The Beatles “Daytripper”

There are geographical peculiarities about every place. And vocabulary peculiarities that go along with it.

The title of this song probably doesn’t mean anything special, or particular, to someone from, say, Butte, Montana.

But I was on a Steamship Authority bus, just about to get off at the Woods Hole terminal, to go back to the Island on a hot August day, when this song came on the bus driver’s iPod, which he was running through the radio speakers.

“Good song for tourist season,” I said, and we both smiled.

Literally thousands of people will come off that bus, hop on a boat, buzz around our Island for a day and head back to the mainland, unaware that many a local is humming a familiar, catchy Beatles riff at them as they buzz on by.

Lori McKenna "Leaving This Life"

Despite what you might have gleaned from previous posts, I actually don't cry at songs all that often.

And if I do, it's because:

a) I associate the song with a particular time and place that's sad. Maybe was a song an old girlfriend and I used to listen to, or was a tune that my late sister loved.

Or b) I find something familiar and personal in the lyrics, that touches an emotional chord that is real to me, like the tunes mentioned in those previous posts.

What's extremely rare, is for me to hear a song on the radio, a song I've never heard before, and find myself sobbing.

I was in the car, driving up the Woods Hole Road away from the Steamship Authority, flipping through the radio dial. (Hey, just because I work for mvy, doesn't mean I can't listen to what other stations are doing)

I recognized the voice in a few lines, as Lori McKenna. But it wasn't a track that I was familiar with.

Lori lost her Mom when she was just a child. I didn't know that at the time I heard the song, but I didn't really need to have anyone tell me. The lyrics are just so unbelievably real and raw, how could you not connect to it on a powerful level?

It really was breathtaking, to have something that I had never heard before, and had no association with, hit me so hard. And that's when you know, the writer is doing something right.

Grizzly Bear “Two Weeks”

Bill Cosby used to open “Fat Albert” by saying “If you’re not careful, you may learn something before it’s done.”

I've recently learned a little local geography.

First let me get out of the way that I know very little about this band. So this is not going to be musically informative.

I got tipped to this song a few weeks ago, by Jen Daunt, who promotes indie bands (and is in one herself). She’d actually called me for advice.

She said that this band Grizzly Bear had named their forthcoming album after an Island off Cape Cod. And she was looking for a pronunciation, because it was a strange looking word.

Veckatimest

I’d never heard of it. I read that it was one of the Elizabeth Islands. Which didn’t make sense to me, because I thought I knew those names. Nonamesset, Uncatena, Naushon, Pasque, Nashawena, Penikese and Cuttyhunk.

I asked around the office, and beyond. Real Islanders, fisherman, cab drivers (who hold all local cultural knowledge). No one had heard of it.

But it turns out, you ride by it, every time you take the Woods Hold ferry.

Veckatimest is a tiny block of land, no more than a couple hundred yards in each direction, connected by bridges so that a vehicle on Nonamesset (the closest Island to Woods Hole) can drive over to Naushon (the next Island in line).

Thanks, Google Maps!

So how a band from Brooklyn knows about an Island that locals haven’t even heard of, I don’t know. And why they named their record after the place is also unclear, though I’m sure it will come out in some interview.

In the meantime, check out the song . . .

Hear Grizzly Bear “Two Weeks”