This American Life music IDs needed

March 4, 2009 4:42 AM

I really dig 3 "interlude" tracks that are played in episodes 35 and 36, but for the life of me can't figure out what they are. I've looked on TAL's online episode guide, which sometimes documents episode music, but not for these ones.

I've tried the ol' google the lyrics trick, but nada. So I'm going to MF. Here're extracts of lyrics, and I've also attached clips of each of the songs I pulled from podcasts of the episodes.

#1
"We're riding home upon our horses. I'm sitting side saddle, of course"..
clip

#2
"I saw it lying on the floor, near the door, of my older daughter's room. The letter.....the letter"
clip

#3
"Well I got a letter from baby way back home" x2
"I read that letter. Boy there's something wrong"
clip

Please help me ID these songs! Thanks so much!

posted by grammalvsu to media & arts (2 comments total)

I can't help on #s 1 and 2, but if you didn't already know it #3 is almost certainly classed as jump blues. The voice sounds pretty familiar but I can think of some names that it definitely isn't (Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, Joe Williams) and some that it probably isn't but just might be (Roy Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, Wynonie Harris). I will try to dig through some names and tunes and see if I can at least get the singer's name.
posted by turbodog at 3:08 PM on March 4

Thanks for your response Turbodog.

Nothing more eh? Maybe it was bad timing to post this in the middle of a work day when most people aren't able to listen to music. oh well, the quest continues...
posted by grammalvsu at 5:22 PM on March 5