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Just in the door from the Kickapoo Country Fair, where I read in the Word Tent, and played a blistering hot (because of the sun, not my guitar-picking) set of music with the Long Beds.  Thank you, thank you to all who showed up.  Great fun and friendly folk at every turn.

An especially big organic thank you to Dane and the Organic Valley crew and volunteers.  The effort they put into this is prodigious, and we got to do the fun part.

And thanks to Charlene, who snapped and posted a couple of pics from the Word Tent.  And the Long Beds show.

Oh, and howdy to all the ladies on stilts…

On a cold winter night back a year or two, I did a humorous monologue at the Mineral Point Opera House.  Then I hauled them Long Beds onstage.  A gentleman named Ross brought back those memories when he forwarded this Flickr album of the show.  This was before Molly joined the band.

Little while back I finally entered the lyrics for most of the songs on Tiny Pilot (excepting the hidden track available only on the CD version).  They’re here.  Of course the label master would want me to tell you that the poster/lyric sheet insert included with the actual CD also includes full-color photos of the recording session (including humorous captions) and little notes giving the background of each song.

After I put up this post, a few folks asked about the harmonies on the title song from the Tiny Pilot album.  Most were supplied by Long Beds guitarist, keyboardist, and resident crooner extraordinaire Chris Ramey, who does not always croon.  As for the haunting vocals heard just behind the lines, “Tell me little mother’s son” and “Oh, this short, sharp life,” they were provided by friend, neighbor, and Long Beds guitarist emeritus Justin Vernon, who these days works on some side projects.

Listen:

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Sometimes people ask me if the books and the music are connected.  Sometimes, yep.  Amble Down Records compiled the following summary describing the connections from the Tiny Pilot album:

- The opening verse of “Edge of Town” is set on the highway overpasses described on pages 99-104 of Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time (HarperPerennial).

- The album’s title song, “Tiny Pilot,” was written in memory of Perry’s nephew Jake, as described in Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting (released in paperback as Coop: A Family, A Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg).

- “If They Give You Wings” is a song drawn directly from scenes in “Branding God,” the essay found on page 256 of Perry’s book, Off Main Street (HarperPerennial).  The song lyrics also include a Dylan Thomas sample.

- “Harry Was Right” (bonus song available on physical CD version of album only as track #14) is a song set in a real-life bar called The Joynt.  Perry’s readers will recognize the bar and its denizens from Chapter 13 of Truck: A Love Story (HarperPerennial) and may especially enjoy singing along with the bridge, which is a direct quote from the book: No…light…beer!

- Perry wrote the first verse of “Indiana” while driving from Michigan to Illinois on his Coop hardcover tour.  The song makes specific reference to “Seven A.M.,” the Edward Hopper painting that anchors Chapter 8 (beginning on p. 138) of Truck: A Love Story (HarperPerennial).

- The lyrics of “Cissy Moan” invoke Oxford, Mississippi (home of Square Books) and the writers Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, and William Faulkner.  The main character of the song is caught stealing books at “Lemuria” in reference to the actual bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi.

Printable .pdf here.