Great egret in the Big Cypress
Music is large part of my life and is a large aspect in the human existence in general. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that another big facet of my life, travel, and music go well together. This combination is not just a big part of my life, but also is true for many other travelers and again, the human race in general.
Canoeing the Santa Fe River in northern Florida
Every combo that goes well together has a matchmaker. For travel and music the match.com for them has been technology. Back before cassettes and car stereos the only way to bring music and travel together was to actually bring an instrument along. Woody Guthrie plucking away on a banjo atop a freight train comes to mind.
Fortunately, advances in technology have made it easier and easier to enjoy music while traveling. First it was car stereos playing 8-track cassettes. Then the Sony Walkman, which allowed everyone to listen to their own choice of music. The rest is history.
The old Chevy van from the top of the citrus tower in Florida
Growing up, I used to listen to my Sony Walkman in the back of our Chevy Van while we tooled around the Midwest and sometimes Florida and Tennessee. Over time, certain songs and tapes that I was really into became synonymous with certain travel memories. Listening to these same songs and tapes back at home would bring a strong feeling of travel déjà vu. For a moment I would be transported back to travel locations where I was listening to these songs.
For example, the Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Wooden Ships,” reminded me of a certain stretch of road on Highway 61 called Silver Cliff where the road climbed high above Lake Superior. On the way to the Great Smoky Mountains, listening to John Cougar Mellencamp’s Scarecrow was a necessity driving through the cornfields of Indiana. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may shun Rush, but my portable CD player did not as I enjoyed the epic 2112 on the way from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok. The highlight of the CD on this trip was “Passage to Bangkok.”
Views like this reminded me of the song Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills & Nash
My number one match for song/album and place has to be listening to Van Morrison’s amazing album “Astral Weeks” while on a two week trip to the Florida Everglades back in high school. The song which really evokes Florida in my mind is Cyprus Avenue. Every time I hear “Well, I am caught one more time, up on Cyprus Avenue,” I can see in my mind Spanish moss hanging from the trees. I can see cypress trees and stumps rising from marshes filled with egrets, herons, ibises, storks, and anhingas. When I hear this song, I can almost smell Florida.
Even though Florida is home to cypress trees and the song is named Cyprus, there is no connection between to the two except in my own mind. With art we make our own interpretation. The reason this song resonates with memories of Florida is from childhood memories of listening to this tune and this album with my Sony Walkman in the back of the old Chevy Van.
Another kind of cypress avenue in a Florida swamp
With Iphones,Ipods, youtube, and other technologies, it is easier than ever to constantly have music as a travel companion. What are some of your favorite music/travel combinations? Chime in with a comment below.
TT
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I always have a special song for each of my trips!
Andi of My Beautiful Adventures recently posted..7 Super Shots From Andi’s Travels
I love, love, love this post so very much. I’d also like to note that you have incredible taste in music and I think that you should make your readers a Traveling Ted Re-Mix. I also feel that I should tell you that I saw on Ticketmaster that the Jayhawks are coming back to town…
Anyway, I have found most avid travelers are in a sense, all romantics. They have channeled a feeling of falling in love into the world, instead of just into one person. That sort of romanticism is what makes great musicians, great artists, and great writers.
For me, if I had to pinpoint a moment in my travels, mixed with music that I’ll never forget, it would be the song “You’be Got A Friend” by Carol King (or James Taylor). The first time I went to Amsterdam, I would always frequent a bar where the owner, Dicdric would blast two year old Snoop Dog songs. It was the oldest bar in Amsterdam to my knowledge. Anyway, one of the days my traveling companions and I asked Dicdric why there was no Dutch music. He said, “You guys want to hear Dutch music?” We nodded yes, and he threw his apron to his barkeep and we walked outside where he hailed a cab.
After a ten to twenty minute ride, we stepped out to an area of somewhere outside of Amsterdam that to this day, I have no idea where we were, and went into a bar where everyone in that bar was, what it seemed like to me, to be talking fast, in their native tongue — Dutch.
A man was standing on a small kareoke stage, singing a Euro-pop song. It was terrible. Dicdric said, “This is your Dutch music”. After another terrible song (that we enjoyed), and a drink, Dicdric hopped up and whispered something into the singing mans ear. The man smiled and looked at us. He then addressed the microphone, saying “We have Americans here’. And the bar just kind of stopped talking and looked at us.
The man singing started into Carol King’s “You’ve Got A Friend” (I know, it sounds cheesey). At the chorus, the whole bar, who minutes before were all speaking fluent Dutch, started singing the song in perfect English. It blew my mind and I have been in love with the Dutch culture since.
Ted, thanks for this post, and for letting me reminisce.
It’s amazing how much music connects us with memories and places. I have some of those same experiences as well with music – very powerful. However, our choice of music for our memories and travels is a little different 🙂
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Jeremy,
Everyone has different tastes in music. Please share your song and place. I promise I won’t laught 🙂
Traveling Ted recently posted..Van Morrison’s Cyprus Avenue reminiscent of Florida Everglades travel
What great photos and paired with music, I love it. Colorado Mountain High was my anthem the first time I traveled to the Rockies. It just fit,
awesome! we’re welcome you on an island of Cypresses – Cyprus )
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