Ever On, Dan Fogelberg (1951-2007)

(Note – this is Scott writing.)
Independent thinkers, activists, and peacemakers have lost a friend in the passing yesterday of Dan Fogelberg. Just 56, Dan “the artist” Fogelberg succumbed to a long battle with prostate cancer.
To be sure, Dan Fobelberg is most famous for his soft-rock hits: tales of loves (Longer, Since you’ve asked); loves lost (The Long Way, Tell me to my face); and greed gone bad (Sutter’s Mill). Dan will also likely be “immortal” for tributes to New Years (Same Old Lang Syne); to the Kentucky Derby horses (Run for the Roses); to Geogia O’Keefe (Bones in the Sky); to under-appreciated fathers everywhere (The Leader of the Band); to abandoned seniors (Windows & Walls) and to the renewing power of nature (To the Morning).
Fogelberg’s range across 20 albums was extraordinary; he could do sappy (Wysteria), driving rock (As the Raven Flies), classical (Netherlands), jazz (Holy Road), or blue grass (High Country Snow).
I encountered his music long before he became a pop icon, via a progressive free-spirit who prized his early albums.

For one of her art classes, I had the “honor” of having my portrait painted via Fogelberg’s frame from his Souvenirs album cover. :-} She got an “A” for my embarrassment.
When I saw her dance to Fogelberg’s “Dancing Shoes,” I was smitten, a “pas de deux forever.” I sometimes wondered if she was one “who lived somewhere in Pennsylvania” in my favorite bittersweet ballad, “The Last Nail.” Two decades later, I witnessed one of Dan’s last major concerts – at Wolftrap, Virginia — one of the most incredible one person performances ever.
For all his fame, Fogelberg had an unflinching independent streak — a willingness to write for the sake of his art, not for sales; for what was on his heart, even if it ran headlong into political gales.
Consider “The Power of Gold,”

or “Face the Fire” (theme song for the anti-nuclear resistance.)

or “Democracy” (1993 on the Portrait album),

Now there’s people living out in the street
Going hungry with no shoes on their feet
While the government just twiddles its thumbs
And spends more money on guns
And they keep on planning nuclear war
Tell me who is it they’re planning it for
If not the men that make their profits from hate
I swear it seems they can’t wait

or “A Voice for Peace.”

May such a spirit be his “living legacy.” Quaker “Friends” may especially like “the light” in Nexus (written long before we’d heard of Lexus)

Yet Fogelberg had his dark moments, as in The River,

Years later, he’d become far more sanguine about life’s trails, as in the widely copied, “Along the Road:”

I’m having my own “old lang syne moment,” listening to Dan’s quite “different” Christmas album – a favorite here in our house. Try listening to the track 8 instrumental, “snowfall,” without something tugging deep inside.
Ten years ago, Dan appended “Ever On” to a four disk collection of his music: (Portrait). It’s a fitting benediction:

Ever on Dan…. ever on.