DON GONYEA, HOST:
Some music before we close our program.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLD CROW MEDICINE SONG, "WAGON WHEEL")
GONYEA: Old Crow Medicine Show made it big with their hit reimagining of "Wagon Wheel." Now they have a new album full of vignettes about America and the little details that make it special in their eyes. The band's leader, Ketch Secor, told us some of his favorites.
KETCH SECOR: You know, our last couple albums weren't so overtly a love letter to the US of A, even though as I look back on 28 years of being in Old Crow Medicine Show, I've been writing love letters to the states since I was a kid. I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where so many of the battles were fought in the Civil War, but also where so many of the ideals were crafted in the founding of America. And we went and mythologized the story of the Merrimack and the Monitor.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLD CROW MEDICINE SONG, "MERRIMACK & MONITOR")
SECOR: They pulled me out of school to watch Ken Burns' "Civil War." You know, I could walk down the street in my hometown of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and see so many of the things that were in the film. So I just felt, like, this echo of the ghosts of the past.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MERRIMACK & MONITOR")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Gone ironclad for a Union ship in rebel hands to open up these seas again.
SECOR: For me, I wanted to take the tact of telling the story of the battle of the ironclads with a sort of comic book ferocity. Like, you could see the words kablam over the wreck of the frigate Roanoke that sunk just a few days before the ironclads actually faced off.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MERRIMACK & MONITOR")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Merrimack and Monitor.
SECOR: We are certainly a nation that is forged in the blood of this terrible war. But the battle between the ironclads represents a kind of technological advancement for the military. We never talked about drone attacks. You know, when I was a kid, we talked about Scud missiles and Pioneer missiles. For a kid growing up in 1860s, there was also a new term. It was ironclad, and it was submarine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, ""LAST AMERICAN WALTZ")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Oh, the fire in the furnace, the fog in the air. Sparks flew like tinsel.
SECOR: With "Last American Waltz," I think of this song as kind of one of my, like, postcard types of songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, ""LAST AMERICAN WALTZ")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) All the while hear the wild reckless tune. Is anybody listening?
SECOR: Like, I go to a lot of junk stores. I have since I was a little kid, you know, always thumbing through the old cast offs of somebody else's life. And I don't often buy stuff in the stores that I go to, the Goodwills and junk shops. I just leaf through things, and I just kind of take it in. Record store owners hate me when I walk in 'cause I'll spend all day and I won't buy nothing. Ephemera really has a powerful force in my life. So I think of this song, "Last American Waltz," as me flipping through the postcards.
(LAST AMERICAN WALTZBITE OF SONG, ""LAST AMERICAN WALTZ")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Oh, this hammer don't ring. This cannon don't roar. This train bound for glory don't stop here no more.
SECOR: It's like, Dear Delores, I went to the largest ball of twine in Kansas. You'd never believe how big it is. Love, Sonny.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.
SECOR: When I think of "For What It's Worth," I picture this famous photograph of the hippie putting the stem of a daisy into the barrel of a gun. And so I think of this tune as kind of like the front lines of the American protest movement. And it's kind of a bellwether type of song that can remind us of where we are in the current iteration of civil disobedience and standing up. Whether it's the efforts of removal of legal American citizens, all the way to the cage match on the White House lawn, we're living in a time of really arresting imagery. And yet when I think about what inspired me as a kid and made me feel more richly American, it was the flower being put into the barrel of that gun.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down
GONYEA: Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show. The band's latest album is called "Union Made."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH")
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Paranoia strikes deep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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