Shortet No. 8

 

After looking at many images that would fit with the music, I decided on Andrew Wyeth's Christina Olson (1947), painted a year before the more famous painting Christina's World (1948). The painting was not painted in Kansas, but in Maine, but has a heartland Copelandesque vibe to it. [More]

In terms of the Songday series, the diary entry I used to initially write the music was from June 30, 2001 when I was thinking about the Chicago journalist Bill Kurtis who had traveled the world and found that he resonated with a simple place like Kansas, and so "place like Kansas" sparked the initial rhythmic idea, then chords an melody:

 

In June 2024 I was thinking that a possible song narrative would be the returning home after a long journey and re-discovering anew the place you left. This could have been a Music For Places piece, with an atmospheric production, with peripheral references to "There's No Place Like Home", perhaps using a clip from The Wizard of Oz. It would have darker ironic aspects about how the US has changed since the time of that film, as well as since 9/11, and throughout America's culture wars. It would be a song about many nostalgias. It would be a song for traveling well. It would have color and black and white contrasts, and of course, tornadoes. But the Wyeth seemed to work perfectly. 

The Score:

Shortet No. 8 ("Place Like Kansas") by meta4s