“I Wish I Was in New York” – Roman Candle 
(Words/music: Skip, Logan, and Timshel Matheny, available on Says Pop, Outlook 2002 & digitally via their website)

I’m not sure I could completely catalog all of the songs written about New York City, but this Roman Candle song always sticks with me as one of my favorites.  Aside from the specific landmarks, “I Wish I Was in New York” focuses on that feeling of wanting to be in another place.  Like many yearnings for a change in scenery, it’s not necessarily about the destination as it is about the change itself.  The vision of New York City here isn’t one of the “City that Never Sleeps,” nor is the narrator’s desire to find excitement.  Instead, it’s an early morning of pigeon and people watching with a cup of coffee and a late night trip to St. Patrick’s to “light a candle for us.”  At the part of the song, the narrative flashes back home to piles of laundry, empty words, and mundane rituals.  With this second verse, it’s the prayer associated with the candle that seems more important that the building or town that houses it.  

The instrumentation in the song always grabs my attention, too.  The skeleton of the song consists of acoustic guitar and vocals, but it’s the other touches that make the song for me.  The opening piano chords set a somber tone that generally tempers the sweetness in the vocals through most of the song, as does the organ lingering in the background of the second verse.  My favorite flourishes come near the end.  The vibraphone (complete with vibrato-inducing motor running) sounds beautiful during the bridge, and the harmonica and slide guitar in the post-chorus still feels like a pleasant surprise after years of listens.  It’s these little touches (and, to a lesser extent, the details left out of the narrative) that draw me in every time.

More on Roman Candle: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm