Flightster

Sounds like a place I love

• by Jools Stone
• on November 3rd, 2010
• 16 Comments

Mallaig in the Scottish Highlands

There are some songs that evoke a definite sense of place, whether a country, city or even a street. Music becomes inevitably tied to a certain place and time in your mind. It’s almost impossible to escape the associations you build up around certain songs. But many are just so evocative of a specific destination.

They either bring back rose tinted memories of where you first became hooked by them or they create an image in your mind of somewhere you’ve never been. Sometimes it’s so powerful that you it makes you want to visit the place just on the strength of it.

So I thought I’d share my own personal audio atlas, music borne out of memories and places mapped in my mind’s eye and ear.

London

Morrissey – Come Back to Camden

Morrissey certainly divides opinion but there’s no doubt that, from his work with the Smiths onwards, he’s been a definitively British songwriter. This song, written while in homesick exile in LA, really captures the gloom of London on an overcast day nicely. Depressing as the place is, he misses its comforting familiarity:  ‘Drinking tea with a taste of the Thames. Where taxi drivers never stop talking under slate grey Victorian sky.’

Camden is actually a fairly happening, buzzy part of London with a lively street market, but hey, this is Morrissey, what else do we expect from him? It’s like a depressive’s version of Englishman in New York really.

Scotland

Scottish music had a massive impact on it when I was growing up, many years before I moved here. I could easily fill an entire blog with examples, but I’ll stick with these two for now.

The Proclaimers – Letter from America

Here’s a band who are so Scottish-sounding that they’re often unfairly dismissed as a bit of a joke. But this first hit of theirs comments very poignantly on Scotland’s industrial decline during the reign of Margaret Thatcher in the 80s. Hearing them name all the lost towns in those broad, patriotic vowels brings a lump to the throat:   ’Lochaber no more. Sutherland no more. Lewis no more. Skye no more.’

The Blue Nile – The Downtown Lights

Along similar Caledonian lines are perhaps the band who nutshell Scotland for me: the Blue Nile.  This song  complete with subtle bagpipe keyboard sound  is what the Highlands and west coast sounds like to me. VisitScotland should use it to soundtrack one of their ads.

Their story is interesting too. Their big break came when they were approached by Glasgow electronics firm Linn to make a record to test out their new high-end Hi Fi. They liked it so much they set up a record label to release it.  See also Aztec Camera and the Trashcan Sinatras.

America

The past decade or so has all been about the States for me. I  have a deeply rooted obsession with what we here would broadly label Americana. Much of this music, with a mix of country, folk and roots influences, does not sound terribly ‘current’ as Simon Cowell would probably say (reason enough to like it maybe) and some of it is very timeless or sepia-tinged. That adds to the romance of it I suppose.

Ironically I’ve never been to the States so it will be interesting to see just how these songs, which evoke the place so perfectly in my mind, match up to the reality when I make it there.

Fleet Foxes –  The Blue Ridge Mountains

‘In the quivering forest where the shivering dog rests. Our good grandfather built a wooden nest.’  And in my head I’m already there in that cabin.

M Ward – Paul’s Song

Beautiful song about lonesome life of a troubadour on the road.  ’How does it feel to be travelling?  How’s it feel to live your life on the train and the aeroplane. Well every town is all the same when you’ve left your heart in the Portland rain.’

Felice Brothers – Whiskey in my Whiskey

A saloon set murder ballad from a band sometimes described as ‘gangster folk’  which sounds like it could have been written at any time in the past century. It was recorded a few years ago  in a chicken coup in upstate New York.  Brought the house down when they played it in Glasgow a month ago. Must’ve been something in the whisky or the whiskey, depending on where you’re from.

Steve Earle – Oxycontin Blues

A paean to the forgotten, downtrodden working class of America. Sounds like an furious army of banjoing rednecks marching towards you!  ‘Well my daddy worked in a coal mine til the company shut it down. Then he sat around and drank hisself blind, til we put him back under ground.’ Stirring stuff.

My Morning Jacket – Golden

Another song about life on the road, but more bittersweet than Paul’s Song, dedicated  to a partner back home. It really makes me wish I could drive and go on a roadtrip through Kentucky and ‘watch a stretch of road, miles of lights explode.’

