BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY—Caleb has proposed this beautiful rendition of “Our Town” by Iris DeMent as the Front Porch theme song.
(Anyone not moved by it is either dead or, worse, deracinated.) Herewith a few more tunes I would happily play on my porch, annoying family and neighbors with my wretchedly off-key croaking chorus. Though these carry YouTube links, I vouch only for the quality of the songs, not their visual accompaniment. I regret that I was unable to find an internet version of the Maine singer David Mallett’s “Livin’ on the Edge,” which is the perfect companion to DeMent’s “Our Town.” Nor could I find Tom Russell’s “The Ballad of Edward Abbey,” which is like “God Bless America” or “God Bless the U.S.A.” but written by and about a patriot.
Ya can’t please everyone, as Ricky Nelson learned. Peters will complain that I neglected Air Supply; Beer will ask where is Indiana? (Here it is, courtesy of R. Dean Taylor).
Please suggest your own tunes for the FPR Top 40. Songs by local and regional bands especially encouraged.
The Kinks: Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks: Muswell Hillbilly
Steve Earle: The Mountain
Joe South: Don’t it Make You Want to Go Home?
Bruce Springsteen: Long Walk Home
Cowboy Junkies: Anniversary Song
John Mellencamp: Rain on the Scarecrow
Exene Cervenka: Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains from Your Hands?
Graham Parker: You Can’t Be Too Strong
Gram Parsons: Return of the Grievous Angel
Show of Hands: Roots
Lynyrd Skynrd: All I Can Do is Write About It
Glen Campbell: Galveston
The Long Ryders: State of My Union
The Pretenders: My City was Gone
Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul: I am a Patriot
Dwight Yoakam: I Sang Dixie
Gerry and the Pacemakers: Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey
The Clash: Complete Control
97 comments
Justin Billiot
“17” By Cross Canadian Ragweed, a band from Stillwater, OK.
“Sirens wail and a flashing light…nothin’ better to do on a Tuesday night, but give me hell. Where ya headed? What are you out for? Don’t see much of you ’round here anymore, I guess it’s just as well. Once upon a time you had it all, you let everybody down. Your’e always 17 in your hometown”.
Wendy Peckham
I’m afraid that this is the significance of front porches for Gen X.
“Swing Life Away”
Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up?
Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck?
Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost?
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours first
Let’s compare scars, I’ll tell you whose is worse
Let’s unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words
We live on front porches and swing life away,
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I’ll slave till the end,
I won’t cross these streets until you hold my hand
I’ve been here so long, I think that it’s time to move
The winter’s so cold, summer’s over too soon
Let’s pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow
I’ve got some friends, some that I hardly know
But we’ve had some times, I wouldn’t trade for the world
We chase these days down with talks of the places that we will go
We live on front porches and swing life away,
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I’ll slave till the end,
I won’t cross these streets until you hold my hand….until you hold my hand
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours first
Let’s compare scars, I’ll tell you whose is worse
Let’s unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words
We live on front porches and swing life away,
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I’ll slave till the end,
I won’t cross these streets until you hold my hand
Swing life away [x4]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3JF1b5UOT0
Ann K
“Georgia,” by Elton John
The live version of “Main Street,” by Bob Seger
Cary Antill
Here in Western Massachusetts, Arlo has it pretty well covered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNc0VCfKuck
Marie
Just enjoyed making a looooooooong playlist of these songs on Grooveshark. Added “Hesitating Beauty” (Is this optimistic enough, Costis?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHoSeTr_RVU
“I’ll build a house and home where the flowers come to roam…”
“We’ll walk hand in hand cross the grasses of our land/ I’ll kiss you for each leaf on every tree. We’ll bring our kids to play where the dry leaves blow today, / you quit your hesitating Nora Lee”
C Costis
Hi, Noodling around the website after getting a surprise newsletter on my e mail. Nice site. I love Iris DeMent. I was shocked, however, that such a sad, discouraging song was nominated for the theme song. I have no suggestions at the moment but something inspiring courageous optimism is more to my liking. The now is extraordinary. My brother was just saying he will have to live to be 400 to attend to all the important matters like revamping the medical system and exploring and promoting alternative building systems or my favorites – biodynamic agriculture, radiant field energy, etc, etc, ETC !! … I agree. 400.
Preston Briggs
“This Old Town”. Janis Ian wrote it, but it’s perhaps easier to find versions by Nanci Griffith. Listenting to it, I’d say it was written about my Mom’s hometown, Drumright Oklahoma. But others will have their own opinions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Lg4QRFTNA
Anonymous
Great Lake Swimmers – Your Rocky Spine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ6W_cq-zQ0
L Porter
An american who’s heard of Show of Hands! There’s hope for you folks yet ;o)
Although, Kate Rusby does a better version of Village Green than then Kinks do…. :oD
Anthony Troy Heagy
This song by Old Crow Medicine Show is pretty dang good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug7IgB8MfWE&feature=player_embedded#t=55
Grant
I’m a bit late with this comment, but I would suggest “Prairie Town” by the Wailing Jennys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ByxB-i_0RI
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.
Also Slim Dusty’s version of Banjo Paterson’s “Man from Snowy River”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW7rgnNqgjE
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.
I’ve been trying to think of a couple of Australian songs to suit the localist theme.
Two that have occured to me are:
Cold Chisel — Bow River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdVRNDnTKTU
About a bloke chucking his factory job to return home.
The next may be a bit “Middle of the Road” for some tastes but it reminds me of my youth.
GANGgajang – Sounds Of Then (This Is Australia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML9h3I5Uktw
The chorus is:
“Out on the patio we sit,/And the humidity we breathe,/We watch the lightning crack over canefields/And laugh and think that this is Australia.”
AC
The Who, Rael:
The Red Chins in their millions
Will overspill their borders
And chaos then will reign in our Rael
The country of my fathers
A proud land of old order
Like a goldfish being swallowed by a whale
Rael, the home of my religion
To me the center of the Earth
The Red Chins in their millions
Will overspill their borders
And chaos then will reign in our Rael
My heritage is threatened
My roots are torn and cornered
And so to do my best I’ll homeward sail
And so to do my best I’ll homeward sail
Now Captain, listen to my instructions
Return to this spot on Christmas Day
Look toward the shore for my signal
And then you’ll know if in Rael I’ll stay
If a yellow flag is fluttering
Sickly herald against the morn
Then you’ll know my courage has ended
And you’ll send your boat ashore
But if a red flag is flying
Brazen bold against the blue
Then you’ll know that I am staying
And my yacht belongs to you
Now Captain, listen to my instructions
Return to this spot on Christmas Day
Look toward the shore for my signal
And then you’ll know if in Rael I’ll stay
He’s crazy if he thinks we’re coming back again
He’s crazy if he thinks we’re coming back again
He’s crazy if he thinks we’re coming back again
He’s crazy, anyway
If a yellow flag is fluttering
Sickly herald against the morn
Then you’ll know my courage has ended
And you’ll send your boat ashore
Benjamin Ulledalen
“Never Gonna Change” by Jason Isbell, formerly of the Drive By Truckers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plCnjjHNb90
“…There ain’t much traffic on the highway. There ain’t much traffic on the lake.
The ATF and the ABI got everything they could take.
Take it from me… They didn’t take it from me.
We ain’t never gonna change.
We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.
We ain’t never gonna change
so shut your mouth and play along.”
Puttin’ People on the Moon by the Drive By Truckers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obENG09NWq8&feature=related
“Another Joker in the White House, said a change was comin’ round
But I’m still workin’ at The Wal Mart and Mary Alice, in the ground
And all them politicians, they all lyin’ sacks of s—
They say better days upon us but I’m sucking left hind tit
And the preacher on the TV says it ain’t too late for me
But I bet he drives a Cadillac and I’m broke with some hungry mouths to feed”
“The Sands of Iwo Jima” by the Drive By Truckers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJqX0zC00gU
“George A. was at the movies in December ’41
They announced it in the lobby what had just gone on
He drove up from Birmingham back to the family’s farm
Thought he’d get him a deferment there’s was much work to be done
He was a family man, even in those days
But Uncle Sam decided he was needed anyway
In the South Pacific over half a world away
He believed in God and Country, things was just that way”
“Marry Me” by DBT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MapvZBeoNCE&feature=related
“All my friends are restless, all they do is talk it down,
two or eight lanes, it don’t matter, it’s just another town.
There’s a fool on every corner, on every street, in every one
and I’d rather be your fool nowhere than go somewhere and be no one’s
So Marry Me, Sweet Thing won’t you Marry Me
Your Mama thinks I beat anything she’s ever seen.
This old town’s alright with me, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.
Long as they stay mad at one another, they can’t get mad at me ”
James River Blues by Old Crow Medicine Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXXATMnn6j0&feature=related
“James River blues
That train came on through
And the work’s gotten slow
Now wheres a boat man to go
I think I’ll float on down
To Richmond town
They don’t need us anymore
Haulin’ freight from shore to shore
That big iron hauls much more
Than we ever could before”
Dylan Hales
DIY Punk is what made me a localist.
Speaking to that Hot Water Music’s “Southeast First” is one of my favorites:
i’ve seen heroic falls busted lips from microphone
brawls angelic songs sung by all within the
hardback walls it never mattered who you were or
where you worked it never mattered who you were or
what you earned what mattered was what you gave
and what you loved what mattered was what you gave
and what was learned like one for all for one
whatever turn of events may come we all live
underground where it stays warm community with
commin sounds we work together to break ground it
doesnt matter who you are or where you work it
doesnt matter who you are or what you earn what
matters is what you give and what you love what
matters is how you live and if you love
The Western Confucian
Let me just add something about that last post. I can think of no other musical genre that better represents the themes of ‘place” and “liberty” than American Hardcore Punk of the ’80s. It was local, with various scenes (DC Style, NY Style, LA Style, etc.) and had a strictly DIY ethos of doing without major corporations and, God forbid, the government.
The Western Confucian
Bad Brains Banned in DC @ CBGB’s 1982
Chris Hewlett
New Riders of the Purple Sage: Last Lonely Eagle
Greg Gifford
I’m going to have to go with “Dixie Cannonball” sung by Hank Williams and written by Vaughn Horton.
“I’m headin’ back to Dixie, that’s the place I long to be, Where the
cotton grows and the Suwanee flows, that’s home sweet home to me.
Where they meet you and they greet you with the sweetest hi you all,
well shut my mouth, I’m a headin’ South on the Dixie Cannonball!
Zac
Anything by Greg Brown. The more I listen, the more it fits. Perfectly.
Stan Rogers is a good one for the coastal Canadian front-porchers out there…
Tom
One more is the Style Council’s “All Gone Away” featuring the lyric:
Take a walk upon these hills
and see how monetarism kills
whole communities, even families.
There’s nothing left, they’ve all gone away.
Best use of monetarism in a song.
Tim
The Pogues – Dirty Old Town
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMMgIqW9vso
Nathan P. Origer
Another Rodney Atkins tune: “It’s America”.
Andrew Benson
Another great communitarian Newfie song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBz3wS0CjGU
Sean Scallon
Boy do you have a good mind for posts Mr. Kauffman:
How can anyone not include “Sweet Home Alabama” on your lists?
Mellencamp’s “Lonely Ol’ Night” is good Midwest song
Bruce Springsteen has much to contribute from “Your Hometown” to “Darkness at the Edge of Town” to “The River”
Billy Joel’s “Allentown.” John Denver’s “Country Roads, Take Me Home.” Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans”
Try these links to Walter Hill’s movie “Southern Comfort” One is Cajun dance by the great Cajun musician Dewey Balfa: )http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2NIZexqb4U) and the other these the movie’s theme by Ry Cooder: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_121XW4uo0)
May I introduce you all to some Newfoundland music (a whole new territory) “Squid Jiggin’ Ground” by the great Canadian country music star Hank Snow. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyHJ7XU5eLE&feature=related)
Here’s another good Newfie song: (http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=94837094132&h=yThxW&u=ZjblU&ref=m)
Glenn D.
Mellencamp’s “Scarecrow” gets a lot of playtime, but a truly tremendous song is “Minutes to Memories” from the same album:
On a greyhound thirty miles beyond Jamestown
He saw the sun set on the Tennessee line
He looked at the young man who was riding beside him
He said I’m old kind of worn out inside
I worked my whole life in the steel mills of Gary
And my father before me I helped build this land
Now I’m seventy-seven and with God as my witness
I earned every dollar that passed through my hand
My family and friends are the best things I’ve known
Through the eye of the needle I’ll carry them home.
Also, Marshall Tucker’s “Never Trust a Stranger”:
Today’s man is an outlaw
On that long road to freedom
You work him hard, take his pride,
And then you try to cheat him.
Then one day you figure out, it’s a long, long story
An outlaw is a man that takes care of his own.
Carl Scott
But when all is said and done, the only front porch that will matter is the one we enjoy aboard “The Old Ship of Zion.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZojzCEHzv0
Carl Scott
But all affectionate joking aside, gnomies, a very fun thread…learnin’ lots of great stuff about griffith, son volt, and unknown kinks(!)songs.
