Sure, we all get it: Gun-toting, anti-lockdown, drivel-spewing human roadblocks to progress are terrible. Aggravating. Rage-inducing. Are these adjectives understatements? Sure. What can you say at this point, though? What does it matter? What does this accomplish? Who are you winning over? These are the questions I find myself asking while listening to Jason Norman’s latest anti-masker-bashing single, “Dig (The Eagle Song),” a slow burning, soft rock semi-dirge that dips its toes into the sounds of Americana to paint a picture of what Norman thinks antagonistic covid-deniers look like. 

I started writing this shortly before the recent attack on the Capitol, and I’m even more lost in the aftermath than I was then. Frankly, I’ve been lost every single day these past six years, and I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way. Writing this, I feel like shit. I’m sad. I’m scared. I’m confused.  Writing this review has proven to emotionally challenge me in ways I wasn’t expecting. Let’s rip into it.

Musically and sonically, “Dig” is varying degrees of fine. The production is clean, crisp, and clear. When I listen, I hear and see the clearest blue sky I’ve ever seen, illustrated in particular by the harmonized, doubled guitar lines that precede each verse. They’re airy, distant, mourning. Do they represent the “eagle in the sky” Norman refers to in the chorus, or are they trails of air and gust left by their presence? Do these mournful melodies mirror the pain left in the wake of a person who flew home during yet another disease spike, or are they just some smooth guitar leads dressed up with a little auditory corn starch (to, y’know, thicken ‘em)? The instrumental work is subtly colorful and imaginative and, at the very least, conjures up some interesting questions regarding imagery and sonic metaphor.

Through a chorus that sounds like something straight out of The Jayhawks’s songbook, Norman declares himself (or the mask-shirkers he clearly has disdain for) to be the (not a, but *the*) eagle in the sky. Sidestepping the melancholy dirge of the verses, the chorus is a lift skyward, capturing the headstrong image of an anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, harmful-rhetoric-waxer defiantly protesting that which will protect them. The imagery continues to flourish via ascending and descending melodies, sonically depicting a bird (…an EAGLE?!) in flight, the cool air carrying it across the sky. But while this imagery is colorful, in the end the standard Americana-lite backdrop resonates as unmemorable.

Despite the overall, fine, instrumentation, I can’t help but feel irritated by the lyrics. From the faux-Americana accent to Norman’s own self-pitying delivery to the bland mockery of the song’s subject, all I can do is recoil. Lines like, “Who needs tests, who needs science? / I’ve got Jesus on my side” and “because I don’t empathize, me me me, my my my!” come across like a ninth grader’s “edgy” first foray into political commentary. I’ve heard we all go to a younger place inside ourselves in times of external strife, but when did America’s folk artists transition from protest song to whiny faux-edge? “Oh, no, doctors, science, facts, oh my!” translates to self-righteousness that reinforces our divide in lieu of protesting it. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying “don’t feel self-righteous, don’t feel frustrated, don’t feel this or that way.” No one can tell anyone how to feel. This song has its heart in the right place…I suppose. It’s just…what is this? How can you distill the entire year of 2020 down to “these people bad, these people dumb”? Everyone is unhappy. Claiming anti-maskers lack empathy while simultaneously mocking them for…whatever they have? Ignorance, fear, a destructive desire to lash out? How can you expect someone to relinquish the views they’ve clung onto once they’re angry and painted as inferior? What are the factors that lead someone to becoming this kind of person? 

“Dig” doesn’t give me the sense that Norman really cares about the issue so much as he just wants to throw his voice into the “grrr…those people bad!” choir. I have no idea if this is true, of course; I have no idea what this person’s life is like. As far as how the art comes across, though, it bleeds uninspired crowd-follower. If you’re going to make commentary like this, you need to inject your personality, some of your unique human insight. Otherwise, you’re hiding behind memes and general consensus, neither of which are particularly human. 

At the end of the day, this song inspired a conversation within myself at least. I don’t think it was the one Norman was intended but…hey, that’s art. This song leaves me feeling…I don’t know. Irritated, and yet at least satisfied by the sonic imagery. While the commentary doesn’t add anything new, I do deeply appreciate how the sounds behind it support and paint something beyond feeling created from auditory detail, rather than words. Something no doubt worth admiring.

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