The songs
The transformative thirty
The stories behind the selected 30 songs (which will end up in book form) define the travel route. I have an idea of which ones will be included, but this also depends on several variable factors.
1. Is the story behind the song as captivating as I thought?
2. Can I find a location to travel to?
3. Can I get in touch with experts, eyewitnesses, descendants, or songwriters I can talk to?
4. Can I find the angle? Can I write about the story as well as it deserves?
5. Will we have time to visit all the places as planned, or will we have car trouble, speeding tickets, aching backs, or homesickness?
Some songs will come along the way, and some will drop off. It's life's way of not always knowing where you're headed or who you're traveling with.
Out of the nearly 120 songs and artist ideas I've selected so far, these 15 are the most relevant before the first leg of the journey.
1. You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive, Patty Loveless. Harlan, Kentucky.
A shared fate and inherited habits. Why do so many choose to stay when the world around them is falling apart?
2. Seneca Creek, Charles Wesley Godwin. Seneca Creek, West Virginia.
A life full of challenges is balanced by closeness to nature and finding meaning in the simple joys.
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, The Band. Richmond, Virginia.
Loyalty to land and people, even in the face of a dishonorable defeat.
4. Cold Harbor, The Outlaws. Cold Harbor Battlefield, Richmond, Virginia.
Cold Harbor was one of the bloodiest and most controversial battles of the American Civil War.
5. We're Not Gonna Take It, Twisted Sister. US Senate, Washington, D.C.
Senator's wife Tipper Gore's campaign to censor and label "harmful" music sparked a major debate about censorship, artistic freedom, and parental responsibility in raising children, culminating in Dee Snider's knockout testimony against Senator Al Gore in the US Senate.
6. Sailing to Philadelphia, Mark Knopfler. Mason/Dixon Line, the boundary that divides Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia.
The British surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon’s scientific mapping had profound political and cultural implications in American history.
7. Jacob's Dream, Alison Krauss. The Lost Children of the Alleghenies Monument, Pennsylvania.
The painful story of two young boys who got lost and couldn't find their way home.
8. Youngstown, Bruce Springsteen. Youngstown, Ohio.
Your job was once a source of pride and financial security, but it has now become a symbol of economic injustice and betrayal.
9. Ohio, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Kent State University, Ohio.
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War.
10. Hangar 18, Megadeth. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.
Many Americans claim that in 1947, an extraterrestrial craft crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, and the wreckage and aliens were transported to Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
11. Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday. Marion, Indiana.
One of the most iconic and powerful protest songs in American music history, addressing the lynching of African Americans in the early 1900s.
12. Telegraph Road, Dire Straits. US Highway 24 from Toledo to Detroit, Michigan.
Knut Hamsun’s *Growth of the Soil* inspired this song about the development of civilization.
13. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot. Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, Whitefish Point, Michigan.
The tragic sinking of the freighter *Edmund Fitzgerald*.
14. 1913 Massacre, Woody Guthrie. Italian Hall, Calumet, Michigan.
73 people, including 59 children, lost their lives during the "Italian Hall Disaster."
15. American Pie, Don McLean. Clear Lake, Iowa.
The plane crash on February 3, 1959, claimed the lives of rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), marking the end of an era of innocent, early rock and roll, and symbolizing for many the beginning of a more turbulent time in American culture. "The day the music died."
I have a few sure bets. The three cornerstones of the first leg, which are also mentioned in the blog, are songs number 1, 7, and 8.
You can find the estimated travel route for the first leg here.