“Banjo means bathroom in Spanish” as Townes Van Zandt joked at at show once…

I always thought banjo had the most lonesome, ringing sound.  This one is called “Odessa Sand” and it was actually on the scrap pile until recently.  I wrote it on guitar but played it much more drippy and blandly.  I thought I would give it a whirl on banjo and I think it transferred beautifully.  My old neighbor on Jenny St., Clay Collins,  let me borrow his for a while so I’ve been arranging some tunes on it.  Something about the banjo really brings out the heartbreak in songs.

Geography

is what this one is all about, running into the same emotion all across the country albeit on a fictional trip.  I wanted to open the tune with a town I’d lived or spent time in but nothing fit the meter as good as Atlanta.  The next verse starts with my favorite line,

I miss the mountains like my Grandfather’s smile

Troubles all around me don’t seem worth their while

I wanted to evoke a geographically specific type of imagary in each verse so the next and final verse ends in Odessa, TX with carnitas, friholes and mezcal.