We live in different worlds right along beside each other.So sang Dan Bern in one of his early songs. But really we all just live in Dan's world, and he's been generous enough to let us believe otherwise all along.Let's face it: the man has more stray thoughts, makes more obscure and askant connections, tries on more hats, slips into more pairs of shoes, eavesdrops on more conversations, reads more minds, and hears more voices than the rest of us. And what a lucky break for us that he's had a pen laying around to document, describe, and share so many of them.During his already prolific recording career—officially five full-length albums and at least as many EPs released between 1997 and 2005—the singer-songwriter has alternated, oftentimes from one song to the next or even verse to verse, between documenting the zeitgeist and retreating into the personal concerns with which we all grapple. But then, as the old slogan put it, the personal is the political, and nowhere has that axiom received such a v