My Favorite Song. Ever.

My friend John IM’ed a few weeks ago. He told me to check out a dude named Benji Hughes. He even sent a few tracks. First was ‘Tight T Shirt,’ a fun kind of great song that reminded me of Beck. Next up was ‘Neighbor Down The Hall,’ lounge meets crooner meets indie. At this point I’m intrigued and immediately steal buy his debut record, A Love Extreme. It’s great, and all the lighthearted and diverse indie sound is balanced beautifully with a touch of country and some simple beauty in songs like ‘Girl In The Tower.’ I really can’t recommend the record enough.

So naturally I prepped a blog post about how Benji is a direct descendant of Norse gods, an amazing talent who should be immortalized in posters on every teen girl’s bedroom wall. I wanted to call for a movement of fifteen-year-old boys wearing fake beards and growing their locks long. To say I’m enraptured with his wild mountain-man looks balanced against delicate songwriting would be putting it lightly.

But then a few days later John tells me his (rad) label, vosotros, is putting out a split single with Benji featured on the A side over Willoughby on the B. Clicking through I found Benji’s track, ‘Country Love,’ and basically haven’t stopped listening to it since.

When I first started dating my wife I found a photo on the ground. Over seven years, two daughters, and five apartments I’ve kept this torn up, beat up, out-of-focus photo with me. It’s a picture of some trees, some grass, and a hazy sky. It’s the reason I work so hard, the thing I’m reaching for. It’s a photo of a place that I hope to find some day. I have a picture in my head of ten perfect years — I’ll work the other ninety or so to make those ten happen, and they’ll happen in that place in the photo.

Well ‘Country Love’ is the song that goes along with my photo. It became instantly important to me and my story. It’s a simple song, true country music with none of the genre trappings or bullshit cowboy-hat-macho bullshit that soaks through the commercial ‘country’ music. It tells a story, simply, and sells you on the romance of the American South. In your mind you can see Tennessee and it’s a perfect place to be, all the complications and realities of modern America stripped away. Every lyric carries meaning and is sung with emotion. It’s real. It’s full. It’s a wonderful piece of music.

And it’s the song that goes along with my dream.

Benji Hughes – Country Love

Get it: sargentrecords.com