“Exeter, Rhode Island” – Jennifer O’Connor
(Words/music: Jennifer O’Connor, available on Over the Mountain, Across the Valley and Back to the Stars, Matador 2006)
Later tonight, I’ll drive through Rhode Island on my way to visit my alma mater for alumni weekend, and my favorite part of the drive to Providence is the stretch of I-95 in Rhode Island. This is probably because once I hit Rhode Island, I know I’m only 40 minutes away from arriving. One of my favorite sites on the highway is the sign for the town of Exeter that reads “Entering Exeter.” It makes the pun-happy kid in me light up every time I see it, and otherwise there’s not a lot of interesting sites until you get to Providence (usually marked by the giant blue bug), so I’ll take any type of amusement I can find on the roadways. Naturally, when I first came across Jennifer O’Connor’s song named after my favorite Rhode Island sign, I had to check it out.
These trips to Providence (and other places in New England as well, but let’s focus on Providence for right now) are a lot like the ones O’Connor describes in her song – they’re almost always by myself and they’re almost exclusively to see friends I haven’t seen in a while. I enjoy these drives when I’m in the right mood (and the traffic cooperates) because they give me the chance to put some music on and work through ideas in my head (this blog was conceived on one of these drives), but like O’Connor’s protagonist, they’re often fueled by thoughts of the people I’m going to see. I’ll think about the last time I saw the friend or friends in question, try to catalog all of the things I want to reminisce about, or even wonder what other people I see while in town.
Musically, “Exeter, Rhode Island” has a couple nice tricks. O’Connor eschews a big chorus by tacking a repeated line at the end of her verses. It’s like the drive itself – it keeps chugging along with some nice bits along the way (in particular, there’s some great harmonies in the second half of the song, especially on the bridge), but there’s no need for a gigantic “hook” in a song about driving through the smallest state in the union. Instead, it’s a short, enjoyable bit of music to play on the drive to see some old friends, letting the anticipation mix with the daydreams and whatever power pop songs come through my radio (via my iPod – Rhode Island FM radio is nothing special) on the drive.
More on Jennifer O’Connor: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
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