OGIC: Thingamajigs we love

Last night the ipod played Lucinda Williams’s “Jackson” and the Breeders’ “Drivin’ on 9” practically back-to-back, which I thought was awfully clever of it. These are my two favorite songs about driving–songs while driving, really–dating back to well before I was a driver myself. Driving can be an opiate, and the narrators of both songs seem under its influence. They treat the names of their destinations like talismans, hopefully investing them with emotional significance the places haven’t actually yet taken on. Musically, both songs have simple, even na