Everyone has certain songs that take you back to another place and time, songs that trigger physiological changes in your body. These songs may conjure up ghosts, pleasures, anguish, and broken-hearted pain.
They may be sad songs; they may be bad songs. They cast a spell on you. (Insert ‘Screamin’ Jay Hawkins here.) They may be classics. But when they come on, you turn that radio up. (Insert Van Morrison song here.)
My song for this episode of Signpost Songs is a song you probably never heard of. It’s called ‘Down South’ and it’s an original song by the two-person band (duo?) called A Brief View of the Hudson.)
I heard this song as I was driving home from work one night across the Richmond Bridge sometime around 2005,
Anyway, I called the Berkeley public radio show which had broadcast the song. He said something ‘like what song we talking about here?’ I said that’s why I am calling. I ended up having to hum a few bars with words that I remember. I’m singing “And we drive down south and we drive down south. OK, he says, that’s ‘Drive Down South’ (no? really?) by ‘A Brief View of the Hudson.’ He knew nothing about the song and he was busy, kept me on hold for 15 minutes.
So I put in a lot of effort to get this song. It remains one of my favorites, melancholy, laid back vocals that make you believe they knew heartache and then, the refrain.
And you try to figure out what you just could not figure out.
Relocating from California to Alabama was a big decision and the song provided the soundtrack.
And we drove down s
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