Lousiana...
Louisiana is the first track on
The Walkmen's 2006 album A Hundred Miles Off. It was also the first and only single to come off of the album. The song begins with the reverbing strums of guitar and Leithauser's
throaty vocals proclaiming his love for the state.
Come go away with me...
I've never been to Louisiana, but the half hopeful, half contemplative song draws to me thoughts of the Hurricane Katrina disaster that happened a year before the album's release.
Crossing through Tennessee,
Watching the sun rise...
The song is hopeful for the sun soaked times to be had lazing around during a hot summer day in Louisiana. The lyrics hint at a picture of taking those days wherever one goes. Sitting under a canopy drinking a cup of coffee and watching the sun rise. Other days never even seeing the morning, just sleeping in until midday and relaxing under the trees. The song crescendoes to crashing cymbals and trumpets blaring, and the music reminisces on those days spent on the beach.
There's thunder and there's lightning,
A hundred miles off...
While the song feels sweetly bouyant, it also contains notes of longing for a past Louisiana. The song appears to be more of an impression of the Bayly line that absence makes the heart grow fonder. While Louisiana as a physical place may have gone under siege from the weather, the feelings culled from the experience there is more important. The singer longs for Louisiana to go away with him, perhaps wishing to take those feelings on the road. Hurricane Katrina took a toll on life in Louisiana, especially New Orleans. Perhaps not only does the singer remember those fond things, but he may also long to extricate the good feelings from Louisiana after the disaster.
If I listened to my head,
I never would have come...
Louisiana could be just an ode to a state, but perhaps it is also an ode to a feeling. That feeling of being complete and not having any worry. Sitting under the sun in a lawn chair feeling entirely in the presence of now. The song contemplates that feeling of remembering the perfect day...
I've got my hands full,
All summer long,
I've got my hands full...