We Just Disagree — This Friday’s Song

This Friday’s song is “We Just Disagree” by Dave Mason. Mason was one of the founding member of the band Traffic. Mason left Traffic in 1969 for a solo career. He released three solo albums and performed with a number of artists including Jimi Hendrix.

“We Just Disagree” was Dave Mason’s biggest solo hit. The song was released in August 1977. It was the second single on Mason’s third album Let It Flow. It was written by Marko Perko and Jim Krueger. I shared the original audio version as well as a performance The Midnight Special with Wolfman Jack and a leter performance from 2013.

This song has always been a favorite of mine. When it was released, I was in my early twenties living in Greater Boston. I was in my senior year at Salem State College and working as a dispatcher at Gibbs OIl company in Revere, MA. I was learning how to code and exploring where that might take me professionally. It was at the cusp of a lot of big changes in my life.

The core message of “We Just Disagree” has always resonated with me. I always tried to seperate my relationship with someone from how we might feel about something. The Xaverian Brothers had always emphasized that you should respect someone else and their right to see something differently than you did. They taught us to think critically and try to understand all sides of an issue. That didn’t mean that you shouldn’t advocate for what you thought was the “right thing,” but you should always respect and try to understand that the other person’s perspective. This “lesson” is probably even more relevant today than it was then. I am constantly amazed at how many people today feel free to vilify others because “we just disagree.” How about you?