Living in the Golden State

My new favorite song (oh, how fickle the business of new favorite songs) is "The Golden State" from the forthcoming John Doe album, "A Year in the Wilderness". It's a duet with Kathleen Edwards, one of my favorites, whose voice blends great with Doe's.

"You are/the hole in my head/I am/the pain in your neck/You are /the lump in my throat/I am/ the aching in your heart"

It's a song of thorny, tempestous love-the kind of relationship you tell yourself you can't help having. 'It's fate' your heart says while other (pinker? harder?) parts who aren't fooled simply say 'I want this'. It's a song that Liz and Dick could have appreciated if they were both still living and into the rock and roll.

"We are tangled/we are stolen/we are living/where things are hidden"

While I don't know Doe as well as I know Kathleen (though there is of course the X song with the line "love is the Devil's crowbar") I can say for sure after witnessing her fury with her husband, Colin, at the last Chicago show I attended Kathleen has tempestuousness down.

"We are love/we are fate/we are the feeling/you get in the Golden State"

I don't know if Doe and Edwards know the Mary Oliver poem "Wild Geese" with it's great heated beginning:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."

but they sure sing like they do.



Thanks to Joe for getting the free CD, accurately predicting I would love the song and gallantly gifting it to me for my Best of 07 disc (we have a strict no repeats rule).