REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL: Eliza Gilkyson

Eliza Gilkyson LAND OF MILK AND HONEY (Red House Records)

Topical songs from white folk are even more rare than they are successful, especially in a day and age when outrage is so commonplace. But rolling through a stack of CDs today in the car as I took my kids to school, I came across the lead track, "Hiway 9," and pretty much creamed my boots:

So the little man gathered all his chicken hawks in
and the neoo-cons and his daddy's kin
They had their own clear channel and a hell of a spin
And a white man hidden in a black man's skin

If you were Howard Stern or Don Imus, wouldn't you just want to play that verse over and over? One thing to take aim at such a wide target, another to hit it so poetically with such blunt force. Let's define poetic as: conveying meaning on more than one level. Listen to the song again and ponder that play on the concept of "holy" war. The sticker boasts a rediscovered Woody Guthrie song, "Peace Call,"sung with Iris Dement, Patti Griffin and Mary Chapin Carpenter, which should do the job of catching people's attention. My own sticker for this record would read: "Put down that Norah Jones and BUY THIS INSTEAD you IGNORAMUS!"

Pick it up here, here, or here, read and stream here.