Swing States

The votes are in.

Last week, with a dollar-friendly €25 Golden Discs voucher offer, I asked you to name your favourite song whose title features an American state?

You answered in your dozens.

But alas  there could be only one winner.

Third Place:

California (All The Way) by Luna

Joe Koyote writes:

‘From the 1994 sophomore album “Bewitched”. A slice of dream pop heaven. Fun fact: main man Dean Wareham was firmly an East Coast kinda guy, after moving from his New Zealand birthplace he spent most of his life in New York (plus a spell in Boston). But a few years ago re relocated to Los Angeles as his son was in college there. So he made it… All the Way… to California, eventually.’

Runner-up:

Reno Dakota by The Magnetic Fields

Specific Gravity writes:

“Reno Dakota, there’s not an iota of kindness in you, You know you enthral me and yet you don’t call me, It’s making me blue, Pantone 292.”

‘69 Love Songs is a hell of a collection of impeccable songs, running the full emotional gamut. Would be great to see them back in Dublin.’

Winner:

Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen

Johnny writes:

‘Recorded on a Teac Tascam 144 Portastudio, in his living room, with a simple tape recorder, instead of the studio, he then ran these recording through a Gibson Echoolex to add reverb and echo, sent the tapes in.

It’s an essential record in the history of home recording – he wrote the songs, put them down on a demo, that demo became the record. It didn’t sell particularly well and got no airplay. The magic or genius was, with the right amount of reverb and echo, a cheap speaker in a car sounds lush and dreamy.

A great driving album, quite dark, Nebraska is the retelling of Terrence Malick’s Badlands, a film based on the 1957–58 killing spree of Charlie Starkweather. The Starkweather murders were meaningless, and the randomness of that violence and inability to explain it, is the album.’

Nick says: Thanks all.

Last week: Win Nick’s Voucher

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