The United States of Songs: Missouri
Friday, November 4, 2011
Huzzah! This week marks the halfway point of my project dedicated to finding a song to best represent each state (and thereby offending most of the state’s inhabitants, it seems) using two simple rules: the song has to have the state in the title, and it has to discuss the state as a whole rather than one particular feature or location. This week I hope you’ve got plenty of “show me” puns locked and loaded:
The state: Missouri
The song: “Missouri Waltz” by J.R. Shannon as performed by Johnny Cash
I grew up just across the river from Missouri, worked in St. Louis, and after the economy tanked (the first time around) I moved in and luckily found the gig I’ve got now with Woot, which is by far the best job I’ve ever had. So I have kind of a special affinity for Missouri and the friends I have back there, even if I can never get them to come across the river and hang out with me because they assume Illinois is just one huge, windswept cornfield wasteland.
So the Missouri Waltz is kind of low-hanging fruit, being the state song and all, but it’s so pretty! I don’t care what Harry Truman thought. And any time we can get Johnny Cash involved in The United States of Songs, I’m all for it. This is a song that reminds me of driving through the gentle wooded hills of the state on our way to some remote state park to camp or some historical site hidden away out of the city.
This performance especially is slow and a little lazy, which reminds me of the (horrific) humidity slowing everything to a crawl in the summer, when you can’t walk outside without sweating through your shirt. Or maybe it’s the sub-zero winter freezing everyone in place with a nice coat of ice to make driving disastrous and bring down some power lines.
Okay, I’m from the Midwest and I miss thunderstorms sometimes, but other than that the weather freaking sucks. Still, I like your song Missouri. And I like you guys too, for the most part. As a matter of fact, next week there won’t be a music column because I’ll be visiting the St. Louis area on vacation, so take the extra week to soak up the sounds, and give me some good suggestions to kick off the second half of our project with Montana!
Runner-up: “Walkin’ To Missouri” by Bob Merrill
Most Laughable Suggestion: ”Missing Missouri” by Sara Evans
Flickr photo Missouri Botanical Garden by Anne Hornyak used under a Creative Commons License.
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