Sunday, July 8, 2007

Indiana (a Blue Song for a Red State)

This song idea came from a short business trip I had to Indianapolis. I'm sure it's not a fair portrait but I found it to be a pretty ugly city, and was distressed that the main feature of downtown seemed to be a huge sports stadium and a comparably huge mall. On the weekends, crowds seemed to stream in from all the outlying towns to go to the mall. This made me think about how our agricultural farming heartland became the industrial heartland. As is often the case, it was the discovery of a quirky fact that helped shape the song. While looking at the local paper I realized that Indiana is the state farthest west in the Eastern time zone. I'm from the East coast so this fact was brought home to me when I was going to the airport in the dark at 7:30 in the morning and realizing that it would already be light at home by this time. This supplied the central metaphor of the state or region needing to wake up, and look at what was lost with the family farm that can't be replaced by malls and fast food joints. The interest in Ethanol as a fuel source gives me hope that some of the farming life in the area will regain its value.

During that ride to the airport we also rode past numerous factories with their smokestacks spewing fire - all of which helped to add to the imagery.

So that was the kernel -- the rest fell into place pretty readily...

You can hear the song on my website:

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