Mix Tape: Blue Ridge Parkway in Autumn

I got into Fleet Foxes reluctantly. I wasn't convinced at first. I heard the hype, and it eventually convinced me to pick up the record, and I grew to really enjoy them. But it wasn't love at first sight.

One of their older songs says something about the Blue Ridge Parkway. I forget the line, really, I just know they sing it a few times. And so when my little family spent an autumn in North Carolina, and we drove quite a few miles on that very Blue Ridge Parkway, this was the song I sang over and over. It didn't matter that we did not have the CD nor the iPod on the car, the song in my head was enough. And it was perfect.

If Bon Iver sounds like an isolated winter cabin, and Andrew Bird sounds like sky and ocean, then Fleet Foxes sound like the Blue Ridge Parkway in Autumn. And that's exactly why I pulled their disc off the shelf again the other day when we went to go apple picking.

What's strange is that they don't sound just like the Appalachian mountains. They sound like Simon and Garfunkel singing as medieval minstrels in a walled and moated city located in the Appalachian mountains. And to pull off that sound, to sell records with that sound, that takes some talent.

With that in mind and autumn at hand, here's my favorite moment "Someone You'd Admire" on their most recent record Helplessness Blues.