Here’s what pops to the top of my denatured postmodernist musical mind:
1) In the spirit of things: Hazel Dickens, “West Virginia, My Home” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5L_HIgskEU&feature=related
2) With a postmodern twist: Modern Lovers, “Road Runner” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHv8Rok9UfA Somebody put a great lil road trip vid together!!!
Oh, and here’s the key Modern Lovers lyrics from another song:
Well the modern world is not so bad
Not like the students say
In fact I’d be in heaven
If you’d share the modern world with me
nostalgic gnome
Boy, the olden-tyme days, they sure were swell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mAFNwRsqOA&feature=related
Arthur MacInness
For what it’s worth — re: no black musicians — I listed Gladys Knight way up thread. In addition to Knight (and the Pips) doing “Midnight Train to Georgia,” I could also have listed Blind Willie McTell doing “Statesboro Blues” and Otis Redding doing “Dock of the Bay,” just in terms of the Peach State alone.
Andrew Benson
Josh is right about James McMurtry, but I am surprised that no one has nominated “Can’t Make it Here,” his wonderful anti- war, anti-globalism anthem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWRfBZY-ng
Perhaps even betther though, from a localist communitarian perspective is JP Cormier’s “Great Harbour Deep” which tells the story of a fishing village in Newfoundland abandoned and finally destroyed by Canadian federal and provincial authorities. The townsfolk, who had been there for some six hundred years were forcibly removed because the only access to the village was by water. Immediately after their power was shut off and they were removed, a logging company, having scooped up the timber rights, built a road in to harvest the timber. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8t4w73ljx0&NR=1
Dano
I just remembered a perfect one: “In Memory of Fred”, by the Starline Rhythm Boys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gmysHzed24 .
It commemorates the 1998 Vermont Republican candidate for Senate, Fred Tuttle; he was a septuagenarian retired dairy famer with a 10th grade education who challenged a millionaire carpetbagger for the Republican Senate nomination and beat him in the primary. During the debate, Tuttle asked his opponent to pronounce the names of several Vermont towns and demanded to know how many teats were on a Holstein cow. He subsequently endorsed his Democratic opponent, because he feared that if he won, he might have to move to Washington, D.C., a fate presumably worse than death.
If that’s not FPR material, nothing is.
Jeff
I can’t find a video, but “A Train Not Running” by Chris Knight just breaks the heart.
Son Volt has gotten some play here, but “Windfall” has not. It gives chills. “Catching an all-night station, somewhere in Louisiana / sounds like 1963, but for now … it sounds like heaven.”
Jeremy Beer
Let me second Josh’s mention of James McMurtry. “Out Here in the Middle” is swell. And his “Levelland” (also recorded by Robert Earl Keene, and possibly others) is spot-on honest about the mixed emotions one often has if one’s hometown is degraded–and ugly.
Chris Floyd
Must be satisfying to be Lew and know in your heart after one listen that any music that isn’t already in your CD player (or maybe he listens to gramophone, I dunno) is undoubtedly “corporate” dreck. That’s a cool trick, but even cooler is knowing which ones have had authentic experiences of their hometowns, its music, or penumbral musical traditions.
Come on, Lew. Those are some fine suggestions. I don’t know why you had to slam on others’. It’s like you’re an emo kid in someone’s basement for a DIY show, but instead of playing the game of “My favorite band is more avant-garde than yours,” you’re playing the opposite. Rootsier than thou??
who knew
Could I please nominate “Mulenberg County”, a John Denver song though I don’t know the original artist, (pretty sure it wasn’t John). It’s a song about paradise, and possibly front porches, lost.
Any Neville Brothers nominations? It’s been awhile since I’ve listened and I’m having a hard time recalling lyrics.
Josh
A lot of good suggestions above. I really like Don Edwards’ “Coyotes”, which includes lyrics like “and he cursed all the roads and the oilmen, and he cursed the automobile, and he said this is no place for an hombre like I am, in this new world of asphalt and steel.”
Here is a link to a live version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kVdOxXB8fg
Also, some of James McMurtry’s songs would be appropriate – “Out Here in the Middle” and “No More Buffalo” spring to mind.
Steve Berg
At last someone mentioned John Denver. I propose his “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” as that was the unofficial theme song of the Vietnam “Police Action”. I second Patrick Ford’s nomination of “Country Roads”.
Jesse Walker
Lew: The modern crew didn’t learn that much more or less from radio and records than many of the people they were imitating. There was self-conscious, commercialized revivalism then, just like now; and there’s communal sharing of musical traditions now, like then. The proportions vary from artist to artist, of course.
