When I was young and foolish, I used to complain constantly about the music my mother played. A fan of bluegrass and Americana, my mother has a taste in music that would never be described as "hip" or "cool," especially not by a middle school-aged Brian, whose idea of cool mainly revolved around looking like and listening to Billie Joe Armstrong.
But now, at the practically ancient age of 21, I realize my mother knew what was up. My high-stress, modern life doesn't need angst and chaos brought on by "cool" music. I don't want to listen to something they'd play in the basement of a frat party; I want to sit on a porch somewhere, listen to some Americana and look at blue jays — the way old people do.
You know what my mother does with her time? She gardens. She knits. She spends inordinate amounts of time canning vegetables, obsessing over the half a hog she gets from a local farmer every year and trying new recipes. Sometimes, in her more wild moments, she contemplates the logistics of housing chickens in the backyard of our small Washington D.C. home. In short, she lives the ideal life.
Is her ideal urban-farmer-core lifestyle the result of her lifelong love of Americana? That's not for me to say, but the answer is obviously yes. In my dream of one day attaining what she has, here's my own personal selection of Americana songs, freshly grown kale not included.
