siuc geology field camp songs and attached memories

8/22/2019 SIUC Geology Field Camp Songs and Attached Memories

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SIUC Field Camp Songs and Attached Memories

Some of these memories are very tinyjust a splinter of a moment that didnt mean

very much at all. But these little pieces are what we put together into our images of each

other, even if it is just the small warmth of someone turning up a song that you like. Our

friendships are more this small warmth than anything else.

Blitzen Trapper Furr

Furr became the anthem for car #6 (the White Stallion), home of the wolf pack.

The wolf pack started as Dan, Andy, and I but later expanded to Ellie, Natasha, and Amanda

as well when they joined the vehicle after people annoyed with the song had left. We played

it multiple times a day and also sometimes on the TouchTunes machines at bars. It was

often accompanied with howling, often at other vehicles and once at a woman outside the

Craters of the Moon visitors center.

The song details the story of a man who leaves home at 17 to become a wolf,

signifying his wish to exercise his own autonomy. The song deals with his desires to be wildand indulge himself, even in the midst of settling down with a wife. It typifies the wildness

and ambition of field camp and the fast pace of life therein.

City and Colour The Death of Me

Most people first heard this song when I played it on the toy guitar at YBRA, but it

also found itself in heavy rotation in car #6. Dubbed the alcoholism song, the song deals

with the impossibility of coping with anxiety.

City and Colour The Girl

The Girl found its way into heavy rotation after it came up listening through all of

Bring Me Your Love while driving through Yellowstone. The song consists of variations on a

theme, but was often skipped before the third act of the song because who do they think

they are, LCD Soundsystem?

Bowerbirds Northern Lights

This song is what made me want to make a mountain playlist on my iPod. Most

other songs on this list came into rotation because of this playlist.

A.A. Bondy - A Slow Parade

I rode with Dan in car #6 from the very beginning, and one of the first things that we

bonded over was A. A. Bondy, because he comes very close to the top of my iPod

alphabetically. This was the first step toward gaining oppressive control of the music in the

car.

The Tallest Man on Earth The Wild Hunt


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Often came up on the mountain playlist. Replayed a time or two because Andy

asked, Whats that leaving in the fall song?

Portugal. The Man The Home

Portugal. The Man is an easy people-pleaser and something nice to throw on when

Im tired of picking out songs. I played The Home often on guitar at YBRA and it soundsvery nice when accompanied by bongos so it made for a nice jam session with Andy.

Deer Tick The Bump

I first played The Bump when we were on the road and had hit a kick of rock-and-

roll type songs with bluesy format and shouted vocals (see The Low Anthems The

Horizon is a Beltway). Since it is at its core a song about partying, it fit well with the

demeanor of the camp.

Deer TickLets All Go to the Bar

This song first started getting some play after Andy recognized it as I went to play

The Bump. During the last few particularly difficult days of camping and exams near theend of the course, it became a mainstay with the extended wolf pack. Lyrics were often

improvised to include such things as I dont care if we have an exam/ lets all go to the

bar. This was particularly fitting for the final two quizzes of the course which were in a bar

and outside of a bar, respectively.

Denison Witmer Little Flowers

This song was on the mountain playlist from the very beginning and was, in fact, one

of the first songs on the list. However, it wasnt until Natasha joined the wolfpack for thesecond set of camping dates that the song got heavy rotation in car #6. It quickly became

oft-requested by her, replacing Work It by Missy Elliot.

Motopony Wait For Me

This song was first played by the DJ on KHOL in Jackson Hole, WY the morning that

we left Jackson Hole. The DJ set was particularly awesome and I asked if I could go marry

the DJ while we sat around waiting to fill up the vans with gas. Out of all of the songs playedthat morning, it was the one that I most knew and so I put it on the mountain playlist. It got

requested many times from then on.

Okkervil River Black

I was playing Okkervil River songs and Andy said I like that song after this one

concluded.


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Happiest Lion Sacred Valley, Holy Water

This song was on the mountain playlist the whole time and got played a couple

times. On the last day of the trip I skipped over it and Andy asked me to go back to it

because he liked the harmonica part.

Dr. Dog - Lonesome

Always on the mountain playlist. First got played because I was looking for more

rock-and-roll style songs to put on. By the end of the course Dan knew the words to the

chorus and was singing along on the last day.

Eddie Vedder Society

Mountain playlist. All of us had seen Into the Wild, and it often got discussed as the

song played. Amanda was particularly fond of both Vedder and Into the Wild, so she oftenhad a lot of input on the discussion, as well as showing us a full album of Vedder uke jams.

Dan talked about how egocentric the line hope youre not lonely without me is. I had topoint out several times that McCandlesss real life death was really different than that of the

movie adaptation.

Eddie Vedder Cant Keep

This is one of the ukulele songs that Amanda played off of her iPod.

The Low Anthem To Ohio

The Low Anthem is one of the first bands that Andy and I bonded over, having both

been fans before coming to camp. His band had covered (Dont) Tremble and I hadwritten a song inspired by it. Being a Louisiana resident himself, Im sure Andy identifiedstrongly with the line left Louisiana on a railline whereas I identified more with being on

the way to Ohio, having played the song while roadtripping through Ohio myself. The song

is delicate and beautiful and perfect for the mountain serenity that was all around us, even

though it was written about a very flat part of the country.

The Low Anthem (Dont) Tremble

The other slow Low Anthem song we listened to a lot. Andys band The Acadiascovered it on record and we listened to that as well. During one playthrough, Andy thanked

me for choosing it.

The Low Anthem Home Ill Never Be

This song was chosen when I was looking for rock music. It was written by Jack

Kerouac, which was fitting since Dan had brought his copy ofOn the Roadwith him and was


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lending it out to people. Andy and I talked about how I originally did not like this song

because I was jarred by it when I was listening to a band with such gentle songs as ToOhio. This song was not something I felt I had signed up for, so it took awhile before it

stuck to me.

The Low Anthem The Horizon is a Beltway

This song is basically the same as Home Ill Never Be and they were usually playedone after the other.

Andrew W.K. Party Party Party

Everyone came a little bit unhinged during our drawn out car ride north through

Montana to East Glacier. There was a request to up the tempo of the music a bit, so I started

off our party through Glacier National Park with some music about partying, Andrew W.K.

being a natural choice.

Community Soundtrack Party Where Your Heart Is

This song was next on our partying soundtrack. Since we were headed to an exam,

the lyrics seemed particularly relatable: I dont wanna take a test unless the question is

Wheres the party? and the answer is Me.

Death Cab For Cutie You Are a Tourist

This song was added to rotation on Day 2 of the Yellowstone trip in response to the

surrealism of Yellowstone as an expensive tourist hellhole where tourons create traffic

jams in order to take pictures of bears along the highway. It lead to a lot of listening toDCFC, especially the newer albums which most people hadnt heard before.

Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism

One day we decided to listen to Transatlanticism all the way through. When we got

to the title track, it was dead silent. Afterwards we talked about how simple the song was

but how this simplicity managed to make it incredibly powerful.

Death Cab for Cutie The Sound of Settling

We listened to this song many times after first listening through the album all theway. At one point Andy even requested that the song be repeated because he wanted to

hear it again. Ba baaaaa.

The Postal Service Recycled Air

We listened to this song while travelling down one of millions of dirt roads that we

must have traversed throughout the camp. Andy got the idea to listen to the song because


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of the air conditioning recycling option that gets turned on when going on dusty roads.

Doesnt this sound like video game noises to you? Chris asked. No, Chris, it doesnt. Thissounds like Owl City, Ellie said.

