| Am I Alone in This? Bill Bottrell in the January 2001 New Settler |
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why not. My favorite Bottrell is a morality song, 'Chocolate Albion' sung to a Brother John, one of these guys from this 30-year generation that went from 75-07%. He's one of the 07% still working in the timber industry. You write 'Chocolate Albion' even before you become a man of the Albion and have that empirical grasp, that seasonal comprehension of the devastation logging and roading causes to a riverine. BILL: I read Timber Wars as soon as I started spending much time here-by Judi Bari. Found it in a bookstore and read through that, and I got the basics of the theme of 'Chocolate Albion,' probably through that reading. Living in the city, I vaguely understood that clearcutting was a problem, but I just |
didn't understand how it was all connected. And I really got into this watershed idea.
Watersheds are Nature's human boundaries,
our true natural boundaries.
Because it is where humans and creatures and everything has to tie into the same system. In writing the song, I really learned a lot about the holism of our communities. And it's another folk song. It's a story-telling folk song in the style of Woody Guthrie, telling the news from this part of the country. And maybe it's telling the news you won't hear otherwise. It describes where we live in the wintertime when it gets really rainy - and keeps raining and raining - "Most Decembers when the blow rains from the east, we pull our hats on low/We watch the endless rain beat the |