A certain Australian reminded me about Three Tune Tuesday and it seemed like as good an excuse for a blog as any. I'm sure there's rules for that but with it being half an hour into Wednesday already I think it's safe to say I will not be in compliance.
Been spending a bit of time down in Red River Gorge lately. Seems like any time there's something nice somebody's got to come along and ruin it, usually in the name of making a quick buck. The gorge is on the waiting list to get that treatment, I've been down there taking photos in hopes of being able to do something to try and prevent that.
When I'm out on a trail I don't listen to music, it seems blasphemous to drown out the music all around you. Well, and it's bear country. These songs are trail music in the sense that they're songs to send you down the trails, remind you why you're out there dodging hornets, poison ivy, and copperheads.
In some of my earlier posts about the gorge the word paradise has gotten thrown around, so naturally my first tune has to be Paradise. Written by John Prine, this is a cover by eastern Kentucky's very own Sturgill Simpson. I grew up with Prine's version, the song is about coal mining in western Kentucky and the destruction it brought but it could have just as easily been about southeastern Kentucky where I was born and raised (and Red River Gorge is located).
Speaking of southeastern Kentucky, you couldn't grow up there and not hear your fair share of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Everybody knows Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird but it's one of their tunes that didn't get the radio play that has always stuck with me. All I Can Do Is Write About It probably should have been the title of this post because it certainly seems to be the case.
Those first two tunes have long been favorites of mine, this last one is more of a recent discovery. Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam were my least favorite of the grunge era but I can find little fault with Society. The song that is. There's plenty to go around for the other sort and the song speak to some of that which underlies the threat to the gorge. Besides, the song was written for the Into The Wild soundtrack and if ever there was a place I could happily wander into the woods and disappear, it's this neck of the woods.
So what's your music for sending you down a trail?
