Musing on Shaver and Joyce

This morning I was thinking about a line from "I Feel a Change Coming On," a song written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter a few years back. The line goes like this: "I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver and I'm reading James Joyce."

While I'm not foolish enough to pretend to know what's going on between the ears of Dylan and Hunter, whom I consider to be two of the greatest songwriters of the last century, I am foolhardy enough to discuss what the line means to me personally. 

To me, the line shows two different approaches to writing about one's homeland. James Joyce's approach to writing about Ireland was very studied and academic. He incorporated the lore and history of the Emerald Isle into his work. The writing of Billy Joe Shaver, on the other hand, seems to be instinctual. His writing about Texas has a salt of the earth feel to it. Both Joyce and Shaver, in my opinion, are very successful in conveying images of their homelands, though their approaches are very different.

Here is Billy Joe Shaver's "Live Forever."