southern records

The name of this CD comes from Frank Lloyd Wright's project of the "Usonian" house as it is represented in The Natural House. Wright had a vision of architecture that would create spaces in which all citizens could thrive, provided of course that these citizens were middle class, Anglo-American males.

I read The Natural House in one sitting in a coffee house in Columbia, MO during a day off on one of last year's tours. I remember reading about the building material Wright had developed that would be durable and aesthetically pleasing, yet efficient and cheap enough to be accessible to most. I remember the pictures of Wright's prototypes-- what were essentially life size Legos-- and I compared them to Columbia's gorgeous brick and stone-row houses I could see out the window. I thought about people in nice neighborhoods who had beautiful homes that they never left, and I thought about the homeless man outside the coffee shop window. I thought about my friends: most of them don't have "homes" and don't stay in the place for too long, and they seem not to mind at all.

If I remember the rest of the day correctly, I later took a short nap in the van and imagined the ocean that we would soon visit again, to be sure, one that was a bit surreal, with red foamy water and beaches punctuated by Wright's giant Legos. Later, I crossed the street, sat in front of a church, and started to write the song "Usonian Dream Sequence" that appears on this CD, until it was time to drive somewhere again.