Turnpike Travel, Music of Yore

[dlgood]

I've had a thought bouncing about my head, pretty much since the return drive from the AtPO meet in NYC.

Pretty much as soon as I crossed the Verrazano into Staten Island, I put "The Cars/Candy-O" into my CD player for the drive down. There's something about that band that really strikes me as fitting while driving down the Jersey Turnpike. I'm not really sure why.

Perhaps, it's association. In my youth, the bulk of our rather close extended family lived in NYC, on Long Island, or in Connecticut - and so with family events, weddings, Bar-Mitzvahs, and just general travel, we made many trips along the I-95 corridor. And among the many tapes we took (and oh did I hate my mother's love for Manilow and Neil Diamond when trapped in a car) were a few Cars. Perhaps it's that.

And these are albums I've listened to for years. "Candy-O" in particular, is just a really quirky album where the songs flow but sound so different, and just odd. But the beats are just right for Turnpike Travel. And it helps that Benjamin Orr is just about the only singer I can actually sing along to with any degree of competence, so there's extra fun when an Orr song turns up.

So on my four hour trip back, I listened to just four albums ("Cars",
"Candy-O", "Panorama" and "Heartbeat City") all by the same band, and all over twenty years old. And it felt really appropriate, and neat.

Anybody else out there have any particular album/highway associations like that, or is it just me being wacky?

Comments

[ladyhelix.livejournal.com]

Every time we took a car trip, the boys and I would pick a CD to be our "THEME" song (it also kept us from fighting over what to listen to)! Once we got past Joe Scruggs, Beginners Bible, & Lambchops Sing-along play-along songs.. we were on to:

* Songs you know by heart.. (what's his name - Cheeseburger in Paradise guy). (Fruitcakes also sponsored several trips)!

* Kenny Loggins Live from the Redwoods

* Canadian Brass - CB Plays Bernstein - purchased at the Canadian Brass concert we attended on the trip. (The boys had just watched WEST SIDE STORY (about 10 times straight) before we left, and how lucky were we that they played the entire soundtrack at the concert! - the tuba rendition of "I feel Pretty" was priceless!)

* Billy Joel Stranger

* Brian Adams So far so good

* Collin Hay Going Somewhere

* Savage Garden - Affirmation

* Bob Segar: Greatest Hits

* Wood Songs From Stamford Hill

* Nik Kershaw - 15 Minutes

* The Eagles (various)

* David Gray - White Ladder

* Mary Beth Maziarz - A More Perfect World (-surprising, but they had performed two of these pieces in choir!)


Now when I hear any of these - I think of those crazy trips! Not necessarily my #1 choices - but they kept the peace for hours and hours in the car, and kind of "stitched" our trips together!! Also because by the time we got home - none of us could STAND to listen to them EVER AGAIN!

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

CHeeseburger = Jimmy Buffet

We definitely listened to a lot of Billy Joel, Bob Seeger and Eagles as well.

[ladyhelix.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU! How could I forget Jimmy Buffet!

If you ever get your hands on FRUITCAKES - the first two songs are priceless!
(1) Everybody's got a cousin in Miami
(2) Fruitcakes

(Those may not be their real names - but if I was naming them - that's what they'd be!!)

OH! also reading your Bakery fiction!! I loved the first 2 chapters, so I printed the rest of it off, and will read them as a "TREAT" to myself!

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was trying to do a neat and hopeful little coda for the series. Just note that I pretty much wrote it after S7/4 so pretty much anything from AtS-5 has to be ignored. Hopefully you'll enjoy the rest. It's reasonably fluffy.