The Melding of Music and Landscape

I could do a half dozen sailing songs that would bring back memories of someplace on earth but the following are land based memories

We hauled horses over to the Grand Mesa in Colorado one summer with the children and John Denvers Rocky Mountain high was played on that trip and when I hear it now I remember the beautiful Grand Mesa in Colorado

Highway one in California LA/SF . Whenever I hear Chuck Berry Maybelline or No particular place to go, I remember that beautiful drive along the Pacific

Back to the desert--San Bernadino to LasVegas Take it Easy

In todays climate, our entire family would have been detained in Hawaii one time when at the gate we were joking around and starting singing " leaving on a jet place" and several other passengers starting singing with us, so when I hear that song I think of Hawaii

Eagles' Take It to the Limit. Camper shell on back of my '72 F250 w high school giirlfriend. Meisner had some pipes then.
The Eagles. Take it to the Limit. Sang it going to a calculus final at WSU in Pullman WA a few eons ago. It‘s a lame math joke but I still think of it to this day! Pullman is way improved by the way!
It warms the heart to see that we have young men here with such excellent taste in music ;)
 
Is Pullman where Animal House was filmed? "Knowledge is Good."
It sure could have been! There was a reputation to be maintained! In all seriousness WSU qualifies for some sort of “Most improved” award from when I was there in the early 80’s. I built a building there a few years ago and it was SO much nicer! Who knew how important landscaping is! They win some sort of award in my book for getting people outside and tying the community together with trails including to Moscow and UI 8 Miles away! None of this has anything to do with music but WSU needs all the promotions it can get!
 
It sure could have been! There was a reputation to be maintained! In all seriousness WSU qualifies for some sort of “Most improved” award from when I was there in the early 80’s. I built a building there a few years ago and it was SO much nicer! Who knew how important landscaping is! They win some sort of award in my book for getting people outside and tying the community together with trails including to Moscow and UI 8 Miles away! None of this has anything to do with music but WSU needs all the promotions it can get!
It was filmed in Eugene, false alarm. Anyway, this song reminds me of that place:
 


At an early age I knew I didn't belong back East. Traveled to Montana in '81, stayed for awhile in '85, and finally packed my meager belongings up in '87 and split for Big Sky Country. The drive across the country was a race to put ALOT behind me. As soon as I crossed the border and eventually saw mountains I was cranking Freebird.
 
Going on searches in my teens with Kittitas County Explorer Search and Rescue in a Dodge 4x4 20 passenger bus that had an 8-track player with about three tapes, Emerson Lake and Palmer-Brain Salad Surgery.

"God Bless Texas" at Freds west of Missoula, we were on an elk hunt, or going, that counts doesn't it?
 
My dad always used to say “You’re usually either running away from something or towards something. And you need to figure out which it is.”

I played this song quite a bit on my move west. Sometimes the answer is “both”. But the song always brings back memories of that drive.

 
The song "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin is deeply tied to memories of my first antelope hunt. My brother and I were listening to a lot of LZ that trip, and the morning we hit the ground before daylight, that song was playing in the vehicle on the way out. We got on that buck so early and had him packed up and headed back out, and the song played again.

The sunrise over the eastern NM plains and the excitement over my buck mean that song is forever glued to that memory in that place.

Another good one is that the music of my beloved Alice In Chains reminds me of the land north of my hometown. The first time I ever heard their music it was being played by a cover band in an old house off hwy 19 north of my town. Now I take that highway out to my favorite hunting spots. Their music just blends with the landscape of leafless pecan trees and fallow cotton fields. I listened to their Unplugged album in its entirety the last time I drove over there to deer hunt this past season.
 
Another one - ironically (or not) enough, again about fishing and emerald rivers - is the Postal Service's Give Up album, specifically Recycled Air.

My first trip abroad (unless crossing the Canadian border counts) was to go fishing in the Soca Valley of Slovenia in the mid 00s. I was listening to a lot of emo/indie music at the time. I had some monies, flights to Venice were cheap, so I went fishing on my own in Slovenia.


I went a couple years in a row, I enjoyed it so much. Met some Slovene fellas who Id run into at the village bar on subsequent trips - fished all day, went to house parties and soccer games on pavement under the lights in the villages at night. Really enjoyable.

Went back with my wife a few years ago, 10 years later. Wasnt the same. Still great. But, anyway.

Listening to Give Up and day dreaming of emerald waters right now.
 
Drift Away by the Doobie Brothers. I was in Crocodile bay in Costa Rica. I walked down to the boat dock just to look and see, I had just arrived for the week. As I walked to the dock over looking the Golfo Dulce I passed by the fuel truck dropping off fuel for the boats. Drift away was playing on that trucks radio as i stared at that beautiful water and those amazing mountains.
 
Another good one:

My dad's good friend took CowboyLeroy and I out fishing one day, and we went about 40-50 miles out into the gulf. (Out of Apalach in the Florida panhandle for those curious.)

Said friend was a rock and roll fan who did not discriminate: He liked bands from the sixties all the way up to the 2000's and everything in between, and he had rigged up an unreal sound system on his boat. He had a "boat playlist" on his IPod (not IPhone, IPod) that was full of 80s metal and, weirdly, late 90s/early 00s post-grunge. So you got a ton of Ozzie, lots of old Metallica, but also Shinedown, Puddle of Mudd, Godsmack, etc.

When you get out that far and are running in good water, a boat ride can be one of the most euphoric experiences. Throw in good tunes and it's even more memorable. The one song I remember most from that day was "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd, hearing it on max volume as the boat cut through the water with no land in sight in any direction.

Sadly, that friend is no longer with us. Making the memory even more impactful.

So yeah, I would say to answer the actual OP, the landscape might be the blue ocean, but that's the landscape I'm transported back to when I hear "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd.
 
Most of these are road trip songs for me and there are too many to list. A couple of these are "religious" songs because it is hard for me to separate my awe of creation from awe of its Creator. Not preaching, YMMV

Orff's "Carmina Burada", rock hopping in Mesquite, Nevada. If I could figure out how to post my own videos to HT, I have one of my son and I on a dirt road in the Yuccas north of I-15 with this blaring in the truck.

Audioslave's "I am The Highway", Bozeman to Billings on I-90.

Neil Sedaka's "Laughter in the Rain", (Don't judge me, I was 13.) Our house off Canyon Drive in Reno NV.

Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic", Fly fishing almost anywhere.

Rich Mullins' "Calling out Your Name", Lamar Valley in YLP.

Day of Fire's "When the Light Shines on My Face", This brings up a thousand different sunrises for me.

Kerry Livgren's AD "Up From the Wasteland", Seeing the colored hillsides of the Painted Desert on a work run to Monument, Oregon years ago.
Painted.jpg
 
I had a moose tag near Glacier National Park in 1999. The only radio station we could get was out of Roman. They kept playing a song called “Mombo No. 5” by Lou Bega. We initially thought that the people in the area had an odd taste in music but, after about the 50th time of hearing it, it sort of grew on us. When we actually returned to civilization, we learned it was a hit song. Anyway, that song will always remind me of that little part of Montana.
 

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