Led Zeppelin – "Black Dog" (1971)

Didn't take too long 'fore I found out

What people mean by down and out

The journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition include a number of references to Seaman, a large Newfoundland dog that Meriweather Lewis bought in Pittsburgh before embarking on that expedition.

Tradition has it that Seaman was a black dog.  But Newfoundlands can be black, black and white, or brown, and the expedition's journals do not say anything about Seaman's color.

Statue of Seaman

Historians believe that Seaman survived the 28-month, 7000-mile journey from St. Louis to the Oregon coast and back, and was still with Lewis when he returned to St. Louis with his men in September 1806.  But what happened to Seaman then?

James Holmberg, a leading Lewis and Clark scholar, thinks that Lewis still had Seaman when he went on his fateful 1809 trip from St. Louis to Washington, DC – a trip that ended prematurely when Lewis apparently committed suicide at an inn on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.  

The title page of Alden's book

In 2000, Holmberg discovered a 1814 book titled A Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions with Occasional Notes.  The author of that book was Timothy Alden, a clergyman and educator who was a respected member of several historical societies and who founded Allegheny College (which I visited with my son a few years ago).

Alden's book included the following inscription, which he said was from a dog collar in a museum in Alexandria, Virginia:

The greatest traveller of my species.  My name is SEAMAN, the dog of captain Meriweather Lewis, whom I accompanied to the Pacifick ocean through the interior of the continent of North America.

Timothy Alden

According to the Alden's book, Seaman was with Lewis when he took his own life:

The fidelity and attachment of this animal were remarkable.  After the melancholy exit of gov. Lewis, his dog would not depart for a moment from his lifeless remains; and when they were deposited in the earth no gentle means could draw him from the spot of interment.  He refused to take every kind of food, which was offered him, and actually pined away and died with grief upon his master's grave!

A cynic might think that Alden's two-handkerchief tale is too good to be true, but Holmberg believes that there is no reason to doubt it.

Holmberg also believes that the collar may have been donated to the museum by none other than the second-ranking officer of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, William Clark.

William Clark

In 1812, a museum official wrote Clark to thank him for contributing a number of "curiosities" to the nascent collection.  The museum's records are incomplete, so there's no way to know whether one of the items that Clark donated was Seaman's collar (which was likely lost in the 1871 fire that destroyed much of the museum's collection).

We may never know for sure whether Seaman died while maintaining a vigil at his master's grave.  But James Holmberg believes that is a "creditable explanation" of Seaman's fate.

Lewis and Clark expert James Holmberg

Click here to read a 2000 article by Holmberg titled "Seaman's Fate."

One final aside about the Lewis and Clark Expedition: despite his love for Seaman, Meriweather Lewis apparently ate dog at times during his expedition when other kinds of meat were scarce.  (Clark reportedly could not bring himself to eat dog.)

One source says the members of the expedition consumed over 200 dogs, which they obtained from Indians.  (Some native American tribes viewed dog meat as a delicacy, while others forbade its consumption.)

Sir Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, who suffered from recurrent episodes of depression, referred to the illness as his "black dog," and that term has become a common metaphor for depression.

But the Led Zeppelin song that I'm featuring today wasn't titled "Black Dog" because it was about depression.  Instead, the title is a reference to a nameless black Labrador retriever that was often spotted wandering around the grounds of the recording studio in rural England where Led Zeppelin IV was recorded.

"Black Dog" is rhythmically quite complex.  It was originally even more complex, but the band was forced to simplify it somewhat so they could play it live.

Here's "Black Dog":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick – "We Can Do It" (2005)

What did Lewis say to Clark

When everything looked bleak? . . .

We can do it!  We can do it!

The last 2 or 3 lines featured a report on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which I wrote at the behest of my junior-high history teacher.  I was expecting an easy A+ on my report, but I only got an A.  But what really hurt was her damning the report with faint praise as "pretty good."

Just "pretty good"?  Really?

My report had it all.  I talked about my visit to the spot where Lewis and Clark camped before heading up the Missouri River and about the patent laxative (Rush's "Thunderclappers") they took on the trip.  I threw in some obscure stuff about Daniel Boone.  I topped it all off by describing the amazing air rifle Lewis and Clark used to impress hostile Indians they met on the journey.  Plus I illustrated the report with a bunch of great photos.

On top of all that, I found a song with lyrics about Lewis and Clark to quote at the beginning of my report!

My former teacher said I would have gotten an A+ if I had read Lewis and Clark's journals.  Was she serious?

The standard edition of the Lewis and Clark journals comes in THIRTEEN volumes and is over 5300 pages long, for cryin' out loud.  Does she not know I have a thriving law practice, and that I post three times a week to my wildly popular music blog?

I'm determined to get the A+ I deserve.  So this and the next 2 or 3 lines are all about Meriweather Lewis's dog, Seaman – complete with lots of quotes from Lewis and Clark's dumb ol' journals.  You'll laugh, you'll cry . . . and if you don't want my parents to make a stink with your principal, you'll give me an A+.

Captain Lewis's Dog, Seaman: "The Greatest Traveller of My Species"

Captain Meriweather Lewis was 28 years old when President Thomas Jefferson appointed him to lead an expedition exploring the recently purchased Louisiana Territory.

Meriweather Lewis

The Corps of Discovery commanded by Lewis consisted of himself, Lieutenant William Clark, five NCOs, 30 enlisted men, and several civilians – including Sacagawea (the Shoshone wife of a French-Canadian trader) and York (a slave who had been Clark's companion since boyhood, and who Clark freed in 1811).

The Corps of Discovery also included a dog – a 150-pound black Newfoundland named Seaman.

Newfoundlands are big-ass dogs

Lewis had purchased Seaman in Pittsburgh while he was waiting for a boatbuilder to complete the construction of a large keelboat that would carry his expedition up the Missouri River.  

He paid $20 for the dog, which seems like a very large sum for that era.  But Seaman began to demonstrate his value to Lewis a few days after they departed from Pittsburgh.

Lewis, Clark, and Seaman
(St. Charles, MO)

As they were floating down the Ohio River, Lewis saw a number of squirrels swimming across the river from north to south.  Stephen Ambrose, describes what happened next in his biography of Lewis, Undaunted Courage:

Seaman started barking at them; Lewis let him go; Seaman swam out, grabbed a squirrel, killed him, and fetched him back to Lewis, who sent the dog out for repeated performances.  Lewis had the squirrels fried and declared "they were fat and I thought a pleasant [sic] food."

While continuing down the Ohio, Lewis encountered a "a respectable looking Indian" who offered him three beaver skins for Seaman.  The offer was clearly inadequate in Lewis's mind.  "Of course, there was no bargain," he later wrote.

One of several historical
novels that feature Seaman

As the expedition's boats made their way up the Missouri River in the summer and fall of 1804, Lewis often walked on the shore, seeking new plant and animal species, looking for game, and making notes about the region's mineral resources and soil fertility.  He was often accompanied only by Seaman on these wilderness  rambles. 

In May 1805, one of Lewis and Clark's men wounded a beaver, and Seaman jumped into the river to retrieve it.  "[T]he beaver bit him through the hind leg and cut the artery; it was with great difficulty that I could stop the blood; I fear it will yet prove fatal to him," Lewis wrote.  But Seaman quickly recovered thanks to Lewis's surgical skills.

Later that summer, as the Corps of Discovery was portaging from the Missouri to the Columbia River, they encountered a number of grizzly bears, some of whom came uncomfortably close to their camp after dark.

Lewis wrote in his journal that Seaman "keeps constantly paroling [sic] all night," and "gives us timely notice of [the bears'] visits."  Thanks to Seaman's vigilance, Lewis said, the bears "have never yet ventured to attack us."

In April 1806, as the Corps of Discovery was on its way back to St. Louis, three Indians stole Seaman.  

Lewis was furious.  From Undaunted Courage:

[Lewis] called three men and snapped out orders to follow and find those thieves and "if they made the least resistance [sic] or difficulty in surrendering the dog to fire on them."  The soldiers set out; when the thieves realized they were being pursued, they let Seaman go and fled.  Lewis may have been ready to kill to get Seaman back, but the Indians weren't ready to die for the dog.

In July 1806, while in what is now western Montana, Lewis saw a large creek which he named Seaman's Creek to commemorate his steadfast canine companion.  (That creek was later renamed Monture Creek.) 

A few days later, Lewis wrote that "the musquetoes [sic] continue to infest us in such manner that we can scarcely exist . . . . [M]y dog even howls with the torture he experiences from them."  

That's the last mention of Seaman in the expedition's journals.  Most historians believe that means that Seaman made it back to St. Louis with the rest of the Corps of Discovery; they reason that his death or disappearance would almost certainly have been noted in those journals.

A monument to Seaman
(Cairo, IL)

What happened to Seaman after the Lewis and Clark Expedition was over?

Read the next 2 or 3 lines to find out.  (It's an amazing story.)

"We Can Do It" is from Act I of the musical version of The Producers.  Here's the version of "We Can Do It" that is included on the soundtrack of the 2005 film of The Producers.

It features Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom.  Lane and Broderick had played the same roles in the Broadway musical.

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: