18 Edie Brickell and Steve Martin “When you get to Asheville” 

I knew that Steve Martin played the banjo, just like I knew that Kermit the Frog played the banjo. But one’s a comedian and one’s a muppet, so how good can either one really be?

It turns out that in Steve Martin’s case, very, very good. 

This collaboration between Edie Brickell on vocals and Steve Martin, made me go out and get a banjo. I’m not that good. I can bust out a pretty neat version of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” but that’s about it for now. 

“When you get to Asheville” is the first song on the album Love has Come For You and it’s a spectacular album. Of particular note on this song is the use of email as a notification/communication device. There’s nothing weird about that, email has been around for decades, but its use in music often sticks out in an oft-putting way. Popular music has a long history of letters (“Wait a minute, Mr. Postman…”) and phone calls (“Don’t leave me hanging on the telephone…”), but email?

This is the first track I ever heard that managed to take the concept of email and infuse it with the longing for direct communication and connection with another found in those previous songs using letters and phone calls. A great opening track on a great album.