Listapalooza: top ten songs about Texas

Hi, buckaroos. We’ve got something different for you today.

Every so often, when we’ve either run out of original things to say or are just feeling too damn lazy to write a “real” post, we plan to use this space to put forth a “top five” or “top ten” list. (This was Martin’s idea; Heather says he has obviously taken Nick Hornby’s brilliant High Fidelity, in which the narrator is an inveterate list-maker, way too seriously.)

These lists are, obviously, completely subjective and by no means intended to be definitive; they merely reflect our personal tastes and thus will probably reveal more than we really want you to know about us. They’re just supposed to be fun. (Remember fun?) At the very least, we hope they’ll serve as a jumping-off point for conversation.

So, without further ado, here’s the first list, of our ten favorite songs about Texas, in alphabetical order by artist. We certainly don’t claim that these are the best songs about Texas, or the most evocative; they’re simply our favorites. Given the richness of the state’s musical heritage, it was extremely difficult to narrow the list to only ten, and you’ll note the absence of such legendary performers as Willie Nelson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Lydia Mendoza, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, ZZ Top, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Rodney Crowell, Alejandro Escovedo, Johnny Winter, Guy Clark, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many, many others who are arguably at least as deserving of mention as those listed below. To which we respond, with all due sincerity and humility, “So sue us!”

The Austin Lounge Lizards, “The Golden Triangle”

The Flatlanders, “Dallas”

Waylon Jennings, “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)”

Robert Earl Keen, “The Front Porch Song”

Lyle Lovett, “Walk Through the Bottomland”

James McMurtry, “Levelland”

The Sir Douglas Quintet, “At the Crossroads”
Ernest Tubb, “Waltz Across Texas”

Jerry Jeff Walker, “London Homesick Blues”
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, “New San Antonio Rose”

—Martin

What we’re reading

Heather: Woody Tasch, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered

Martin: Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews