Rock Me Mamma Like A Wagon Wheel - Media Meditation #3

This past weekend I headed home for a night to Ludlow, Vermont. It's about two hours south of here. I had no internet access, a choice of three foggy radio stations, and cell service ends that ends at the village limits. It was good to be home, to be disconnected, but Ludlow provides scant opportunity for a media meditation.

ludlow, vermont - main street

After putting in four or five hours at work to pay for the gas on the ride home, a few friends and I headed up the road to a party. The house we were going was actually in Weston, Vermont, home of the Vermont Country Store. When we got there, we shut our phones off and left them in the car. No reason to waste battery trying to find service.  Everyone I knew was there pretty much. Kids I grew up with in my school and from surrounding towns. Younger kids, older kids, I knew everyone's names, their siblings, their parents, where they lived, where they worked... Oh, the advantages of a small town! So we are there for about an hour, sitting in the back of a truck around a fire. Someone is designated DJ in another car so that we can have music. Everyone is talking and laughing and playing beer pong and having a good time. The thing that stands out most in my mind is that mid party, when people were starting to get rowdy and loud, a song comes on, and everyone stops what they are doing. It was primal--an instinct. Something of the reptilian brain, thats for sure. When that song started playing, we all got up and clanged out beers together and called out! No one remained seated.

And everyone knew the words.

Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show became "the song" around late winter last year. Whenever it plays, we all stop what we are doing and sing it and it's been eight months since we started this tradition and I don't think we will ever stop. No one decided that it was our song. It just happened.


What gets me is that in a place where Media is seriously lacking, at least compared to other regions of Vermont, is that is still prevails. Wagon Wheel hit home with us. It creates a mood. It calms everyone down. It makes everyone forget about all of their problems of yesterday and tomorrow. We forget about everything and just live in the moment and enjoy each others company.


It's got Neocortex - listening to the words. Limbic - an incredibly emotional song, you can't NOT feel something. Reptilian - when you've heard it a million and a half times with the same people, it's becomes a habit. I'll never get sick of it.