But you’re right about the absence of black musicians. Let me remedy that with another entry in the guy-gets-home-from-prison genre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iHgGpUm30I
And what the heck, here’s some hip hop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF4fr3UL0ek
Thomas G.
Lew,
The bigger question is why are there no black posters on FPR?
Bob Cheeks
“Don’t fall for the corporate imitations like a bunch of liberals!”
Lew, well said!
Yet, a while back I mentioned Woody, Pete, Leadbelly, Cisco, (Blind Doc Watson I’ll add)?
Do you consider them too commercial, corporate?
Lew Daly
Iris Dement’s “Our Town” is a pretty song, no doubt. I vote yes on it for a theme song. There’s also Kate Brislin and Jody Stecher’s beautiful old-time version if you can find it.
But I’m sorry to say, but a lot this list is pretty bland. Sure there are a few seemingly traditional musicians who learned a little about the old music from Harry Smith’s anthology and Alan Lomax recordings. But they never lived it (they learned everything from records) and their recordings are mostly over-produced Starbuck’s ready crap. Affluence killed American music by the mid-1960s, and for the most part it never recovered, sorry. Gillian Welch and Sufjan Stevens??!!! Yech!!! Saddest though–not a single black artist on this list. Junior Kimbrough blows anything here out of the water in three notes, unless you don’t want to know about most of small town America. And more surprisingly, nothing much on the list from Sun Records, and little bluegrass and no gospel. Mostly liberal folkies or corporate country and rock. That’s crazy. Try the Soul Stirrers (with Sam Cooke), Charlie Feathers, Tommy Jarrell, and Ralph Stanley on Rebel Records. Don’t fall for the corporate imitations like a bunch of liberals!
lew
Ethan C.
How about Gillian Welch’s “Red Clay Halo” for a beautiful song about the eternal endurance of our places that make us?
Zac
No Greg Brown??? Can’t believe this.
Not trying to be cynical, but ‘Whatever It Was’ is a good one about the loss of place, family and tradition.
“The little towns are lying on their faces,
All that’s left are fading parking spaces,
It’s been quite a week, there was a drive-by shooting in Lake Wobegon.
I was looking for what I loved…”
‘Heart of My Country’ is good as well. ‘Flat Stuff’ is good. I also like ‘Canned Goods,’ which is a bit of a stretch for this theme, but fits perfectly if you hear him sing it live with a big long story in the middle, about Grandma’s house, home cooking…
Also, What do y’all make of Sufjan Stevens? 50 States Project? Illinois and Michigan were pretty great albums (according to me, a hoosier)…
Mark
Robert Earl Keen’s “A Bigger Piece of Sky”
“I gave up the fast lane for a blacktop country road
Just burned out on all that talk about the motherload,
I traded for a songbird and a bigger piece of sky
When I miss the good old days I can’t imagine why.”
and
Robert Earl Keen’s “The Front Porch Song”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQGmc4ugAPE&feature=related
This old porch is a palace walk in on a main street in Texas
It ain’t never seen or heard the days of G’s and R’s and X’s
And that ’62 poster that’s almost faded down
And a screen without a picture since Giant came to town
This old porch is just a long time of waiting and forgetting
Remembering the coming back and not crying about the leaving
And remembering the falling down and the laughter of the curse of luck
From all those son’s of bitches who said we’d never get back up
Jesse Walker
Goober, yes. The one with the beanie. (And, if memory of long-ago Bill Kauffman articles serves, one of the trio of celebrities who endorsed George Wallace in 1968, along with Chill Wills and…who was the other one?)
Bill Kauffman
What great tunes. We may be absent from the corridors of power–no man born with a living soul would want to walk them anyway–but the many streams that make up our American cultures are fresh and alive.
By the way, Jesse, that’s Goober in the clip with Joe South and the Cashes. Gomer was the deracinated Pyle, a cog in the US war machine. Goober, a localist, was planted at the filling station.
Patrick Ford
At the risk of exposing myself to ridicule, I confess I’m a little surprised that John Denver didn’t make the list yet. Few songs have the power to move me like his version of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eaaR1Ay5P0 “Country Roads”] still does, every time.
My 19-month-old, though he hasn’t graduated from Tom T. Hall’s children’s songs yet, is sure glad the old hippie cowboy made it onto the list.
Bob Cheeks
Peter, D.W.
Virgil Cain…YES, I’d forgotten, YES!
Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, now there’s an American group, Oh yes!
You guys are great!
Did Michael Jackson do anything we can add?
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