Wednesday, April 4, 2007
D-Squared debut on YouTube.com
This is exciting for us! Our friend and webmistress, Cheryl Colan, went on a camping trip with us to the desert and video taped our newest song, “Little Iraq”. The song was inspired by a camping experience several weeks prior to the filming, when we embarked on an impromptu Birthday Camp in the desert just north of Phoenix.
It started out innocently enough – hiking among the saguaros, throwing the frisbee for Yippy and a gourmet campfire meal. But from dusk to noon the next day we witnessed an assault on the desert unlike anything we had ever experienced. Drunken fishermen drove throughout the night around Lake Pleasant in their diesel trucks (one right through our camp); the moon kicked up a small arms barrage that lasted until 3AM; and the next morning, after the sheriff had tried to ticket us for an unrestrained dog, a horde of off-road vehicle enthusiasts descended upon the river bottom we were camped in. When we were finally driven out, we passed hundreds of people with all manner of armaments from pistols to shotguns to AK47s, standing upon mounds of spent shell casings firing into the desert – a most impressive display.
At one point we climbed a small mountain only to command a 180 degree view several miles deep of churning dust accompanied by a soundtrack that bore a striking resemblance to Apocalypse Now. It was then that we dubbed the place Little Iraq. And it pissed Don off enough to go home and write this song.
To vote for “Little Iraq” on YouTube go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWJbQ0KJTus
Deb & Don,
I edited the HTML for this post so that people can just play the song right on your site. Left the link at the bottom so they can go to YouTube and vote for your video though.
Chills, chills and tears. If you think this is just a song protesting abuse of public lands, play it again a few times and listen to the lyrics and let them pull you deeper and deeper into the sands of understanding the darker side of our valiant nature.
Most people don’t write well when they’re pissed off, as a rule. Tend to wax a bit self indulgent. Don is a brilliant exception.
Don & Deb are perhaps my favorite songwriters on the planet, perhaps even the whole Big Sky Full of Dumb Stars.
Hey, this video got featured in Ken Ralston’s Camping Tips Newsletter March 2007. He had good things to say about you guys. Cool!
[...] topical video, Little Iraq, produced by our friend and filmmaker, Cheryl Colan, has been accepted on Neil Young’s Living [...]
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