First Aid Kit Emmylou

This song was in the mountain playlist and soon got played often because it came up

in a conversation about Fleet Foxes. FAK famously covered Tiger Mountain Peasant Songand Andy had heard Emmylou from a friend. Derek had to explain to us that the June and

Johnny in the chorus were June and Johnny Cash.

Missy Elliot Work It

This song became an early conversation starter when Alyssa was sitting shotgun in

car #6 in the early days of the camp. It became a go-to song of hers whenever she had

access to my ipod. It soon caught on with a large portion of the camp and got played in the

car pretty much every time I was in it for quite some time, not to mention the amount oftimes that random lyrics were brought up in conversation. Andy was fond of pseudo-

beatboxing the final drumbeat of the song.

This song was played over and over again on the way to the campsite in Arco.

R. Kelly Trapped in the Closet

We first played this song on the way back from day 1 of igneous petrology. Alyssa

was driving. We listened to the whole first 12 chapters, which get increasingly absurd as

characters are introduced. This lengthy listening was much to the chagrin of several

members of the car. The extended wolf pack listened to it again on the very last day of

driving and it ended right as we were dropping off Dr. Conder in Bozeman. For the rest ofthat trip there was some lightly paraphrased singing of the story in the car.

R. Kelly Real Talk

Probably the very first camp song. Alyssa played it on her iPod back when she had

an iPod to play it on and an auxiliary cable to connect to the car with. The first time I heard

it was on our first really absurd driving-to-nowhere trip that took us through Cody. It

started the trended of saying real talk in everyday conversation which is something that

persisted for the whole of the course, and probably will for much longer into our normal

lives.

BITCH I WISH YOU WOULD BURN MY MOTHERFUCKING CLOTHES!

Bon Iver Holocene

Dan turned this song up when it was playing once, in the last week of camp. Also, the

name of the song is vaguely geological.

Radical Face Ghost Towns


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This song was played once, when the extended wolf pack was forming on the first

day of our second set of camping trips (starting at Bitterroot). I was doing a Video Pop-Up

style series of Did-You-Know blurbs on each song that came up, so I described the concept

behind this song and the album it appears on. Andy thought that Radical Face and his other

project Electric President both had great names.

Modest Mouse Blame it on the Tetons

Dan and I had already talked about out shared appreciation for Modest Mouse, but it

wasnt until the last day at YBRA that we realized that Blame it on the Tetons was a very

appropriate song for our upcoming roadtrip, which included the Tetons themselves. I

added this to the playlist while we were waiting for everything to get packed into the cars

so we could head out to Red Lodge for one last night.

Fleet Foxes Battery Kinzie

Andy had requested some Fleet Foxes while we were lost heading back up the Birch

Creek road on the way back to camp in Dillon. We werent really lost, we just hadnt gonefar enough up the road yet. Andy asked for the song that starts with I woke up one

morning and I knew the song but not the name. We both erroneously thought that it was

on the first album and so we didnt find it until Casey looked up the lyrics on hersmartphone. From that point on, it was played often and got stuck in heads easily.

Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues

One of my favorite Fleet Foxes songs. We played a lot from Dillon forward. The song

plays with a pastoral vision of purpose, which fits easily into the mountain landscape.

Fleet Foxes Ragged Wood

Another favorite, often requested by Andy. It has a lot of different song parts and a

very nice closing third act with a lot of energy.

The Avett Brothers I Would Be Sad

This song was one that was played on Andys iPod. On our first day throughYellowstone we listened to Emotionalism all the way through and this song was the one

that stuck out and so it was replayed often. Near the end of the camp, we would play itwhen we were going through favorite songs like Furr and The Death of Me.

The Avett Brothers Will You Return?

Andys choice Avett Brothers song when we were listening through the album.

The Givers Up Up Up


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Another off of Andys iPod, from Louisiana. These guys are in some phonecommercials said Andy, or something to that effect.

Old Crow Medicine Show Caroline

Andy played this song at least once when he was controlling the music on an off day

at YBRA (July 4th?). No surprise, it mentions the town of New Orleans by name.

