Sometimes you’ve got to do it: just get in the car and drive. Last month I organised the rest of the family to get on the plane home and drove back from Italy all alone. I went through the mountains with no better plan than the hope of some scenery and time alone with…MY ENTIRE RECORD COLLECTION! Well the stuff I’d burned on CD or had in the old 60 gig i pod. ‘Was it worth it Rick?’ I hear you say.
Let me tell you friends that it was so worth it. Sometimes out there in Switzerland you look round and you think they’ve got it made. I once heard a rather complacent Alpine sounding bloke talking to his US host outside the Bluebird Cafe. When asked where he preferred most from all his travel experiences he rather flatly said….home. Well fair enough I suppose. You’ve got your mountains, your lakes and some pretty nice chocolate bars in some funny shapes…..but heck what will you listen to when you’ve settled down for the night in your chalet? I travelled passed by their glacial waters and under the shadow of their tallest peaks listening to great music and realised I’d take Glasgow with country music rather than all the fine scenery in the world without it any day.
It was there on that long ride I found a few gems I’ll share with you over the next few weeks. Safe to say we’ll move seamlessly through the decades. We’ll have music from Grizzly Bear, First Aid Kit and John Murry. Also new things from older greats – Ry Cooder and Bob Dylan.
In the second hour of the show we’ll reflect on the legacy of Patsy Cline who would have been 80 years old this weekend. Linda Ronstadt, Loretta Lynn and KD Lang will help us out and we’ll hear Tom Jones, The Band Perry and Gretchen Peters talking about how much they love Patsy’s music.
If that’s not worth making an excuse for a long drive through Scotland then I don’t know what is. Join me if you can from five past eight on Friday evening. It’s all on BBC Radio Scotland.
Great to have the AC back, and I’m especially looking forward to the second hour and its celebration of the wonderful Patsy Cline.
I do love a road trip. The longest such adventure I’ve ever done is from London to the south of Spain, and then the same journey in reverse some seven months later—both times with two of us plus the dog. Carefully considered mix CDs were invaluable for that trip, and—whilst I perhaps wish in retrospect that we’d taken it at a more leisurely pace—it lives long in the memory.
Hi Ricky
Glad to hear that ‘First Aid Kit’ is getting some air play. I swear those girls have come from another planet. What harmony, Oh, what harmony. ‘The Lions Roar’ reminds me of the end of some western where the hero rides of into the sunset after doing good deeds. Very panoramic. I can hear the horses feet go clickety-clack in the inky blue night. Yipi Yi Yeah. Also, how ’bout some CHARLIE RICH, Ricky!
That’s the one beauty of the Ipod – to have one’s music collection (or a great deal of it) to hand as and when you need it. Like Adam, I drove from Lancaster (the proper one in Lancashire!) to Southern Spain and I’ve got to say that the drive was made all the better by having the ipod linked into the car stereo..I could find a fave song to fit the scenery/mood of that part of the journey (it tended to be Ricky, Deacon Blue, Ian McNabb, Roddy Frame, Josh Rouse and the sublime spanish singer Mikel Erentxum…with a bit of McCartney and a hint of Del Amitri). Likewise, when I listen to specific songs, they often remind me of one specific point of a journey in the past and I can almost picture the scenery (Circus Lights is always, for me, an image of La Puerta Del Sol in Madrid as I was in a car being driven into that area back in 89 when I had my Walkman on listening to WTWKYN and at the very moment when we drove into that part of Madrid, the sublime first notes of Circus Lights started. 23 years’ later, i can still picture that moment). Mix Tapes have been superceded by Mix CDs which themselves have now been replaced by Playlists (far better – I’ve got one that lasts over 10 HOURS!) but there’s nothing better than driving with the best music you think there is playing as you eat the tarmac..whether it’s down the road to the Supermarket or a proper road trip!
Enough of my waffle – can’t wait to see you, Ricky, and the rest of the band in Liverpool. ALWAYS special nights when you play there.