If you live in Nome, Alaska, you always have a song stuck in your head.
Usually, it’s a song you played on the air during your DJ shift. Sometimes it’s a song you heard another DJ play, or a song that came on during your yoga class. Sometimes you’re listening to “22” by Taylor Swift in the car and you hit a pothole and the CD skips and you just can’t resist belting out the rest of the song as your fellow volunteers look on in horror. Sometimes.
Sometimes when a song is stuck in your head, it doesn’t mean that you’re singing it to yourself. It means that you can’t stop thinking about it. Yesterday, I saw Byron Nicholai, an eighteen-year-old performer from Toksook Bay, sing his grandmother’s last words in Yup’ik over the melancholy beats of his drum.
That song will be stuck in my head for a long time.
Music has always been important to the people of Alaska, and it still has a big presence in Nome. That was demonstrated by the huge turnout at the Nome Salmonberry Jam Folk Fest last weekend. If you want to hear me and my fellow volunteers discuss the Folk Fest, as well as brushes with fame, German New Wave music, and the correct pronunciation of “artisanal,” listen to the audio blog above.
