
Roland Dixon – Fire Behind The Breeze
Similar artists: Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith, Bob Dylan, Tyler Childers
Genre: Alt Country, Alternative Rock
We are naturally wired to want to hear stories. But lately, we haven’t had much time for them, and our time is only getting shorter. Years before, we couldn’t have heard just about any story. It didn’t matter if we fully understood it, and certainly, it didn’t matter if the tale did not end in the way that we wanted it to. Every story was about us somehow.
Roland Dixon is someone who tells stories and is pretty confident in the quality of the yarn being spun. This is why the singer takes his time and doesn’t worry much about providing accurate details about the characters that come in and out of the narrative. Then again, the great storytellers who carry a guitar tend to have this kind of confidence.
Roland Dixon’s “Fire Behind The Breeze” is a story meant to help you forget about your smartphone and, perhaps, even destined to convince you to put it away for a long time. The accuracy of the events isn’t very clear, and, in fact, there’s a mist that covers much of the action here. Dixon paints in between the lines, letting a strong, technically developed singing voice carry the song through the moments of uncertainty. It’s a song for the times when we had all the time in the world to hear a story that might reveal something about us. With luck, we have not yet lost this fully.
Abe Loomis – Refugees Are Welcome Here
Similar artists: Steve Earle, Tom Petty, Drive-By Truckers
Genre: Folk rock, Alt-Country, Alternative Rock
Our teachers may have all accused us of never knowing our history, but they were, at least partly, wrong. We couldn’t wait to forget it. We needed to do that. Otherwise, we would have just gone insane out of fear that we would repeat all the evils that are part of the collective history of the human race. Abe Loomis takes one brave step forward in reminding us that there’s some good left. And, because there’s not much of it to go around, it must be preserved.
Of course, the song is written as a protest song, most likely against the anti-immigration policies of one of the world’s wealthiest nations. And while the need for such measures can be debated all day, the dark humorist in all of us can’t escape the irony. We are, after all, talking about a nation founded by immigrants, one that disposed of its Southern neighbour of 55% of its territory and the one that, largely, is to be thanked for helping enforce the basic rights of all men across the Earth.
Take Abe Loomis’ “Refugees Are Welcome Here” for what it is – a cry for compassion in a time of madness. After all, we have the great rock n’ roll bards to blame for making us believe the world can live in peace and harmony. With so much threatening these notions nowadays, it is up to the ones who have little to give to the ones who don’t have much at all. Abe Loomis still believes in turning things around and will use songs as one of the vehicles to help us do this.
Really appreciate this thoughtful take and beautiful writing