I Hear a New World

is a great blog that i found just this morning thanks to the serendipity of the internets. Googling "Cate Brothers + Lane Lindsey" in order to try to find anything on an old friend who road managed the Cates during their major label days, I found a nice short take on the musical pleasures and lyrical problematics of the song "Union Man." Now think that the lyrics to "Union Man" are a little more ambiguous than the way The Sad Billionaire reads them, but I also know that i'm fundamentally disposed to hear all things Cate Brothers in a positive light, and that it' s likely true that , as John A. Arkensawyer once said, "Union Man is a great song with lousy politics."

So on the blog I Hear a new World (http://ihearanewworld.blogspot.com/) The Sad Billionaire ponders, very briefly the connection between the Cates' apparent populist anti-unionism and their proximity to Bentonville, the home of Wal-Mart, a link that I've been thinking about for awhile now. Scrolling up from this post which was put up on Feb. 7th 2008, I found a thoughtful entry that drew on Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddamn" to contextualize those over-exploited youtube remarks by Jeremiah Wright, and a critical disquisition about the birth of the neoliberal grotesque, among other gems. This has all helped to unloose some thoughts about the neoliberal landscapes of the post-civil rights south (and Northwest Arkansas in particular) that I'll try to put together in a future post.

Just glancing through, I can tell that this is great, smart stuff. A music blog with academic smarts, a critical-left political engagement, and a sense of humor. I'm adding it to the sidebar forthwith. I can't find an easy way to link directly to the "Union Man" entry, but it's at the very bottom of the current page and it's called (quotes and all) "I've had a rough night and i hate the fucking Eagles, man." go read it and everything else written by the mysterious Sad Billionaire.

*this post brought to you by Sesame Street, and by littles, who is sitting on my lap as I type.