Artist	Song
Houston Symphony Orchestra (Tobias Picker, composer)	Old and Lost Rivers
Al Green	Take Me to the River
Johnny Cash	Big River
Pixies	River Euphrates
Creedence Clearwater Revival	Proud Mary
Bruce Springsteen	The River
Willie Nelson	Whiskey River
Aretha Franklin	River's Invitation
The Mavericks	Dream River
The Seldom Scene	C & O Canal
John Hiatt	The River Knows Your Name
Robert Johnson	Traveling Riverside Blues
Bob Dylan	Floater (Too Much to Ask)
Los Lobos	River of Fools
Ray Charles	Swanee River Rock
Elton John w/Cliff Richard	Slow Rivers
Talking Heads	Take Me to the River
Prince	The Holy River
R.E.M.	Find the River

Comment:

Songs about rivers. Songwriters write some deep songs about rivers. I was listening to "Old and Lost Rivers," a classical piece composed by Tobias Picker that was included on Music for the Soul, a CD compiled by the modern day spiritual writer Thomas Moore (as opposed to St. Thomas More...). It seems like a very evocative piece and listening to it brought to mind various songs about rivers or that involve rivers somehow. Although these songs span a variety of musical styles, many of them seem to share the same mood, both with each other and with "Old and Lost Rivers," which opens this CD. I think there are probably various lyrical themes that run throughout this set of songs, but I haven't listened to it enough yet to get a feel for that. Travel, melancholy, regret, mystery, history, spirituality are all themes that seem to weave through this CD. River songs seem to make good "closing" songs for albums--the Seldom Scene, Mavericks, Talking Heads' and REM songs are all the last songs on their original albums. The Elton John song is one of only about two decent songs on what was argueably his absolute worst album, Leather Jackets, which I guess you could say proves something about rivers even being inspiring to artists who aren't particularly inspired at the time.

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