NZ Visual Diary - entry 254
trail - Auckland Domain
In the early days of my undergraduate studies, I was introduced to the music of Jesse Winchester. Listening some fifty-four years later to one of his early songs Beloxi can still harken a flood of memories and emotions. Born and raised in the Louisiana (USA), Winchester moved to Canada in 1967 rather than serve as a soldier in the Vietnam War.
Many of his songs, like Biloxi, express a plaintive longing, a deeply mournful sadness over having to leave under duress his childhood home and country in response to the prosecution of a war he vehemently opposed.
There is also whimsy and lyrical lightness in his songs. The lyrics of his song Nothing But a Breeze comes to mind:
Life is just too short for some folks
For other folks it just drags on
Some folks like the taste of smokey whiskey
Others figure tea is too strong
Well, I'm the type of guy that wants to right down the middle
I don't like all this bouncing back and forth
Me, I want to live with my feet in Dixie
And my head in the cool blue North1
The ambivalence expressed in this lyrical verse - of holding opposing thoughts and preferences in a playful tension - neatly conveys my quiet restlessness, specifically the desire to be both urban hipster and sylvan sprite.
When a drive into New Zealand’s hinterland for a rustic tramp [Kiwi-speak for hike] isn’t possible, a stroll along the tree-lined paths of the Auckland Domain is a restorative tonic.
Jesse Winchester, lyrics from Nothing But a Breeze