Roundup: “Songs About…”

“Songs About…”
January 14th, 2025

There are a lot of songs about fire – by The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Dave Alvin, X, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Metallica, to name a few.

It doesn’t feel right to play those songs right now on the radio for broadcast. It feels insensitive in light of the trauma and devastation that has been caused by the most recent spate of fires in Los Angeles, and even thinking back to the epic and unprecedented fires here in Northern California, not to mention in Colorado and Hawaii.

They are still great songs. Songs are written about lots of things including heartbreak, death, joy, murder, or the beauty of nature. Songs tell stories, they inspire, evoke memories, and can soothe.

I think about that saying, “Too soon?” sometimes, when I think about whether it might evoke a bad memory for a critical mass of people if I played a song. Not just because it might be a cheesy song that someone tends to hate, or perhaps an Eagles song. Although I really do not think that many people hate The Eagles.

Everyone knows someone directly or indirectly who has been affected by the LA fires. There are Marin County Fire personnel in Los Angeles providing mutual aid along with fire personnel from around the country, and even from outside of the USA.

Context is important to me. Without context, it is difficult to make good decisions. In fact, a lack of context such as to “when” something happened, “why” a decision was made, and under what circumstances something occurred, could lead to detrimental or poor decisions to be made. It is under these conditions that fact checking, done with integrity, makes for verified data points. 

I’m guessing that a lot of folks reading this newsletter know someone who will be affected by the decision to close down several of the ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore. The agreements to settle the ongoing issue of ranching in our seashore are complex and multifaceted, and I do not know all the details. I do know that regardless of how anyone feels about this decision, that it will change the character of our local communities.