In talking about her song "I Am Going to The West," Connie Dover says, "So often when we visit a place to be in nature we are alien observers. 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."
What's in a Song
03/22/09 NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday
Length: 4:49 ~ Listen
"I am Going to the West" is featured on Connie's The Border of Heaven CD. Purchase it here.
Connie Dover is an American folk singer who understands the longing to be connected to this part of the country. Growing up in the Midwest, she has traveled all over the world, but travels every summer to be a camp cook at dude ranches around Yellowstone National Park. 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.
