Song of the day: now with bonus storytime!
Back in the spring of 2002, I drove from Minneapolis to Kansas City to visit the lovely Kate. That was during the two years I was without a car, so I rented one for the trip. Unfortunately, the car I rented had no CD player, and I had no cassette tapes any more. So, I was stuck with the radio. All the way through Iowa and northern Missouri. It was mostly as painful as you think it was.
Now, early 2002 was a bad time for me. I was bad off enough that I’d cried when I left Kate’s to drive home, because I didn’t want to face work and life again. It rained on and off all the way through Iowa, which matched my mood perfectly. I kept restlessly scanning the radio stations, hoping to find something, anything, that wasn’t contemporary country music or high school football games.
Eventually, somewhere outside of Des Moines, I found an NPR station that was playing the Celtic Connections show. Irish music is never the wrong option, as far as I’m concerned, so I gladly stuck with it. Several songs in, they began to play this gorgeous, haunting tune, sung mostly by someone with the most amazing deep voice that just stuck with me. I just remember sitting up straight in the driver’s seat and praying that the NPR announcer would tell me who the band was, so I could immediately get on the internet and buy their album when I got home.
The band was Great Big Sea, and the song was “Barque in the Harbor”. They played the Fine Line here in Minneapolis a few weeks later, and at that show, a love affair was born that continues nearly a decade later. Falling in love with GBS saved my sanity that spring, and their music has continued to do so many times in the years since.
GBS released a new album today - Safe Upon The Shore - and I urge everyone to go to their music retailer of choice and buy it. Here, though, listen to the song that seduced me in the first place.
(PS: the internets tell me that the female vocalist is Liz Pickard. It does not, however, give me any immediate information about whether she’s made other music, which is a shame! I love her voice!)
