Tift Merritt "Engine To Turn"

A while back I decided to start a weekend feature called "Random Ridiculous Songs That Have No Business Being Played In Public Again But I Heard In The Grocery Store Today."

It was reserved for songs like "Adult Education" which had otherwise disappeared from the public's consciousness. Why would someone haul such a silly song out of the vault?

And there IS a someone. That's someone's job: to create a channel for that particular supermarket (or department store or warehouse store) that creates an atmosphere, a feeling, that will resonate with the type of shopper that frequents the place.

Usually that's achieved with songs that have a particular kind of familiarity---songs of a decade, or a genre, or a simple tone.

But yesterday I was in the grocery store and I heard "Engine To Turn" by Tift Merritt.

Tift is not exactly a household name. And "Engine To Turn" was the second single off an album that probably sold in the thousands, not the millions or even hundreds of thousands. At mvyradio, we've crossed paths with Tift a number of times and she's totally charmed us, so we're very familiar with her.

But I have to bet that I was perhaps the only person in the store who could have named the song and the artist.

Why would that someone pull such an obscure song out of the vault? I don't know, but I'm glad they did.

So maybe I need a new type of post: Random AWESOME Songs That Have No Business Being Played On A Store's P.A. System Due To Their Otherwise Unfamiliarity But I Heard In The Grocery Store Today And It Made Me Happy.


See Tift charm passersby as she busks.

See the video on Youtube.