your circumstance, water affects your life.

Water turns up very often in music, both as a direct subject-- think Rain Rain Go Away or Out on the Rolling Ocean, Thousands are Sailing or Oro Mo Bhaidhin, a song in Irish whose name means my little boat. It also appears in more indirect ways too, such as in Waist Deep in the Big Muddy or Hurricane’s Coming , Lough Erne’s Shore or Ready for the Storm, or Be Like the Sea.

I am telling you all this just now because today is blog action day. Today thousands of bloggers from countires around the world are writing about water, what can be done to ensure everyone on the planet has enough, now and in future, and ways to think about these things.

As you’ll know, I tend to think about things through music. For thinking about these issues to do with water, I suggest to you Carrie Newcomer’s song Stones in the River.


other music to go along with your thinking about water
The Farthest Wave
Precious Waters : River of Life
Music Road: Music and Landscape: Blog Action Day 2009
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

the photograph is from the Irish Sea on a tranquil evening, with all boats safe home.

You may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

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Music and Landscape: Blog Action Day 2009

Much of the music we walk with here along the Music Road is grounded in connection with and thoughts about place and landscape.

Erica Wheeler sends musical postcards from her stops along the American way. Julie Fowlis sings old songs about the sea that she learned from tradition bearers as she grew up in North Uist. Emily Smith likes to source songs from the tradition of her native Dumfriesshire and when she writes songs, that place and its people are what she draws from as well. Jeff Talmadge sees rain clouds in Atlanta and it reminds him of how rainstorms looked where he used to live in Texas. Duncan Chisholm and Sara-Jane Summers translate the landscapes of the Scottish highlands into fiddle tunes. Ian Tyson writes of the disappearing cowboy culture in western Canada, and the Barra MacNeils sing of immigrants coming to the island of Cape Breton, while Cathie Ryan sees a Navajo woman sweeping a dirt floor in the American southwest and thinks of her grandmother in Ireland, who did the same. Kathy Mattea searches out songs from in the coal country of the Appalachians where she grew up, and Tish Hinojosa writes of having her life planned by the Rio Grande. Carrie Newcomer throws geodes in her garden in Indiana, and sees the history of when that landscape was the edge of the frontier. There are many more.

It’s a tapestry of connection and inspiration between land and artist. I’m asking you to think about all this because today is Blog Action Day, a day when thousands of bloggers across the world speak to their readers to get them thinking about one subject. This year, that subject is climate change.

None of those artists mentioned above writes specifically about climate change, but they all know and love how land and people shape each other. The song in this video is not about climate change either, but as you listen to the lyrics, I think you will see why I include it here.






UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Blog Action Day post, which is not about music

Music Road: Thinking about music: Blog Action Day 2008

Music Road: now playing: The Environment, on Blog Action Day 2007

Thinking about music: Blog Action Day 2008

There are times for each of us and all of us when we have enough to be going on with, and times when we do not. This could be with money, with a place to live, with food, with health, with direction, with community, with family, with friends, with faith, with a kind word, with love. It’s good to remember that there are times -- sometimes at the same time -- when we all need to receive, and when we all need to give. That gift could be money; that could be an encouraging word; that could be a meal; that could be a smile; that could be a song.

Music, especially the sort of music we consider here along the Music Road, is a real connector, a place for giving and receiving and encouraging, regardless of circumstance. Through the words and music, there are also often ways to reflect on how, what, when and where to give, and to receive. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was a stranger, and you invited me in -- words from the New Testament which find resonances in many faiths, and through many understandings of music and how it connects us.

Today is Blog Action Day, when hundreds of thousands of bloggers over all the world, reaching millions of readers, writing on all sorts of areas, are asking their readers to think about a single topic. This year, that subject is poverty.


While you are reflecting on this, you may want to see these articles:

creative practice: generosity

Potato Music

late summer: two for the road

now playing: Amy Grant: Mosaic

an essay from singer and songwriter Carrie Newcomer about the politics of love and fear, and the politics of being an artist


now playing: The Environment, on Blog Action Day 2007

now playing: The Environment, on Blog Action Day

Today is what's called Blog Action Day. The subject is the environment. It's a project to bring varied and differing voices of bloggers together on one subject to reach their varied and differing audiences.



Music Road always celebrates and asks your respect for our natural world, and our human world.
Today, you're invited to
Read about
Adrienne Young, a Nashville based folk/country/bluegrass musician who believes in sustainable agriculture.

Check out the work of Canadian folk singer and songwriter Eileen McGann, who has written with both deep insight and engaging humor about the environment of Canada as one of the many facets of her work



Look here for commentary on how Irish music and Irish landscape are intertwined

Explore understated connections for healing between the human spirit and the natural world in Cathie Ryan's The Farthest Wave.