Charm City Jukebox

Hometown songs: What reminds you of home? And what do you listen to when you get there?

Claire’s List

Birdhouse in Your Soul, by They Might be Giants

The first apartment was home to a family of spirited termites, who made quick work of our kitchen and forced the super to rip out the kitchen tiles and replace them with something incongruously spiffy. I picked raspberries with my mom in the summer from the bushes behind the building, and after daycare I watched Gilligans Island and My Two Dads repeats while I built block castles in front of the TV. My parents were young and tired and seemed impossibly glamorous, with their revolving door of friends, piles of records, and the occasional champagne bottle iced in my old sand bucket.  I lived in that apartment until I was six years old. This song (this album really, but we’re not on that list yet, are we?) was part of the soundtrack of those early Baltimore, little kid years. 

You Ain’t Going Nowhere, by the Byrds

Long before the Wire, America’s cultural touchstone for Baltimore, there was Homicide. In one episode, a character mentioned how you never get out of Baltimore, really. No matter where you end up, you come back. My father thought this was hilarious. (Note: He will deny this entire story. Look forward to his rebuttal “Claire’s false memories about conversations she wasn’t in and TV shows she wasn’t allowed to watch as a child.”) When I asked him why, he said “Because it’s true.”  The chorus of this song has always reminded me of that. You laugh at being here. Or you laugh at the well intentioned folks across the country whose eyes go wide when they learn where you’re from. (And how could I ever explain hot crabs caked in Old Bay, Ronnie slinging drinks that you wouldn’t dare call cocktails as regulars heckle the O’s, the Orthodox families meandering down the middle of the road on Friday nights, the cold so bitter and the heat so thick and honey suckle scented? Sure it’s like the Wire, buddy. TV is 100% real. Didn’t you know that?)

Baltimore, by the 5 Chinese Brothers

I was six years old (or some other short, shy sort of age) and the 5 Chinese Brothers were playing at a record shop. My parents and a gaggle of my father’s high school friends sat up front, but when the music started, I ran away to an aisle in the back of the shop and started to dance. I was wearing a twirly, swirly number, and I spun and snapped, my skirt swishing as they sang about fathers, and Baltimore, and girls who swayed to old girl group songs. I was a painfully quiet kid. The world outside my tight circle of stuffed animals and dolls was mostly terrifying. But that night I danced and danced and fell in love with “Singer Songwriter Beggarman Thief” and would over and over again, through every stage of life, a little more each time. This song I loved first. Still do. 

Dance Tonight, by Lucy Pearl

No one remembers Lucy Pearl. But you should. An early 90s hip hop one-album-super group, composed of members of Tony! Toni! Tone!, A Tribe Called Quest, and En Vogue, Lucy Pearl should’ve gotten bigger than their minor hit on the “Save the Last Dance” soundtrack. I loved homecoming dances. At our school, they were nonsense parties, based around sports teams no one paid any attention to (I went to an arts school without a football team. Our pep rallies involved blowing bubbles in a field…and that’s about it). The chaperoning was minimal, the dancing was deeply inappropriate, and the whole thing was one big fun, Top 40 fueled, sweaty mess. The fun really started in the hours before, when I would slip into my dress and flat iron my hair (a rarity, back then) and let my mom do her meticulous makeup handiwork. Lucy Pearl, so upbeat but mellow, a little funky and pop-py in the best way, was the perfect soundtrack for those pre-homecoming rituals.

Uncle John’s Band, by the Grateful Dead

Fellow children of Deadheads, if you didn’t endlessly listen to this song, and like it from the get go (unlike the Dicks Picks and dawdling cassette boot legs, which were alternately brilliant and incoherent), then your parents probably only went to 10 shows or some other lunacy. Stop calling yourself the children of Deadheads. To the rest of you, I’ll see you at the meetings.

