Beaver Nelson Takes a Chance

Beaver’s music is a tonic for my soul. Sure, I’ve known Beaver and his wife Stephanie since they were kids at Laity Lodge Youth Camp, but I’ve known lots of people for years...and their words don’t drive me to the depths of introspection like Beaver’s lyrics do.

He has a real feel for the working-class life and struggles of everyday people. His music reminds me that my ordinary everyday living contains the extraordinary. Every quotidian ritual has profound meaning, and this gives me hope.

This work makes me laugh and pause to wonder at the same time. The geese come home to their natural setting and find it claimed by a suburban soccer field. The juxtaposition of the girl by the ice chest reaching out makes me wonder. Is she reaching to feed someone or some goose? We have to wonder as we strive to create our own happiness who or what we displace through our actions? If we are afraid to ask these questions with Beaver and Joel, what does it say about us?

I love the lack of pretense in both artists. People who display their own vision of the world for others to see and judge take enormous risks. Beaver and Joel welcome our judgment and push us to uncomfortable places where we laugh and cry and wonder.