Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
The Sounds of Travel 6: "Oh My Sweet Carolina"
Here at Gadling we'll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each -- maybe you'll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you'll think that they're good songs.
Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the Comments and we'll post it at the end of the series.
"Oh My Sweet Carolina" by Ryan Adams
Nick Hornby, a favorite author of mine, first tipped me off to this amazing Ryan Adams song in this essay on the McSweeney's website. "Oh My Sweet Carolina," which Hornby describes as "so quiet that you don't want to breathe throughout its duration," might seem to be an odd choice for a series celebrating great travel songs. After all, it's about the unfulfilling, disappointing journeys-- to Vegas, Cleveland, San Antonio-- that we take because we're looking for something that we can't find at home:
Oh my sweet Carolina
What compels me to go
Oh my sweet disposition
May you one day carry me home
This is a lesson many travelers, including myself, have had to learn first-hand: that travel is not a panacea for all your problems. Running away from life is only a quick, temporary fix, and sooner or later everything you fear must be faced head-on.
Another thing the song addresses is this: once we've been away from our friends and family for a while, sometimes home starts to look, well, not so bad. In his Pulitzer-prize winning novel American Pastoral, Philip Roth writes that when people die, their imperfections tend to disappear, or even to become appealing: "This can happen when people die-- the argument with them drops away and people so flawed while they were drawing breath that at times they were all but unbearable now assert themselves in the most appealing way, and what was least to your liking the day before yesterday becomes in the limousine behind the hearse a cause not only for sympathetic amusement but for admiration."
In my experience, the same transformation happens to your hometown and your friends and family when you've been away for a while.
Lyrics here; awesome Elton John cover here; Nick Hornby essay here. Listen to the song, it's good.
Filed under: Arts and Culture, Books
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Candida Nov 12th 2008 5:05PM
Wow, I don't even like Ryan Adams, but this is a great song. It makes me want to go away, just so I can miss being home.
Jamie Rhein Nov 12th 2008 9:00PM
Okay, Aaron. I'm feeling all weepy and nostalgic. Thanks! Adams put Kentucky in the mix. Yep, a place you can long for and not know why. I love the Philip Roth reference. I have a couple Kentucky relatives that fit the description.
Jeff White Nov 23rd 2008 8:39PM
Yeah, Aaron -- great pick. A lot of times we think of road songs as having to be the upbeat, Tom-Petty-Running-On-A-Dream types. But this is the kind of song that if it came on in the car and you weren't driving, you'd be doing a lot of staring out the window and thinking about why you're on the road to begin with.