No road trip is complete without a kick-ass soundtrack. Those songs that fit a particular moment or feeling so precisely, it's like they were written just for you. With streaming services like Spotify making it easier than ever to discover new music, I've been crafting a playlist of songs that represent the sights and vibes of the trip so far.
Road Trip Mix, Volume 1: The East Coast
(Listen to the whole playlist here)
Make a Move by Whosah
In the weeks leading up to my departure from Nashville, I often turned to this song for encouragement. Though, in this instance the "move" refers to a love interest, I feel like this song is relatable to anyone who has ever taken a leap of faith into the unknown. "It's hard to take a ship off shore, when you're not sure what you're sailing toward / and it's hard to close your eyes and jump, when you're not sure the water's deep enough." (Listen)
To You by Young Wonder
Transitioning from one life to another is never as cut and dry as we'd often like to think. While we're preoccupied with looking ahead to the future, it can be easy to forget about how our new beginning affects the friends we leave behind. During those three months of planning, as I mentally severed my ties from Nashville one by one, there was one friend who stayed with me until literally the very end - it was her face I saw in my rear view mirror as I pulled away from my home for the last time. We'd spent a lot of time together in those months, often binge watching episodes of our latest TV obsession and trying to delay the inevitable. Featured in the series, this song reminds me of her. "See you in the next life." (Listen)
Get Out of This Town by Edwin McCain
A tradition dating back to my first road trip in high school, I cannot pull out of the driveway if song isn't playing - it's bad luck otherwise. "I'm rolling thunder with the top down / it's time to get out of this town!" (Listen)
Sixteen by Lucero
On long stretches of highway, I sometimes find myself daydreaming back to my first cross-country trip when I was eighteen; this song reminds me of the girl who I knew would be there waiting for me when I got home. We were sixteen when we started dating and I think it's safe to say now that I never really got over her. You know how it is at that age - without a fully-developed adult brain, you rely on your heart to pick up the slack. With her, my heart did most of the work. As I passed through Memphis on "40 east," heading toward Georgia, I was already counting down the hours until I would see her again. (Listen)
Long Live the Billionaire by Shungudzo
I first heard this hauntingly appropriate song while passing through the small South Carolina town of Yemassee. It was early yet, though the thick coastal forest cast a premature darkness over the highway. I was driving past a plantation - every bit the cliche that comes to mind when you hear that word: a majestic white home with wrap-around porches, adorned with dozens of holiday wreaths and long, gracefully bowing strands of garland between columns. Just down the road, row after row of massive pecan trees, with boughs completely blocking the sky above, stood draped in Spanish moss like bearded soldiers at full attention. Beyond, the canopy suddenly opened up to a fallow field, with dark pines in the distance. Hunched in the field sat the ruins of the slave quarters, with egg shell plaster sloughing to the ground from the tabby walls beneath. One lone cedar erupted from a collapsed roof. I had to wonder if the residents of the manor up the road were uncomfortable with the contrast between their home and that of the former slaves. Somehow I doubted it. "Long live the billionaire" indeed. (Listen)
Bonfire by The Hunna
Ah yes, the classic post-breakup song: Upbeat, empowering, full of piss and vinegar and delivering a solid "F--- You" to the estranged. On at least one occasion, this song came on while I was building up a small cooking fire. In my spiteful enthusiasm, I overfed the little guy into a towering inferno too tall to cook with, but hot damn did it feel good (catharsis-wise and temperature-wise) "We don't know which way to go! We don't know which way is home! We blew up like a bonfire!" (Listen)
Sweet Surrender by John Denver
A retired electrical engineer living on a farm in southern Virginia introduced me to his song. "I'll play it for you. It's exactly what you're doing," he told me one evening. Sure enough, every single word spoke to me - "I don't know where I'm goin', I'm not sure where I've been / My life is worth the livin', I don't need to see the end." He then proceeded to tell me about the time he ran away from home when he was fourteen, fell asleep in a ditch and got picked up by the cops. A kindred spirit if ever I met one. (Listen)
We Don't Know by The Strumbellas
Early on the morning of January 6th, I set out from Richmond for the second leg of my journey. Having retrofitted the truck as best I could for the coming cold, from here on out the trial run is over - this is the real deal. But with the sun beginning to peek over the horizon and the anticipation of New England ahead, a 3° predawn departure was just what I wanted. This was going to be my winter. (Listen)
John Brown by Tea Leaf Green
The red brick engine house is a squat building, barely the size of a two car garage. Standing beside it on that icy afternoon, with downtown Harpers Ferry silent save for the occasional gust of winter wind blowing in off the Potomac, I did my best to imagine the tense atmosphere as it would've felt on the night of October 18, 1859 as John Brown and his handful of marauders clustered inside the structure, surrounded by US Marines. Their raid, it seemed, had failed. Though he would be executed for his treasonous attack on the federal arsenal, Brown's action ignited a spark of national debate that would burn brighter and brighter for the next eighteen months until exploding into civil war. A controversial figure, to be sure, but John Brown's provocative action at Harpers Ferry just goes to show you that one person with enough conviction can change the course of history. "Freedom's just a silly word, keeps us bound up pretty good." (Listen)
Kiski by James Harris Moore
The memories settled into the dark Allegheny valleys of central Pennsylvania like a dense fog, especially on this cold winter night in late January. They stewed in the darkness, twisting and churning with every bend in the icy mountain road. On one of those rare nights when I had no destination in mind, I cruised through the black and endless primeval forest, letting my mind wander off into equally dark corners - to a late summer night, when my soon to be ex-girlfriend and I attended a songwriter set in Nashville. We were there to support a coworker friend - a landscape architect by day, musician by night. On some level, I think she and I knew the end was near but, for that one night, with the help of a talented coworker and too many drinks for a Wednesday, we didn't care. I remember how we fell silent during this song, knowing that "drifting with her forever" was no longer in the cards. James passed along a copy of his album before I left Nashville and, hearing this song again in the dark Allegheny hills, I suddenly felt a long way from home. (Listen)
Pumpin Blood by NONONO
Through all of its ups and downs, this trip has done exactly what it was supposed to do. I set out looking for solace and, sure enough, somewhere along the way it found me. These days, I feel like the best version of myself - I'm optimistic about the future and I have a clear plan about what to do next. It's been two and a half months since I left my former life behind - over six-thousand miles across twenty-one states (and counting) - and there isn't a doubt in my mind about whether or not it was the right decision. All that mental background noise from a life of too much stress is gone; for the first time in a few years, I can finally hear myself think enough to trust my judgment moving forward. This journey will forever be one of the defining experiences of my life and, for now at least, I feel like I can do anything. Cruising down a two lane back road with the windows down despite the cold, I don't even now what state I'm in and I don't care. I feel alive. "This is your heart, it's alive and the whole wide world is whistling." (Listen)
CWO