top of page
Search
Writer's pictureThistle Pettersen

'Animal Dreams', a song about roadkill and solidarity

In 2006 I rode in a bike tribe of six down to New Orleans to help out with Hurricane Katrina relief with a collective of artists, songwriters, and eco-primitivists called Cycles of Uprising.


The song, Animal Dreams, comes from that adventure.


We often camped on the side of the road wherever we could find a semi-secluded spot. On one particular night, camped out in a swamp in Mississippi, we told stories around the campfire of our lives as women.


Yet, the sisterhood and solidarity we felt were damaged by trans and queer ideology present in all the members of our tribe, except for me. At that time, I had not read Sheila Jeffreys, nor did I know that trans ideology is harmful, but I felt it in my bones. Speaking of bones, below are some pictures of the bones of a deer I saw on a bicycle adventure in Wisconsin last year with my friend Rebecca. In the song, I refer to the bones of the many animals killed each year by cars and trucks.





The amount of roadkill we saw that day before we camped in the swamp was overwhelming and reminded me of the sadness I felt about our tribe, and how reckless we are in general, as a species on the planet.


I imagined the screams of the animals after being hit, at least some of them. The lucky ones die right away.


In my sorrow, I wrote Animal Dreams, a call for solidarity amongst our bike tribe and a cry for all those, including humans, who are lost to the inherent violence of car culture.


If you like this song and story, please consider buying my music under the shop tab of this website. Thank you for listening.

80 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page