One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
Connie Dover: 'I Am Going To The West'
Connie Dover.
(
Courtesy of the artist
)
Listen
4:54
For many Americans, the open West represents wild natural places and a carefree lifestyle. Far away from the din of the city, the West is a place where there's time to stop and smell the sage.
Connie Dover is an American folk signer who understands the longing to be connected to this part of the country. She grew up in the Midwest but travels every summer to be a camp cook at dude ranches around Yellowstone National Park.
She has traveled all over the world, but Dover says the site of the rising landscapes and commanding pines of the American West still produces a "pounding heart and welling eyes."
Dover prefers to live simply, decorating her cabin on the ranch with no more than a few books and some candles. She says "looking out the window can be just as entertaining as a satellite network."
Still, Dover's song is less about escapism and more about the desire to be a part of nature, comingling with the earth.
"So often when we visit a place to be in nature we are alien observers," Dover says. "We take photographs and we leave — and part of the yearning that I feel is that I want to be in there with the trees and the sage and the animals, not feeling like an interloper, but as part of that whole world."
The What's In A Song series comes from the Western Folklife Center.
Sponsored message
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDA1OTI3MjQ5MDEyODUwMTE2MzM1YzNmZA004))
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
