Voices Calling from a Yellow Road

Recently I've started to examine my musical taste as friends have invited me to concerts and lent me albums from (new to me) bands. Considering I haven't branched out significantly since my friends got me a Guster CD when I turned sixteen, it's about time. For me, the recurring theme is good lyrics. Songs with beautiful imagery, songs that tell stories - even if it's not poetry, I need to be able to sing along.

My sister and I used to send each other song lyrics quizzes when I was in high school and she was in grad school. One particularly memorable themed quiz was all drug-related songs, because earlier that summer I had ruined some of my mom's favorite classics (specifically "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine" from The Graduate soundtrack - she accused me of smearing her innocent youth).

She thought the song was about a car. Not Ben Braddock's, though.

Locations

I just finished reading Harry Dolan's Bad Things Happen, a murder mystery set in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was fantastic - well paced, realistic, and complex.

Mostly irrelevant Ann Arbor photo

It was also set in a town I deeply love, which made it that much more fun to read. I could picture the spot on Main Street where characters met for coffee. I could pick out actual houses for the various characters' homes. I could imagine the trails in the Arboretum where they walked.