Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" is a heartbreaking song that opens with a string section playing a lonely, nine-note refrain. The narrative kicks in, the quartet follows, and Newman sings of President Calvin Coolidge standing at the flood site with one of his aides, unable to do much but wonder about the shame of "six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline."

The 1973 song took this 1927 flood as its subject and in effect forecasted the devastation that Hurricane Katrina would inflict on New Orleans at the end of August 2005.

Steve Goodman's "City Of New Orleans," covered by Arlo Guthrie in a classic 1973 hit, was related to the city only by name. Instead, The City of New Orleans was a train that drove 500 miles through the south; Memphis, Louisiana, other places. Floods, rivers, and trains are the great recurring themes in American literature, music, and life.

One sweeps us away or cleanses us of our sins, another brings us to another place (sometimes better), and the last is the great driving force through our country. These have been recurring creative motifs for centuries because we can always draw deeper from their endless well.

Many of us take refuge in the abstraction of great art during hard times, and the devastation that Katrina wrought last month upon Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama is too overwhelming to digest in one sitting. Death tolls mount.

Refugees are stored in The New OrleansSuperdome andnow beingbused twelve hours to the Houston Astrodome. Bodies float through the streets and priority is placed on the living. The geographical distance of last December's Sri Lankan Tsunami coverage was easier only because we could more easily separate ourselves from it.

Katrina has changed those rules.

Politics pokes its bony head through this event, as it always will. We watch endless footage of looting by all sorts of people, civilians and police. Talk radio commentators note the dominant race of the looters rather than the state of their situations.

Those of us on dry land find it easy to pontificate and at times laugh at times likes these and people like them. It is one of our most unfortunate characteristics. Oil refineries are hit, and gas prices will skyrocket. The dominoes are beginning to fall. That's all that matters when you're not drowning.

In his 1940's classic "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?" Louis Armstrong sings about moss-covered vines, a Creole tune, and magnolias in bloom. It has a sweet Sunday afternoon feel, like many of Armstrong's ballads .

The song draws on the close connections many of us have to our homeland, or any other place that's been good to us. This is music that will break your heart if you let it, but sometimes that can be a good thing. Watch TV reports and read the news for facts and where to send money. Listen to this music and your heart will connect with these people.

Christopher J. Stephens is an adjunct college english instructor for Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Western New England College, and Corinthian Colleges, Inc.