Brass Bed Olivia

Andy showed us this song on the way to the baseball game in Billings. I compared it

to Skybox, Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground, and Christopher the Conquered. I

then had to prove that those were not ridiculous band names that I had made up on the

spot.

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground Hey Momma

An interesting song with a lot of disparate song parts by a band that has a very long

and silly name.

Skybox - Various Kitchen Utensils

Skybox was an oft-requested band that became even more relevant as we passed

through the town of Arco, as they have an album namedArco Isis. Various Kitchen

Utensils is one of those songs. The band says that the song is about masturbation.

Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos As Tall As Cliffs

We listened to this song while navigating the extremely narrow road and steep cliffs

around the Farlin Mine in Birch Creek.

Phosphorescent Song for Zula

I played this song on the first day of Yellowstone after we listened to Emotionalism

by The Avett Brothers because a certain vocal line in a song reminded me of the singing in

Song For Zula. Dan and Andy both decided that they very much enjoyed it and it becamesort of the second anthem for the car behind Furr. We played it nearly every day and the

extended wolf pack also became attached to the song.

Phosphorescent The Quotidian Beasts

Dans favorite Phosphorescent song. We looked up the word quotidian and

confirmed that it means everyday.

Clutch Day of the Jackalope


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Clutch is the favorite band of both Andy and Rob, so there was much Clutch to be

heard at camp. Rob even had a tshirt from a live show. Andy played this song in the car one

day sometime after our trip to Virginia City to the pow-wow. During said trip he said that

he believed that jackalopes were real in a way that didnt seem very much like a joke and he

seemed embarrassed afterwards when we laughed at him. Im sure that I believesomething equally strange that I have never been called out on. He played this song

sometime later as sort of a way of owning the previous situation, I think.

Clutch DC Sound Attack!

Andy played this song off of his iPhone via Youtube on the way back to the camp on

the second day of Yellowstone. We listened to it at least 4 times in a row, much to the

chagrin of most people in the car.

Noah and the Whale 5 Years Time

Noah and the Whales first album was one that Dan, Andy, and I were all at least

partially familiar with. We all knew the song 5 Years Time. Andy had actually seen themlive before and was aware of the dynamic of the band members. We talked about how it

was strange to hear such a saccharine love song between the two vocalists, since Laura

Marling would later break up with the vocalist and leave to do a solo project. Both Noah

and the Whale and Laura Marling would go on to write bitter break up songs about the

event. Sort of recontextualizes the line in 5 years time we might not get along.

Eminem Moms Spaghetti

Alyssa is a huge Eminem fan and one night Lose Yourself was being played at thecampfire at YBRA. Amanda referred to it as Moms Spaghetti. Luckily, I already had the

Moms Spaghetti version on my iPod and knew it pretty well. I rapped some of it that nightand showed the edited version to everyone in the next few days. We listened to it enough to

be just a little annoying.

Simon and Garfunkel April Come She Will

Amanda really likes Simon and Garfunkel so it was one of the first things that we

bonded over. At one point we listened to a whole album in succession, but this is the one

that came up most often, as it was on the mountain playlist.

Oh No! Oh My! Farewell to All My Friends

I played this on the last two days of the trip. At one point Natasha yelled at me not to

play it and Amanda didnt want me to play it because she hates songs with feelings. The

lyrics go: Farewell to all my friends/ who I will never see again/ you have made me who Iam/ and I will try hard not to forget you.


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Woodpigeon Piano Pieces for Adult Beginners

Played on the way through Glacier National Park. Everyone in the car agreed that

the singer sounded like me.

J. Tillman Milk White Air

We first listened to this song on the way through Arco. We had been talking about

Fleet Foxes and I put this on because J. Tillman was, until recently, the drummer for Fleet

Foxes.

Brighton, MA. Good Kind of Crazy

I found this song in a bourbon commercial and put it on the mountain playlist.

