Lyrics

[Megapixel]

So there are some great posts on WB about favorite music to listen to while hiking. I would like to learn of your go to songs where the lyrics somehow tie into hiking. Ill get the ball rolling, besides some of the southbounders soundtrack there is The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You::

Load the car and write the note.Grab your bag and grab your coat.
Tell the ones that need to know.
We are headed north.
One foot in and one foot back.
But it don't pay to live like that.
So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks.
For never to return.

[Slugg]

ABB - Ramblin' Man, Midnight Rider, Southbound, Blue Sky
CCR - Bad Moon Rising, Up around the Bend, Who'll Stop the Rain, Have you Ever seen the Rain, Run through the Jungle, Green River
Atmosphere - Became

[Slugg]

Widespread Panic - Surprise Valley, Travelin' Light, Climb to Safety, Ain't Life Grand, Walkin'

[Sarcasm the elf]

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that don't know where it's flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going…

[johnspenn]

I took a little journey to the unknown
And I come back changed, I can feel it in my bones
I f*d with the forces that our eyes can't see
Now the darkness got a hold on me
Holy darkness got a hold on me

Meet me in the woods tonight...

[4shot]

the road is long
with many a winding turn
that leads us to
who knows where
who knows where
but I'm strong
strong enough
to carry him
He ain't heavy
He's my brother

[rocketsocks]

Try imagining a place
where it’s always safe and warm
Come on in she said I’ll give you
Shelter from the storm~Bob Dylan

[rocketsocks]

Cold ground was my bed last night
and rock was my pillow too
they say your feet is just to big for your shoes
Talkin’ Blues~Bob Marley

but I always called it “walkin’ blues”

[Traffic Jam]

She came to me, said she knew me
Said she'd known me a long time
And she spoke of being in love
With every mountain she had climbed
And she talked of trails she'd walked up
Far above the timber line
From that night on I knew I'd write a song
With Carolina in the pines

[Dogwood]

Take a step outside
Time to step outside
Whoa
Whoa
Oh
Whoa
Will you step outside
Dark as night
Let a light guide you...

Jose Gonzalez Secret Life of Walter Mitty

[Dogwood]

Step out...

[Vanhalo]

R.E.M. - Murmur

Calling out in the transit

West of Fields
.....
We walk through the woods we walk
Take oasis take oasis take oasis take oasis
Up the stairs to the landing
Up the stairs into the hall oh oh oh
Take oasis Marat's bathing

[Dogwood]

Now the time has come (to awake and break camp)
Though the night seems young
Is at an end
Only change will bring
Out of the darkness
In this moment everything
Is born again
Reach up for the sunrise
Put your hands into the big sky (and pack up)
You can touch the sunrise
Feel the new day,
Enter your LIFE
Reach up for the sunrise
Put your hands up to the big sky (and put your pack on)

Duran Duran Reach Up for the Sunrise

[soilman]

The sweet Georgia breezes, safe, cool and warm
I headed up north, you headed north
On and on and on and on
What side are you on?

Left of the Dial by the Replacements

[chknfngrs]

When years pass between us and the light shines on the water
I ask please leave one thing leave shelter when it’s raining

The Samples, When It’s Raining

[map man]

Since a number of artists have set Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken to music I am going to cheat and call that great poem a song lyric for purposes of this thread:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Many remember this as "the road less traveled" poem and think of it as a kind of anthem for people who march to the beat of a different drummer. But something I find poignant is that he chose to emphasize the road he did not take when he titled the poem, so that a sense of loss lives right beside the positive feelings he cherished for choosing to walk down the road he did.

This brings to mind a moment on my last hiking trip. I was on the Colorado Trail and had thought I might or might not go off trail for two or three hours to walk to the top of Mount Yale. So when the morning came and I reached that potential parting of the ways I sat on a log for a few minutes contemplating the pros and cons of either choice.

[Recalc]

Talkin' to myself again
Wondering if this travelin' is good
Is there something better we'd be doing if we could
And oh the stories we could tell
And if this all blows up and goes to hell
I can still see us sittin on the bed in some motel
Listenin' to the stories we could tell

Stories We Could Tell - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

[map man]

....again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
Do I behold the steep and lofty cliffs....

....These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart....

This too is not a song lyric, but a couple fragments of a lyrical poem, Tintern Abbey, by William Wordsworth. He was known to take long rambling walks through the lake district in England back in his day. And like a lot of notable poems about the natural world the poem is not so much about the experience of walking through nature, but instead about what he makes of that experience when thinking about it afterwards. I can't live an adrenaline or endorphin raising adventure every minute of every day, so it's handy that we have this capacity called "memory" which can bring back experiences to us in moments of quiet contemplation. It can make us think; it can lift our spirits.

[Slo-go'en]

If the river was whisky
and I was a duck
I'd dive to the bottom
and never come up

[GoldenBear]

I love to go a-wandering
Along the mountain track
And as I go, I love to sing
My knapsack on my back
Val-deri, val-dera, val-deri,
Val-dera ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Val-dera
My knapsack on my back

I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun
So joyously it calls to me
Come join my happy song
Val-eri, val-dera, val-deri
Val-dera, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Val-era
Come join my happy song

I wave my hat to all I meet
And They wave back to me
And blackbirds call so loud and sweet
From ev'ry green wood tree
Val-eri, val-dera, val-deri
Val-dera, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Val-era
From ev'ry green wood tree

Three wonderful versions of this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZUdIbX52So
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqHMZxxmqVk
Strangely enough, I've yet to meet these ladies while hiking the A.T., even though they claim to be avid mountain hikers. Maybe I'd meet them if I hiked in Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpanPmIfBs4
Jim Henson always had a wicked sense of humor.