My iPod

Working in the yard this week, I kept myself going by listening to music, alternating through my favorite artists or playlists.  I think I transfer playlists from from iTunes, then the iPod pulls the artists and albums together.

I started the week with the Dixie Chicks, some powerful lyrics and harmony from two albums following their post-George Bush debacle- 16 songs.  Then on to David Allan Coe- 21 songs.  Waylan Jennings, Willie Nelson and David Allan Coe combined for 54 songs, with some David Allan Coe possibly duplicates.

Eric Burdon had 59 songs, 71 counting 12 by the Animals.  I moved on to Kansas, worrying that I might not have transferred the Kansas playlists, but, alas, there were 70 Kansas songs from 6 albums. By far, my favorite, I never felt the same after the band split up.  Their solo endeavors didn't move me either.  But these six albums contain the most sophisticated instrumentation and lyrics of all bands in the 70s classic rock genre.

I am trying to get permission to use the artwork from their Song for America album, for the cover of my novel RockParty, but the artist, Peter Lloyd, died, and I have been unable to discover who now holds the rights.  I am also usng quotes from three of their songs to support the political premises of the book.

Here is the cover image- a twenty-first century American eagle with "talons made of steele", and, here is the lyrics quote from the first song of the first Kansas album, 1973, I think.

If you expect the freedom,

that you say is yours,

prove that you deserve it,

help us to preserve it,

or being free will just be

words and nothing more.