Good morning, America: How are ya?

My students love to go through my iPod at school. They are always shocked that I have so much hip hop. "Yo Miss! YOU listen to Lil' Wayne. Wait, AND BUSTA?" (By the way, "YO Miss" is pretty much how I am referred to all day. I sort of love it. I even though about naming my blog, Yo Miss.)

They also are happy to see I like some of the indie rock bands they do: Tegan & Sara, Phoenix, Neko Case, etc.

Inevitably, they end up asking the question, "What type of music did you listen to as a kid?"

The answer: My mom is a folk singer. So-Folk Music.

Yep, I was born and raised with folk in the background. I knew Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, old Bob D. A lot of the music I heard was music my mom wrote. The best/worst part? Not only did I know this stuff, I had to learn to sing it, too.

Every folky knows the harmony's where the money's at! So, if you are a lady folk singer with a daughter with a competent voice-well, my mom ain't no fool.

So maybe I knew nothing about the Velvet Underground until college. So there were some holes in my rock history education...How many of you know all the verses to the Battle of New Orleans?


One obsession that came out of my folk upbringing is a deep love of Train songs. Elizabeth Cotten's Freight Train is my favorite song of all time. I love the rhythm of train songs, I love the mournfulness of them, I love that they always seem to strike the right chord between wanting freedom and being homesick.

When I discovered Feist's cover of Train Song (featuring Bon Iver here, but recorded with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab) a couple of weeks ago, I was immediately a fan.




What do you think?