Like the preceding collection, Binocular Visions (2024), this is a conceptual or thematic collection of songs. It alternates between social critiques and spiritual affirmations. A “Caveat” is a warning, like caveat emptor, “buyer beware.” “Credo” means “I believe,” and is typically doctrinal, like the Apostles’ Creed. But the Credos here are more participational than propositional — more about the experience than the concept. And of course, these Caveats and Credos all come with various shades of irony. Musically, there’s a range of genres and production values that makes for some surprising transitions. The Dougs are restless.

“The Bell Jar” (November 2024) was probably provoked by this year’s election campaign, along with many other global events. The world — climate, war, and politics — feels increasingly suffocating. As the last verse indicates, the song draws upon Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her proto-feminist imagery evokes what I’m sensing on a global scale. Can we transcend?

The Bell Jar

“We Know Whose We Are” (December 2024) is a credo in answer to the Bell Jar’s caveat. It follows in the line of earlier songs such as “These United States of Grace” (2017, from Man of Irony) and “Under” (2020, from Every Doug Agrees) which suggest that there are all kinds of people who, singly and in groups, are led by a transcendent One, however differently we may understand that reality. The world doesn’t know who we are. We ourselves don’t fully understand who we are. But we know whose we are, and we often recognize one another across our various differences.

“Slippery Slopes: Two Poles in Polar Vortex” (December 2024) is another caveat. It takes place inside the Bell Jar. It acts out the mutual distrust that generates when we view one another as being on a “slippery slope.” They are tending in the wrong direction and it will come to no good for themselves or for society. We view one another from ideological positions that are like belief in a flat earth, where there cannot be a valid polar opposite. We become “Two Poles in Polar Vortex.” (As we sang the words I had written, the Dougs found this rather grumpy, dogmatic voice coming forth.) When we polarize, we lose the covenantal sense of faithfulness that binds us together in religious communities, and which also animates the constitutional framework of a democratic nation. “How can I be married to you?” takes marriage as the most familiar form of covenant relationship. But the song also applies to religious communities and constitutional government as well. Paradoxically, the covenantal ties that bind together also help us transcend ourselves and our stalemates.

Slippery Slopes

“Center”(December 2024) counters “Slippery Slopes.” It’s about centering in the divine Presence, which can draw us out of the polar vortices of the preceding song. Musically, the song aims to create a contemplative space, something like earlier songs such as “Marinatha High” (2018, from Moments of Truth) and “Ride That Alpha Wave” (2016, from Terms and Conditions). It builds interactive layers, something like a Cure song. But while the center grounds our being, it also energizes and guides us into action. “Here am I; send me!” comes from the calling of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8) and speaks to my experience as well.

“Opioids the Religion of the People” (December 2024) updates and inverts Marx’s famous phrase, “Religion is the opium of the people.” He followed that with a less quoted phrase, “the sigh of the oppressed creature.” It is that affective aspect of religion that the song engages. It looks at the opioid epidemic as the “sigh” of pain-ravaged, oppressed, lost, or marginalized people in a high-tech, hyper-capitalist society. The song moves through pain, addiction, and “kicks,” to the politics of denial.

“Trinity/Quadrinity (in 3/4 Time)” (November 2024) plays out a thought I’ve had for some years, that we on earth become a fourth member of the Trinity as we enact God’s will on earth. The Holy Trinity becomes a Whole Quadrinity. Jesus says as much in his long, final conversation with the disciples in the Gospel of John, as he promises that he will send them the Spirit, and as he binds them into oneness with the Father and himself. (He doesn’t use the word “Quadrinity,” but he doesn’t use the word “Trinity” either.) The song had to be in 3/4 time, for obvious reasons. But I don’t know where that saxophone came from.

“Trinity/Quadrinity”

I admit that “Caveat Amator – Lover Beware” (November 2024) sounds like a song by an aging technosceptic. And I suppose it is. The song concerns the risks and pitfalls of Internet-mediated romance. Caveat amator is of course a play on caveat emptor (buyer beware) and caveat venditor (seller beware). Internet dating platforms today begin to merge with Ebay and other commerce platforms. One seeks love somewhere out there on the dis-placed Internet, “selling” oneself and “buying” others. Musically, the song puts Slim Harpo’s blues classic “Shake Your Hips” together with a reggae beat and comes out somewhere else. The song’s overall effect seems to be a valid concern and a satire of itself at the same time.

Caveat Amator – Lover Beware

“Swing by Eternity” is a credo of sorts. I wrote and recorded it in 2020, as part of Every Doug Agrees (2021). But I later felt I hadn’t done justice to the song musically and decided to try again. To “swing by eternity” is to live in time but to take time to be quiet and still, and feel divine comfort and promptings from that place. The experience doesn’t come as immediately and regularly as the verses may seem to imply. But sustained practice of prayer, meditation, or “waiting upon the Lord,” as Quakers traditionally have called it, finds insight, peace, and guidance. Musically, our friends the DigiTones add some atmosphere to the refrains. The instrumental break sounds like it comes from somewhere else. “Twin Peaks,” maybe? But then eternity itself is a different place, right here.

Swing by Eternity

“The World-Wide Web Is a Greenhouse Gas” (January 2025) is a line that occurred to me a few weeks ago. Then I realized that it scans identically with the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (is a gas, gas, gas) (1968). So I patterned this song after theirs, shifting Keith Richards’ great guitar riff to the marimba. But while their song was about cocaine, this song is about an even more addictive effect. Starting with the opening line, “The climate of opinion is heating up,” the song mixes internet phenomena with climate phenomena both playfully and seriously. The cybernetics that power and utilize the WWW use a lot of energy and generate a lot of heat — both natural and cultural.

The World-Wide Web Is a Greenhouse Gas

“Messenger of the Lord” (2016) is replayed here from the Man of Irony album (which can be found on the Brothers Doug website). I include it here as it is my definitive credo. In fact, I would admit that my life makes sense only from this song’s perspective. I tried re-recording it recently with my updated production values, but I couldn’t match the earlier vocal’s ironic elan. The song’s abject admission that there was no “point,” no “thing” toward which all my years and efforts have aimed, is painful. But that’s part of being a messenger of the Lord, who says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isaiah).

“Arrivals and Departures” (February 2025) finishes this collection with one more credo, of sorts. Have you ever driven to the airport and hesitated for a moment at the paradox of the two ramps: “Arrivals” and “Departures”? You’re arriving, but in order to depart, or for your passenger to depart. Well, the song “takes off” from there. It’s an odd little song to an odd little beat. A good way to end.