People liked it.

Bright Eyes At the Bottom of Everything

Hey, I dont know how you guys feel about sappy folk songs with long spoken-word

introductions, but I dont really care because Im playing this song anyway. On the way

back to Birch Creek after Ferre led us into town to use computers for 15 minutes and then

Dairy Queen.

The Menzingers The Obituaries

I first played this song when we were doing metamorphic rocks and Chris was

driving car #6 for some reason. I played generally heavier music that day and this is one of

the songs that came on. Andy said that he liked it too and I played it a couple more timesthroughout the trip.

Ludo Go-Getter Greg

Ludo is one of the more popular bands to come out of St. Louis, so I played this song

because I was showing off St. Louis music. This song is one of their betters ones and is

really funny. It was also a little more upbeat than other songs on my iPod so I played it

when that became necessary.

Ludo Lake Pontchartrain

Ludos narrative song about being eaten by a monster at the bottom of LakePontchartrain. I played it because Andy was in the car and Lake Pontchartrain is in

Louisiana.

Rebecca Black Friday


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Friday was actually probably a pretty terrible day to get down at camp since we had

work to do on Saturday, but it happened anyway. 7am waking up in the morning wasdefinitely true to our experiencegotta be fresh not so much.

The Long Winters Cinnamon

We rolled up on the first stop on the first day of the metamorphic petrology project

with this song playing loudly from our vehicle. Dan left the car on while we unpacked so

that it wouldnt turn off. Later, he would say that he didnt actually like the song that much.

The Long Winters Honest

I played this song for Ellie since she is a singer. Honest, its alright to be a singer.But dont you love a singer, whatever you do.

Wilco Heavy Metal Drummer

After I played Honest for Ellie, I dedicated this song to Andy. The verse goes: Isincerely miss those heavy metal bands/ we used to go see on the landing in the summer/

she fell in love with the drummer/ she fell in love with the drummer/ she fell in love.

Cookie Monster C is for Cookie

Amanda had this and many other Sesame Street songs on her iPod. I found them

instead of playing the songs that she had requested from her iPod. She swears the she did

not put it there but no one can be certain.

LCD Soundsystem Losing My Edge

Dan played this song off of a flashdrive plugged into the USB port as we were going

over Beartooth pass on the day that we were leaving YBRA. The song is extremely long but

also interesting but also repetitive. There is a lot of namedropping at the end that I

understood but Im not sure anyone else did. That is because I am the ultimate hipster thatthere has ever been.

LCD Soundsystem All My Friends

Another LCD Soundsystem song that Dan played. It seemed to almost end at points

but just kept on going. All other long songs during the trip were compared to it.

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody

Though this song was heard a few times during the tripon Dereks iPod, on the

Red Lodge radio station that played the same songs every day, and elsewherethis songbecame important to the trip on the day that we drove through Glacier National park in

order to get to East Glacier to camp. At one point, construction caused us to come to a full


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stop for quite some time. One of the cars started blaring Bohemian Rhapsody and people

got out of the car singing it. The car in front of them did the same thing with a slight offset

in the song. We in Car #6 were behind them and did the same thing. Our song synced up

sort of well with the car in front but not so well with the car in the middle. This moment

clearly marked our loss of sanity on the way to our late night stop in Glacier.

The Weakerthans The Reasons

I played a lot of Weakerthans in the car because they are my favorite band. I bonded

with Chris over them as well, who is also a big fan, especially of their first two albums. The

song is acutely aware of the sappiness of being happy with where you are at and is

something I can relate to when thinking about my experiences at field camp.

Chet Faker No Diggity

Ellie was familiar with the original and one of the first things I remember doing with

her is singing this song while she played piano. I am much more familiar with this version,which is what I played in the car. I remember playing it with her in the car on the way to

Elk Basin. We listened to the original version while stuck in construction in Glacier National

Park.

siuc geology field camp songs and attached memories

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