Eveleth: A Fire's Still Burning.

Five years ago, I sat alone in Grumpy's bar on Washington Avenue, scratching down some words:

    If you're a bird you could do worse than Eveleth
    The tamarack, it runs for miles
    The water's clear since the mines ran down
    And the sky...
    Well, let's not talk about the sky

    Cause the fire's still burning
    A fire's still burning

Maybe I knew I was writing a song, but I rarely start lyrics without an instrument at hand. I think I was just trying to hold myself together.

I had known Paul Wellstone as his student in a Carleton American Government class, as a war protestor and activist, then later as a fellow marathon runner. When he ran for state auditor, I pretty much figured it was hopeless, but when he announced for the Senate race, I wrote  my first check for a political campaign.

I tried to push back the choking feeling with an ironic tone:

    There's never been much cause to go to Eveleth
    Bob Dylan nearly came from there
    But he left and you know you don't look back
    If you're going now...
    Well, let's not talk about going

    Cause the fire's still burning
    A fire's still burning

Wellstone didn't have to go to Eveleth. He was diverting from his Senate campaign on the day of a debate with Norm Coleman and skipping his own fundraiser in Minneapolis, to attend the funeral of state Rep. Tom Rukavina's father. What was really important to him wasn't always what the consultants said.

    Maybe if he hadn't flow to Eveleth
    Maybe if he hadn't tried so hard
    Maybe if we knew what we all know now
    Maybe...
    Oh, let's not talk about it

    Cause the fire's still burning
    A fire's still burning

There's a very fine line between searing intensity and self-absorption. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish passion from ambition. There were times Paul could grate even upon his friends and colleagues, but there was no mistaking his caring and purity of spirit.

As a recording, "Eveleth" could've used revising and polishing after the fact, and the vocal track should've been recut. But I wanted to preserve the pulsing roughness, the tension between knowing/not knowing. This was a gulp of emotion, of trying not to dwell on what couldn't be changed and looking for what could.

As I wrote in a bar five years ago, the fire was still burning in TV footage from that obscure, lonely swamp.

A fire's still burning.

MP3 File