One Day More....this one is for enoch. what a good guy. no words can even really describe how wonderful our connection was. he understood me at a very deep level that most people don't tap into...or I could be just romanticizing the whole thing....but at the time, it felt as real as these keys underneath my fingers. he was one of the better highlights of my entire trip....he saw me lose my shit..i mean LOSE MY SHIT...and laughed about it and hugged me anyways. I loved that about him. However, you stop living in the woods and let society dictate what can make you happy, a good connection is sometimes the first thing that goes out of the window, sadly, followed by the communication. But this one is for him.
He had about three albums on his phone, one being some Simon and Garfunkle, some Billy Joel, and the Les Miserables soundtrack. I am a theater person, as he is, and I friggin LOVE Les Mis. I fell hard for this musical and everything about it....the set, the production value, the music, you name it. So when he offered his music to me, I said, great. Funny thing was, he didn't have the entire show...he was missing the whole first act, but I got down on the second half anyways through the 100 mile wilderness and was happy as a clam. This made Maine even better, as if this was an easy task. I remember waxing all philoshophical about this musical, too.... funny.
Copacabana....ah geez. I loved to sing Copacabana as a means to fill silence...like cooking dinner in a quiet shelter, pitching camp, et cetera. It fills the gaps in my brain consistently. Funny thing is, in Virginia, while walking, we came up with 15 verses about the AT to this tune...I can't remember the chorus at all now, but I remember one time i was whistling it and KBomb actually stopped me to ask 'are you singing copacabana..?' to which i would reply, 'absolutely'. It's actually the best song to whistle at a shelter, cause subliminally, everybody else at the shelter would whistle it too....it sneaks up on ya.
If You're Ever In Oklahoma....I got off trail for about two weeks in the middle of the summer when I got to Philly....I spent the fourth of july there, watched the fireworks, ate a lot, slept alot, cleaned my gear, and then went to NYC to visit my buddy Matt, a friend of mine that I hadn't seen since I moved from NYC to Nashville 4 years earlier. So...we went camping at Delaware Water Gap, and he brought his ipod with him, and this was on there, coupled with a version of 'legalize it' that was about 15 minutes long. Not even two weeks later, back on the trail, I meet Sprout and she had the same Yonder show on her mp3 player.....no way, right? I looooooved it. Climbed Killington Peak with this one on repeat. And dear old Enoch was from Wichita, which is mentioned in the song. Felt appropriate to add some Yonder while making an AT mix.
Send Me on My Way....this one is a fun story. when i was in college, i was a theater major....known for throwing all the wild parties (ahem...'cast parties') back in the day. Small college in the south will put more pressure on performing arts types (even though i am a techie through and through)...but we were a wild bunch. We used to throw on 'When I Woke' by Rusted Root when the party was reaching peak status...and march around the living room/house/porch/street to 'Drum Trip' dancing crazy like. In a line, not Soul Train style. Or at least I was. (i have a history for dancing crazy like at any given moment....) Good times when I was barely legal to drink. Of course, 'Send Me On My Way' I heard a million times on my AT trip; at hostels, at hiking partner's mp3 players, at bars.....even heard it in NC post summit....good, grass roots song to be happy to. If one thing the AT taught me was that being happy is the only way to be happy. I can't explain it more than that. Anytime I forget in the real world, I always remember that.....
and I have a college reunion coming up. Maybe I'll be dancing to drum trip soon enuf.
'Old Fashioned Morphine'....thanks Ali. Sprout brought this to me on her player that I killed...and this, my friends, is music I wanna make. Simple, awesome, seductive.
Illegal Smile....I love John Prine...
Silent in the Morning. Huge Phish fan, since like 1994. I have seen them 25 times. Mike Gordon hit on me not once but twice. Jon Fishman's rabbi that performed his Bar Mitzvah gave me a free ticket once in a parking lot in New York. Scored reunion tickets in 2003, miraculously. Wanted to move to Vermont since I was 17. I have a cd wallet and a shoebox of tapes of live shows. Saw Mike, Trey and Page McConnell solo at least twice each. So fitting I should watch the most beautiful sunset on Mt Glastenbury in Vermont, listening to this one. I cried. Best hike of the entire AT, KBomb and I did 14 miles in 5 hours, after we stopped in Bennington and drank a buncha beer. It was magnificent. We stayed at some shelter that just had an incredible view...what a sunrise the next morning....great. Beyond words. it was beautiful.
Real Love.....Mary J. I can't be a singer and not love Mary J. I just like this song alot....it describes how I feel about my state of relationships in general. I also went to high school for a couple of years in Columbus, Ohio (go bucks...that's why my pack is scarlet and grey baby)....which sounds really corn fed and all white but i went to an inner city school....and if you are from there, you know which part of town i speak of. Quite rough. I met a couple dudes from the AT form Columbus and told them which part of town I was from and they laughed and went '...really?'
Anyhoo. The percussionists in marching band knew how to play the piano lick and used to play it every day after school before band practice, so all the really kickin singers would give thier very best Mary J impression daily. Cool stuff to grow up on.
Ain't no Mountain High Enough.....um, of course. Cause there really ain't. I climbed em all to get from south to north. What an expedition.
So there you have it. I know there are a few more. But this is a condensed list, of course. Thanks for readin, but more importantly, thanks for listening. That's the true effort.
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