The Weekly Croissant: Listen In Place

Where to Hear What for Best Results, Pt. 1

Since this is the very first issue of The Weekly Croissant and I’m feeling a bit nervous I figured I’d focus on a topic I feel at least somewhat qualified to discuss, which is “some songs I like and the best place in which to listen to them”.

Last May I was on tour with Kris Drever over in the UK, and we were trading some of our favorite recent tunes, as one does on long van rides. On this particular day, Kris was asking about Sturgill Simpson and my personal opinion of his work, and I was like ‘Yeah, I mean that first country album is pretty much perfect and had a huge impact on the whole scene in Nashville”, and I pulled up “Long White Line”, and started blasting it through the van.

As it happened, we were driving through London at that moment, and I started seeing the big red busses and the black taxis and getting my tourist on. Keep in mind, I hadn’t been overseas in years at this point due to it-which-shall-not-be-named, and I was feeling pretty giddy.

Listening to Sturgill while driving through downtown London was an experience of extreme cognitive disconnect, which I hope never to repeat. After one song I had to turn it off. Much like when that transporter thing goes wrong. on Star Trek, my body was in England and my mind was in the South of the USA. It hurt!

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

I know this is not a problem for everybody. I’ve experienced the deeply uncomfortable phenomenon of walking through the woods with my acquaintance blasting ill-fitting music on her phone, and have visceral memories of a guy turning on hookup music that was so distracting I had to stop. Some people are fine with the soundtrack being all wrong!

Ah, ok I’m just kidding. After all, people can use music as a way to experience a different culture, much like reading a novel that takes place in a foreign or made-up place. There are strong communities of bluegrass pickers and country music enthusiasts in lands far, far away from any actual blue grass, cowboy hats, or Kentucky Bourbon. And some people relate to a style of music due to shared experiences of shitty jobs, oppression, heartbreak, or rural life. But in the first discussed moment, I was trying to be in London, and therefore Sturgill had to take a seat.

When I was a kid, my dad would force us to listen to audiobooks (at that time on cassette tapes) while on long road trips. He always tried to find novels that took place in the area of the country we were headed to. Although I found this agonizing at the time, due to some of his choices, and some questionable narrators, I can relate to the need for a full sensory immersion in my current location. For me, this emerges more in my music listening habits. There are certain songs that epitomize a place, and I love revisiting them when I’m traveling through that space, as a way of embracing the environment on multiple levels.

The New York Times has been doing an amazing series called “Read Your Way Around the World”, for which they are compiling reading guides that allow travelers to fully immerse themselves in major cities. I think it would be amazing, albeit a huge task, to do the same with music.

Here are a few songs that, for me, have to be listened to in a specific place:

Cahalan Morrison and Eli West / Our Lady of the Tall Trees

Where To Listen: Anywhere in the Pacific Northwest

Earfeel: Naturally beautiful, fragile, crunchy, abundant

Every time I’ve found myself on a run in the Pacific Northwest I turn to this album, and more specifically this song. It just sounds like the moss creeping and water dripping off of the leaves. I’m not sure I would listen

Kanye West / Homecoming

Where to Listen: Chicago

Earfeel: Tough, down-to-earth, practical, nostalgic

OK I know Kanye is a highly questionable figure at this point but when I was growing up in Chicago he was KING. I will never not want to have “Homecoming” blasting on the car speakers while sitting in traffic on the 90/290 junction, when the skyline comes into view through the grey smog.

Miranda Lambert / Highway Vagabond

Where to Listen: Anywhere on the US Interstate System, on a Late Night, Post-Show, Lonesome Drive

Earfeel: Existential, delirious, fun, ratchet

Sometimes while on tour, you are forced to do some kind of brutal post-show drive in order to make it to your next gig on time. I’m not talking about tour bus touring where you get in your bunk in sleep, I’m talking about piling into the van with terrible energy drinks and sour patch kids and driving four hours to a shitty Best Western. There is one and only one song for this occasion, and it is only necessary that you be traveling on some kind of long dark highway.

Now you tell me

What are your top “Listen in Place” songs?

P.S. I called this Pt. 1 because I have many more thoughts on the topic of music and place, so I may revisit this idea down the road. I’m still figuring this all out though, so go easy on me.

Until next week!

-Rachel