Whither Small Town?

(image from here)

That's a picture of my home town, Garland, Texas, actually not very far from where I was born. I was born at a clinic at Miller & Shiloh Roads, the old Garland Shopping Center is at Miller & Jupiter Roads. Anyway, at the time of that photo (the early 1960s), Garland was leaving the status of "small town." Here is the population growth chart from Wikipedia:

As a kid in Garland I had a sense that I lived in a suburb (of Dallas) but certainly many people still thought of the city as a small town. But Garland is not the reason for this week's show. It's just my only point of reference - I've known many folks who grew up in much smaller towns than mine.

The truth is, the show came from being bugged by two songs that I don't particularly like but which for some reason came into my head around the same time a few weeks ago. One was the song "Small Town Boy" by Bronski Beat. The other was "Small Town" by Johnny Booger Meloncramp. The former is fine, I was just never taken with it. I find the latter execrable. Because I listened to commercial fm radio in the 1980s though it got drilled into my head. God damn it.

But through such irritation an idea arose - surely there are better "small town" songs? & there are.

You'll hear a lot of them today from noon to 2pm on Freeform Portland, which is on the dial in Portland town at 90.3 & 98.3 fm. It's online everywhere at Freeform Portland dot org. There'll be interviews too with lots of people from small towns all over the country. I hope it's worth your time.