Northwest Mix!
Download link: ZIP
(uh, if you can't play some of these songs because of protection errors, let me know. I had trouble with some of them. But I think they're okay.)
This is my mix about the Pacific Northwest for my Bellinghamster friend Sarah W/earthpeaceorca. My definition of the PNW ended up being: west of the Rockies, north of California. But Oregon is sadly underrepresented. If you have Oregon songs, send them my way! This isn't my idea of a definitive northwest mix; it's kinda haphazardly cobbled together. Maybe in several more years I'll find more songs that have to do with the northwest, and make a better one!
The album art is cobbled together from stuff I stole from people on the internet. If you Google "northwest illustration" you'll go right to it.
Hello Seattle - Owl City
Hello Seattle, I am an albatross
On the docks and your boats
I sail above your inlets and interstates
Through the rain and open wind
I like to listen this when I'm flying in to Seattle on my way home from school. Other than that I just really like the song, and it's northwesty themed.
Roll on Columbia - Country Joe McDonald (cover) (orig. Woody Guthrie)
Green Douglas firs where the waters cut through
Down her wild mountains and canyons she flew
Canadian Northwest to the oceans so blue
Roll on Columbia, roll on
Washington's official folk song, this is a Woody Guthrie anthem commissioned by the federal government as propaganda in support of the Columbia River dams, especially the Grand Coulee Dam. The Grand Coulee provides hydroelectric power to a large area of the northwest, and is still the largest concrete structure in the US - its construction flooded 21,000 acres of Native American land, erased their settlements, fishing locations, and graveyards, and blocked the salmon runs.
Some verses of this song are no longer sung!
- Remember the trial when the battle was won?
The wild Indian warriors to the tall timber run
We hung every Indian with smoke in his gun
Wild Montana Skies - John Denver and Emmylou Harris
He was born in the Bitterroot Valley in the early morning rain
Wild geese over the water headin north and home again
Geographically, this one just barely qualifies as PNW, but it represents the eastern boundary and can stand in for all the rural areas of the PNW. Also it has Emmylou Harris and is an awesome song, so I had to include it.
Wings - Josh Ritter
They were blasting out the tunnels
Making way for the light of learning
When Jesus comes a’calling she said
He’s coming round the mountain on a train
Josh Ritter is from Idaho. This song captures something of the history of the development of the PNW and its incorporation into 19th and 20th century America. The Cataldo Mission was founded by Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet, where he worked with the Coeur d'Alene and Flathead Indians. The song also references the building of the railroads (including blasting tunnels through the mountains), the coming of the fishing and lumber industries, and the "opening" of the Northwest.
Northwest Passage - Bandersnatch (cover) (orig. Stan Rogers)
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.
There is so much to this song; you can read about it here. It's a really beautiful song, despite its unapologetic explorer-mentality ("a land so wild and savage!") - or maybe because of it. Mythologized geography is still an important part of the northwestern frame of mind. And although it's mainly about Canadian expansion, when it comes to the PNW, Canadian and British exploration is as relevant as the American variety.
I'm also including a version by Show of Hands, because I can't figure out which one I like better.
Put There By the Land - Great Lake Swimmers
There's a mark on my hand put there by the land
Can't you see it's in me, can't you see?
There's a mark on the land put there by my hand
Just a nice song about loving geography.
Reservation Blues - Jim Boyd and Sherman Alexie
I fill my pockets with those reservation blues
Those res blues, those reservation blues
If you ain't got choices, well then
What else do you choose?
While not so geographically-themed, this song written by Sherman Alexie provides a little bit of counterweight to some of the more triumphalist expansion songs. I recommend the whole album - it was hard to pick which to include! Sherman Alexie grew up on the Spokane Reservation in eastern Washington.
After the Gold Rush - Natalie Merchant (cover) (orig. Neil Young)
Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies
This is a tribute to the environmentalist AND the drug culture of the PNW. HA.
Bellingham - Bishop Allen
The whole town dreamed of steamer fleets, the sultry August day
When the first ship cleared the Panama Canal
For the shipping lanes would mend and change their fortunes and their fates
Well, I'm glad that they can't see what I see now
Okay, I don't think this song is that great, but it's about my city, so it's included. He does get huge points for referencing, I think, Bellingham's rivalry with Seattle and a couple other coastal cities to see which would be chosen as the western terminus of the Great Northern Railway. (Seattle won.)
Geoduck Song - Nancy Raven
You can hear the diggers say as they're headed for the bay
Oh I gotta dig a duck, gotta dig a duck a day
I don't know if earthpeaceorca sang this at Waldorf, but we definitely sang it in the public schools. Geoducks ("gooey ducks") are very big clams native to the northwest coast, and they are hard to dig.
Sasquatch - David Fair & Jad Fair
Sasquatch lives in the Great Northwest
His shaggy fur and a furry chest
Hides in the shadows of the grand timberland
He picks tiny berries with a giant gentle hand
Because he exists.
The Pig War - Minus the Bear
It's been so long that it seems
Like I've never been to the San Juans
If we leave now we can catch the last boat out
And that's the best one on this clear night
I included this because it's about the San Juan Islands. That's about it. The title references the Pig War.
Why Does it Always Rain On Me? - Travis
Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning
Just a song about rain.