Last June I got the chance hear the Neville Brothers and Dr. John in concert at the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodenville, WA. It was a great experience - we sat on the side of a hill and shared a bottle of wine as the sun went down and listened as Dr. John and the Neville Brothers worked their magic and transported us back to New Orleans.
A number of things stand out about that concert, not the least of which was seeing a bunch of laid back Northwesterners clad in fleece jackets against the evening's chill dancing a second line. But about halfway through Dr. John's set something else became clear. A couple of weeks earlier I had published a diary for the May NOLA Blog-a-thon titled Post-Katrina Music. In it I discussed some of the music that has been released since the storm and that was born of the storm itself. As I listened to the songs from Dr. John's new album City That Care Forgot, songs that I had not heard before, I realized that I was hearing the definitive post-Katrina album, songs full of anger, outrage and sadness delivered as only Dr. John can.
It's appropriate that I write about this album during the Republican National Convention because just like the speeches we've heard this week, City That Care Forgot is partisan red meat. But the "base" this album is aimed at isn't the group that gathered in Minneapolis this week. Dr. John's "base" is a wide slice of the country: the residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the families that have seen their loved ones shipped off to Iraq and everyone who is sickened by the politics as usual of the last eight years. He pulls no punches and you know exactly where Dr. John is laying the blame for the plight of New Orleanians in a post-Katrina world. Politicians, Big Oil, Haliburton, Blackwater - all of the villains we know too well make appearances in the lyrics.
Some of the songs could have been written as a stinging response to the speakers we've heard in the past couple of days...
2. Time For A Change
If you find somebody who loves the world and people
Vote 'em into office. Look just a little deeper
Don't suck up the oil, strip mine this while earth
And save our planet, whose master do you serve?
3. Promises, Promises
The road to the White House, paved with lies
The truth will set you free
...
Politicians knew we needed our wetlands
The truth will set you free
...
Promises, promises, empty words, empty words
I often wonder if the irony of Nixon's Southern Strategy even registers with the Republicans of today - that the party of Lincoln would solidify its hold on the South using rhetoric that would have been appreciated by the Confederacy that Lincoln fought so hard to defeat. I didn't control the TV remote in the day's after Katrina - my host was a Fox News fan and I saw far more Bill O'Reilly than in that week than I ever had before or have since. The racist undercurrent in the Fox commentators, the not so subtle implication that responsible people would have evacuated rather than waiting for the government to save them - that theme continues to today with chain emails that compare Denver snowstorms to post-Katrina New Orleans and statements about how there was no looting after flooding along the upper Mississippi river earlier this year. Dr. John calls out the purveyors of those attitudes in this next track:
5. Dream Warrior
If you don't understand, lemme explain
About the Second Battle Of New Orleans
Not about the loss, not even the devastation
About it was done with intention
Dark and spoiled when they blew that levee
That ole South did rise again
Laughing at the show on CNN
...
The strange fruit of today
Ain't hanging from no tree, layin on the ground
Left to rot right where they drowned
None of us could have imagined the journey we were starting on when we locked the doors of our homes and drove away in the days before Katrina. Yes, we were worried, but we were all thinking of being back in a few days. For far too many of us, that last look of the city in our rear view mirror was goodbye - we just didn't know it at the time. Some of us have found homes elsewhere and others are still looking for a way back:
1. Keep On Goin'
Never meant to walk so far
When you walked out that door
Thought you'd be going around the corner
Forgot which way you turned five corners ago
...
Left a trail of crumbs and seeds
They ain't there no more
...
You find the road someway somehow somewhere
Gotta keep on goin'
For those who made it back home to New Orleans, the fight really hasn't ended:
7. We Gettin' There
My friends scuffling with contractors,
Permits, and roofers
On top of tons property damage
Feel like insurance companies screwed us
My partner lost his job then his marriage
Like dominoes fallin' down the block
Got strung out on lush and narcotics
He's walking around like he's in a state of shock
This ain't the Sudan or Lebanon
It's New Orleans if you care
And if ya wonder how we doin'
Short version, is we gettin' there
During the days after Katrina when I thought that my outrage was maxed, there was an image that nearly sent me over the edge - the sight of armed mercenaries patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Dr. John's response is an incredulous Say Whut?
9. Say Whut?
They tell me "Forgive." They tell me "Forget."
Ain't nobody charged for for the murders yet
Half of the story ain't never been told
All those "drowning victims" full of bullet holes
Say whut, say whut whut?
Blackwater rollin' like they're in Iraq
Shootin' women and children in the back
Puttin in the I-10* guess it wasn't enough
All down Claiborne dead bodies all lined up
Say whut, say whut whut?
* See note below
Though I never tire of it, I sometimes have a hard time listening to Katrina related music - Marcia Ball's version of Louisiana 1927 and Marc Cohn's Dance Back From the Grave have brought me to tears when I've heard them live. At this particular concert it was Dr. John's My People Need A Second Line that did it.
10. My People Need A Second Line
My people need a Second Line
For the ones that did all that dyin'
And I can hear their spirits cryin'
They want a Second Line
My people need a Second Line
For all their families they might never find
The old and young lost down the line
My people need a Second Line
There are still more gems on this album. I could go on about how much I love it but I hope that you'll track the disc down yourself. I truly believe that it is the definitive post-Katrina album and worthy of being played again and again.
------------
I've wondered about the attachment that I have to New Orleans. I have to admit that some of the city's exuberant excesses such as the crowds and chaos of Mardi Gras really don't appeal to me. The entire time that I lived there I felt as if I had a foot in each of two worlds - even though I was raised just upriver from New Orleans, my home has been the Pacific Northwest for many years now. I even kept my Washington state residency and Washington driver's license because I knew that my time in Crescent City was temporary.
Still, semi-outsider that I may be, I have no problem saying that my people need a Second Line. Had the fool in the White House understood the responsibility that came with his office there would be no need to tell him today "Mr. President, your people need a Second Line." Or to say to the country as a whole "our people need a Second Line."
Blogathon schedule-all times Pacific
Wed., Sept. 3
7AM
(?)
9AM YatPundit
11AM Mike Stagg
1PM mlharges
3PM neworleanslady68
5PM
Thurs., Sept. 4
7AM
9AM Mike Stagg
11AM Louisiana 1976
1PM
3PM scorpiorising
5PM Patriot Daily News Clearing House
Fri., Sept. 5
7AM My mom is my hero
9AM Crashing Vor
11AM Avila
1PM mlharges
3PM pkgoode
5PM YatPundit
Note: "Puttin in the I-10" in Say Whut? refers to the damage done to Claiborne Ave. during the construction of I-10. More info can be found here at Wikipedia. The gorgeous live oak trees that used to line Claiborne Ave. are remembered in painted tree trunks on the raised roadway supports visible in the following picture by flickr user skooksie: