“Because of the dog’s joyfulness,” Mary Oliver wrote in her exquisite Dog Songs, “our own is increased. It is no small gift.” Dogs have inspired literature, been muses to art, and garnered the label of “genius.” But the true gift of Dog — the gentle and ineffable essence of dogness — remains precisely that capacity for unselfconscious joyfulness. In a world obsessed with productivity, Dog might be our greatest gateway to pure presence.
That’s exactly what British singer, songwriter, and guitarist Nat Johnson captures with equal parts playfulness and poignancy in her single Dog — an homage not to Dog as a creature or a pet but as a disposition to the world, a way of life.
Oh, yes, and there’s an impossibly wonderful animated music video for added delight:
Complement Dog, which is also available on iTunes and Bandcamp, with this lovely animated adaptation of Bob Dylan’s If Dogs Run Free, then revisit Jim Homans’s breath-stopping meditation on what dogs are for.
