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How can I believe that they can replace the trees that have lived and died
for thousands of years? And how can I explain to a daughter or a son
I wasn’t strong enough to save the ancient ones?
– Peter Wilde, “How Can I Believe”
If the forest defenders were the face of the Warner Creek blockade, 30 years ago this month, then Peter Wilde’s music was its soundtrack.
For almost 40 years, the self-effacing singer-songwriter has been writing songs celebrating the wildlands of our beautiful Pacific Northwest. Comparisons to Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan come to mind.
If you watch an early video of Wilde performing “All Around the World” during the 1996 Warner Creek campaign, you see a fully focused and determined young man with a soft, peaceful voice protesting the destruction of our old-growth forests. One can’t help but think of Guthrie singing “This Land Is Your Land,” or Pete Seeger’s “God Bless the Grass.”
“I’ve got a pickaxe on my shoulder,” Wilde sings, “and a lockbox round my hand” — a reference to essential direct-action tools of the forest defenders.
Wilde is best known for his song “People in Trees,” which is the hauntingly beautiful song in the eco-documentary “Pickaxe,” about the Warner Creek blockade. It’s also a major track on his 1997 album “Carnival.” The song extolls the beauty and harmony of humanity fused with nature. “When you bite into nature, nature bites back,” Wilde sings. A gentle nod to deep ecology and the hard consequences for those who destroy the earth. Another alluring forest-inspired ballad, “How Can I Believe,” is also in “Pickaxe” and played at the end of the third 1996 live broadcast of “Cascadia Alive!”
Wilde was born in Massachusetts and moved to Eugene in 1990. He has recorded eight albums and toured nationally.
“If I left town with 300 bucks and came back with 300. I was happy,” he quips. Wilde has played 10 times at the Oregon Country Fair. He has played in bookstores, in bars, on porches and on the hard concrete steps of protest rallies.
Local artists, including the Eugene ensemble band The Sugar Beets, have even contributed to a Wilde tribute album, “Hold Me Up to the Light.” Wilde also recorded a vinyl EP with Portland artist Dan Jones, and did bookings for folk legend John Fahey.
“He was living in a motel in Salem,” Wilde says of Fahey.
There is a richness and sensitive quavering to Wilde’s voice that can only be compared to Neil Young or Elliott Smith, with soft tinges of Daniel Johnston. His folk-inspired guitar only accentuates his tender vocals and deep reverence of roots music.
“John Prine and Steve Goodman were my influences,” Wilde says. One of his earliest recordings, from 1992 (originally on cassette), is aptly titled “Hopelessly Folk.” The album’s gem, “Peace Rains,” is a poetic, lyrical ballad exploring the nature of earth and death.
“Mother Earth, I lay down to hold you, but feel a vacant womb. I can hear the rattling of your breath scratching at my tomb.” Keats, Shelley or Morrissey couldn’t have said it better.
Wilde first became an activist in 1991 while hanging out at an Earth First! action camp. Remembering the Warner Creek campaign, Wilde says, “It was beautiful. I love every one of those involved. The town was very supportive. The biggest thing was that it was so successful. It’s important to celebrate.”
Protest songs were a big part of that success, including riffraff rowdy ones by folk-punk musician Casey Neill of Portland.
“Music was a release,” Wilde says, “Through it all, as disheartening as it was, they still did it with joy.” Shortly after singing his protest song “All Around the World,” Wilde was arrested and brutally dragged down the hall of the Lane County Jail.
“It was hilarious,” Wilde remembers, shaking it off. “When they do a pain hold, the best practice is to just relax your body.”
Wilde has worked with many local artists, such as cellist Amy Danziger from Mood Area 52, and Matt Keenan of The Sugar Beets — specifically on Wilde’s 2025 album “Alone in a Crowd.” That album, richly produced and recorded at Sprout City Studios here in Eugene, features lushly arranged songs such as “April 1st, 2025.”
Wilde’s 2023 “Natural Disasters” (also recorded at Sprout) is the album he’s most proud of. The songs explore solitude and sadness, and include stark, introspective ballads such as “Lonesome Man”: “Who can hear me sing this song? Who will listen, and who will sing along? As I die, I return to earth. And as I live, I sing my rebirth.”
Some of us can hear. And many of us will listen.
Wilde is performing at the Warner Creek 30th Anniversary Celebration on Aug. 24 at the WOW Hall. Casey Neill also performs. Tickets and information here. (See Wilde’s page on Bandcamp.)