Joshua’s List

Light Up My Room, by the Barenaked Ladies

When I was 17 or so, I broke up with a girl who cheated on me. I was devastated. Yet somehow, I was able to meet a new girlfriend within weeks of ending that relationship. I was taken with her and decided I wanted to put my new guitar playing “skills” to work wooing this lady. I decided to learn how to play this song, which is uniquely beautiful. It’s not a love song, per se, but it does paint a breathtaking picture of familiar love, of two people who live with each other and love each other dearly. If you’ve not listened to it, and you like love songs, try it.

Dear Maggie, by the Kelly Bell Band

Maybe this is in bad taste, but this song relates to the same girl from the previous song. A few months into dating (which is, of course, an eternity in high school), I took a road trip with a church choir to play bass for them. On this trip, I was intensely homesick and this was compounded by this girl who was totally up on my shnutz. I’ve never cheated on someone but this was the most tempted I’ve ever been. I stood my ground and refused her advances. The whole time I couldn’t shake this song. Its lyrics seemed to float in reference in my mind between my girlfriend and this temptress. At the same time, the first line in the chorus, “Dear Maggie, can you help me please?” seemed like a reverent supplication to a higher power, asking what I should do. The song is tough to listen to now but it’s still one of my favorites.

Li’l Darlin’, by Count Basie
I was 13 years old when I first played this song. I can remember my middle school jazz band conductor screaming at us to get the staccato notes in the main melody right every time I turn it on. The single notes are particularly tough for a band to get super tight. Every band member has to not only hit them at the precise moment, but they have to be the exact length down to the millisecond and have to fade from loud to soft to loud all with in the span of less than a second. These are the kind of things that it’s tough for adult bands to do and we teenagers were being asked of perfection. And it worked. We won many a band competition based on the strength of this ballad. This song is the reason I say that I’m a sucker for ballads.

When It Rains, by Brad Mehldau
I love to make mix tapes. And Rob Gordon was right, there is a formula one must follow when making one. However, there isn’t a consensus on what one should end the tapes with. Some believe you need to make it end on extremely high note with an up-tempo song that leaves the listener wanting more. I’m of the belief it’s better to build up to that song with a few songs before it, then end with a denouement that leaves a feeling of total satisfaction, usually a ballad or a slower song. This is the song I set as a gold standard for that. It starts and ends slow and has an absolutely stunning solo by Mehldau in the middle section then fades back to slow. But what makes this song hit home so hard is that I have always wanted to make music like this. Before I broke my wrists, I was a pretty decent jazz bassist. I spent nearly 10 years of my life playing jazz and this is the perfect example of music I wanted to be a part of and now I’ll never be.

Mushroom (live, off of eleven/fifteen), by Laughing Colors

 
I know I said I like to end with a ballad, but I had to save this song for the last. It’s the song. There is no other song that reminds me of home more than this version of this song. And the version is so specific, too. When I was in high school I was in love with this band. I would see them play at the Recher all the time in the best triple bill of all time: Laughing Colors, Kelly Bell Band, then the Almighty Senators. Those of you not from Baltimore may not understand this, but those are the Holy Trinity of Baltimore local bands. And this was the pinnacle of that achievement for me. I only had this live version of the song because I was poor and could only afford to buy this album for a long time. And what it album it was. The best part is that this song isn’t even that good in the scheme of good songs. I just am wildly attached to it. And I really don’t care if you don’t like it or judge me for liking it.

Honorable Mentions:

The Bridge – Rising Sun: A band from Baltimore I got into before they were (slightly) famous. This is their best song. Claire knows what I’m talking about.

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel : This was excluded from the main list because it wasn’t a hometown song, but a song that reminds me of all the people from St. Mary’s. I suppose if I ever moved from Maryland it would be hometown-ish. Everyone I knew at St. Mary’s knew this song, and half of those people could play it.

Pink Martini – Sympathique: Claire and I both took French language classes for many, many years. This song, also introduced to me by the girl half this post was written about, reminds me of a simpler time, struggling through the ridiculous conjugations the French language has. Also, the song is totally French. The lyrics to the chorus, in English, are: “I don’t want to work, I don’t want to eat, I just want to forget, and then I smoke.” Classic.