American Music Club – I Broke My Promise

In this touching song (with a heartbreaking opening line) about a distant old flame, Mark Eitzel casts his trademark  weary worldview on his hometown,  a place which always looks so sunny and carefree to me:  ‘The California sun always shines, oh but San Francisco is a cold place to have a run of bad luck. Everyone wants to shine their flash lights in your face,’ apparently.

The Hold Steady  - Your Little Hoodrat Friend

This is no nonsense, Springsteenish bar room rock with added lyrical edge. Expect copious references to the screwed up and tangled lives of  young alternative scenesters from the twin cities of St Paul & Minneapolis.  And obligatory references to the banks of the Mississippi River, where unsavoury things always seem to happen in their songs, along with Penetration Park.

Few bands evoke a city more vividly for me. Listening to one their albums is like a watching mini series, like doing a season of the Wire in one sitting.  If you’re curious, check out this brilliantly detailed google map of all the many Twin Cities locations in their songs and this crib sheet to some of the many references found in this densely populated world Craig Finn has recreated.

Paris

Serge Gainsbourg –  Le Poinconner Des Lilas

Despite my non existent French, more or else anything by chanson legend Serge Gainsbourg conjures up Paris for me.  In Britain he is famous for  Je t’aime, the breathy duet he originally wrote for Brigitte Bardot but recorded with Jane Birkin in 1969.

It was banned here for its Gallic loucheness, promptly propelling it to the number one spot. A certain moment of inebriated indiscretion with Whitney Houston on live TV brought him more notorierty a few decades later.. .

Having found a translation online I was delighted to find out that it’s about a bitter metro ticket inspector who longs to escape above ground and travel the world instead.

Italy

Momus – Paolo

Scottish born Momus is a more literate songwriter than most. He peppers his songs liberally with literary, cultural and historical references.  While he often sounds like a more sinister version of Neil Tennant, the lyrics really reward a close listen. This song, a tribute to gravelly voiced Italian crooner Paolo Comte, is typical of his narrative power. Really it’s a film put to song. I can even let him off for mispronouncing Juventus!

‘Is the washing still flapping all night behind buildings where car factory workers are dreaming of victories in marble. While the burglar alarms were screaming insanely like Toscanini primadonnas.’

He’s also written a few songs in other languages, the big show off. Check out his Italian one: Giapponese a Roma and his French one: Nikon 2. Both are throwaway B sides you can find on the album 20 Vodka Jellies.

The Balkans & Eastern Europe

Gogol Bordello – My Companjera

I’m getting quite a hankering for this Balkan brass stuff and this really gets me in the mood to book my trip there next spring. Maybe I should hold off until August, when the riotous Guca Trumpet Festival hits rural Serbia. See also Beirut and DeVotchka.

They Might be Giants – Istanbul (not Constantinople)

Actually this one is just a bit of offbeat, nerdy fun, typical of They Might Be Giants.  I don’t know how authentic it is but with lines like ‘Why did Constantinople get the works, that’s nobody’s business but the Turks.’ who cares? It’s educational too. From listening to it I learned that ‘even old New York was once New Amsterdam.’ It’s got to be the first thing on the walkman when I make it there.

These are songs which mean something to me, music being such an inevitably personal and subjective thing after all. And If you’re interested I hope you give this Spotify playlist I made a listen. It contains nearly all of them plus a few more. I hope you enjoy them.

Tweet requests

But it’s not all about my own particular penchant for vaguely obscure and depressing music. I canvassed some views from others earlier.  Here’s a few which struck a chord with some of my twitter pals.

Scottish Islands

For Janet Hanley An Ghillie Dubh by Christine Primrose (sung in Scots Gaelic) makes her long for the beach on the Isle of Lewis.

England

For expat blogger Unexpected Traveller Blur’s Parklife recalls England. What with the cockney monologue by Quadrophenia icon Phil Daniels, it definitely caught the mood of a nation at a time when Britain was awash with Britpop.

Paris

Nouvelle Vague takes Jerry Evans right back to a Paris pavement cafe.

London

Adele’s Hometown Glory always lights Emily of Raileasy’s fire for London.

Coney Island

Van Morrison’s song of the same name brings back some memories for Anne Kostalas.

No doubt there are others which you feel nail your hometown, transport you back to a favourite place or inspire you to discover a new one, so please feel free to share them with a comment below.

Jools Stone

Jools Stone's blog, He Thought of Trains, chronicles the highs - and occasional lows - of traveling by train in an age of budget flights.