“Welcome to the middle of the middle of nowhere.” That’s how a University of Missouri admissions official began a presentation that my son and I attended a few years ago when he was (sorta) considering attending school there. Or, at least he was until the official uttered those words. In less than 15 seconds, his interest was more or less gone because, well, what 18 year-old kid who grew up his whole life in DC is looking to spend his college years in the middle of nowhere? That sounds like where you get lost and things go backwards, not grow into your adult self.
Things have worked out pretty well for my son, who is now at Northwestern. But after listening to the new Kevin Morby album Little Wide Open, I have to wonder whether my son might have given the middle of nowhere a little more consideration if he’d heard this first. Because the new record feels like the soundtrack to a tour of the middle of nowhere, but with an eye toward the future, with less angst and more grace than usually accompany such musical guides.
First things first, to avoid angry e-mail from our Midwestern readers. Morby is from the Kansas City area and now lives between Los Angeles and the KC suburbs, on the Kansas side, so I don’t want to sound like too much of an East Coaster and just merge Kansas and Missouri together (especially as I went to college in Missouri), but I do think there’s a way in which the sentiment of that admissions officer embodies the two places, and the broader Bible Belt, together.
“Welcome to the badlands/Where the sky expands and you and I expire/Just like sparks flying off some firecracker/In the big disaster/We call home.” Hard to imagine clearer lyrics to open a tour of the region and the album, over top of a light acoustic melody that feels both fresh and also like it’s somehow been the riff of more or less every one of Morby’s songs for the last decade plus.
