Who's More Self-Absorbed? John Denver vs. Johnny Cash

No, I'm not qualified to compare their entire musical corpuses. Or to comment on music at all. Let's just look at each one's signature song, from a philosophical perspective. In "Rocky Mountain High," John Denver wants to go off into the Rockies and "try to touch the sun," "walk in quiet solitude," etc. Now, as an introvert, I find this VERY appealing. And I like Nature. I do. And in fact, I really like the song. But on a closer listen, JD does not like people. He does not want people following him to the Rockies ... "more people, more scars upon the land." So, getting off by himself in the mountains, for John Denver, is SALVATION. "You might say he's born again. You might say he's found the key to every door." Granting that we all need a retreat and some beauty now and then, getting away from people as a permanent lifestyle is pretty dang self absorbed. Of COURSE most of our problems will vanish if we just get away from the dang PEOPLE! ... Meanwhile, in "Man In Black," Johnny Cash is going to tell us why he's always wearin' black, why we never see bright colors on his back. Turns out that he wears black for "the poor and beaten down." On a first listen, I must admit the content of this song simultaneously inspires and annoys me. As a middle-class person who is very susceptible to guilt trips, I question the populist assumption that a class war is raging and everyone is either a victim in it, or an aggressor. And, c'mon, Johnny, did you REALLY decide to wear black at first because you represent all oppressed people? Or was it because you like black and it looks better on stage? ... But having said that, the attitude expressed by "Man In Black" is miles ahead of the one expressed by "Rocky Mountain High." Although I may find Johnny's populism kind of grandiose, it isn't a pose. It's sincere. Johnny really is very concerned about people who are struggling. He grew up poor, he really identified with prisoners. Above all, Johnny's signature song is about OTHER PEOPLE. Actual, other people. This is what gets him going ... the life-and-death struggles of other people. He sings about that with as much passion as John sings about ... himself, alone in nature. What more need we say?

My Current Reads

Reading:
-Theophilus, by Michael D. O'Brien. Excellent historical fiction about the ancient world. The narrator is a Greek doctor with a very believable voice.
-Johann Christof Blumhardt: Life and Work, by Dieter Ising, translated from the German by someone I know. The translation is still very German sounding. It's a very scholarly work. Blumhardt is a wonderful person to get to know.
-Exodus. A mind-blowing book.

Wanting to read:
-Moby Dick, ever since I saw a TV special about whaling and the grisly incident with the ship Essex, that inspired the book. I read Moby Dick in the illustrated classics version as a kid, which means that I haven't read it, but have always assumed that I had.

A sad day for racing-mystery readers

Author Dick Francis has died. I am glad to read that he still has one more novel coming out! I'll review his novels some day.

Suffering "White Guilt"?

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Mourning My Lost Library

We move a lot, so in our lifestyle it's almost routine for our library to be broken up and purged every year or two. When I acquire books, I know that they'll be with me for only a while.
Still, the collection I'd gathered in our most recent house (above), had some real gems in it. Including the following:
The Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy, and Tales of the Long Bow by G.K. Chesterton
The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Blame It On the Brain? by, I think, Ed White (ironic that I can't remember his name, huh?)
When People Are Big and God Is Small by Edward T. Welch
Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson
Figuring Foreigners Out by Craig Storti
Under the Unpredictable Plant and Leap Over A Wall by Eugene Petersen
the complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
... as well as numerous books by P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, and Alexander McCall Smith, and hard copies of Credenda/Agenda.
If you meet any of my books wandering the world, be sure they are all excellent reads.