Welcome to travels with Todd

It’s time to wrap up my late summer trip by leading you through all the deliberate musical references I made and giving you a break from obscure and obsolete words. I’ve chosen to make this something of a feature of each trip because I naturally think of music when I’m writing, I think it adds some variety to the posts, and finally because I hope that when you reach this post and listen to the songs they bring pleasant memories or possibly expose you to new artists, songs, or musical styles.

I’ll also note that it’s not necessary for an entire song to match the content or feeling of a post. Probably more often it’s a single line of lyrics and I might be taking those words literally even if the songwriter meant to use them as metaphors. With that in mind, I’ll conduct you through the songs in the category Belgians and Balkans 2025. If the song reference is in a post title, it will be boldface and navy blue. If it’s a section header, it will also be boldface but aqua. Finally for the occasional song reference in the text body, look for it to be identified in orange italics.

NOTE: If you are using the Text to Speech feature, you need to pause its reading to prevent it from continuing to process the text over any music video you want to watch or listen to. Once paused, you will need to manually restart the TTS.

NOTE 2: As I edited this post in Lisbon, some of the embedded YouTube videos appeared as unavailable. This issue disappeared when I pointed my VPN to a US address. I will posit that if you’re reading this blog and are outside the US, this problem may occur regardless of your location. I can only suggest that, if you do not have a VPN you can point to a US location, you open a new tab or browser window and search for the title either on YouTube or the music platform of your choice.

The band is in tune so here’s the downbeat:

Summer 2025 – The Final Countdown. 

For some reason, I thought it would be fun to use a song by the group Europe to introduce a trip to the European continent that would take me to five countries. This song by Joey Tempest is probably their biggest hit.

Go up far enough to come down.

This is a single line of lyrics from the song Ferris Wheel by John Williamson. Since the post includes a brief history of the Ferris Wheel, using it seemed to make good sense to me. Additionally, it provided another chance to include a song performed by the great Judith Durham and no one can fault me for that.

 

Antwerp and Me – Kom, gib mir deine hand.

I don’t usually work music into the Olympic Cities posts but since Antwerp was also part of the Belgium and Balkans category, I thought it appropriate. And given Antwerp’s apparent obsession with hands (or at least statues featuring hands) this seemed a natural choice. Of course the song is I Want to Hold Your Hand. This version of the John Lennon – Paul McCartney hit features The Beatles singing in German.

Whispers of your Name.

This section header refers, of course to The Whisperer. Kacey Musgraves wrote this song with her father Craig and since she wrote it, I used her recording of it.

Antwerp and Me – To the river so deep.

Since one focus of this post was traversing Saint Anna’s Tunnel – the pedestrian tunnel under the Scheldt River – river songs seemed a fitting choice. I chose Billy Joel’s River of Dreams because it ranks high among my favorite Billy Joel songs.

But I can’t seem to find my way over.

This was a tongue in cheek reference to the difficulty I had finding the entrance to the tunnel. I chose the Jimmy Cliff composition Many Rivers to Cross. This is the composer’s performance but I was sorely tempted to use Linda Ronstadt’s interpretation.

Well the streets are all crowded.

The next section header comes from the Cheap Trick song Ghost Town written by Rick Nielsen and Diane Warren. I could probably use this to describe walking through any city so it’s about time I did.

Back in Brussels – Seasons in the Sun.

When I wrote about my trip to Australia, I tried to tie the trip together by using as much geographically appropriate music as I could. I saw no reason not to carry this effort into my 2025 journey. The song I chose was written by Jacques Brel – whose statue I’d see in Brussels – and was originally titled Le Moribond. Since the day started with my visit to Laeken Cemetery, the choice felt right. For the video, however, I used the reinterpreted lyrics by Rod McKuen and recorded by Terry Jacks. As of 2018, this 1970s megahit remained in the top 250 of all-time Billboard hits.

Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.

Since the post title had a sun reference and the section below this header dealt with replacing my camera, Paul Simon’s Kodachrome felt like a natural choice.

Leaving Belgium – Ne me quitte pas.

For those of you who have never heard of Jacques Brel, here’s another chance to appreciate his talent. Probably the most accurate translation of the French title is, “Don’t leave me.” This was my last day there and, yes, imagining Belgium asking me not to leave is a bit of an ego trip but, hey, the song’s about leaving and it was written by a Belgian. So sue me. The version below is by Brel himself but people of a certain age are likely to be familiar with another Rod McKuen translation called If You Go Away. Shirley Bassey, Frank Sinatra, and Dusty Springfield are among the many artists who covered McKuen’s version.

picked up my bag, ran to the station.

The sharp-eyed among you might have notice this fuller fragment, “it was well after 9:09 so I picked up my bag, ran to the station.” Of course, this was a not so sly reference to the Lennon-McCartney song One After 9:09.

Thinkin’ about the good things to come.

I took the train from Brussels to Frankfurt so why not cite Peace Train by Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam).

Through all these cities and all these towns – Tirana – Day 1.

I could attach any number of lines of lyrics from the Thomas William Cochrane song Life is a Highway (recorded by Rascal Flatts) to my travels and wanderlust. Once again, I guess it’s about time I did.

When  you’re alone.

This is another repeat and it’s such a short snippet from the song Downtown written by Tony Hatch and first recorded by Petula Clark that you might not have caught it. Since there’s no contest, I wasn’t trying to make it hard to identify but, since life wasn’t making me lonely, I had to cut the line short. Still, I was in Tirana’s downtown.

All things must Pass – Tirana – Day 2 – Morning.

Like much of the Balkans, Albanian territory has been batted about by non-Albanians like a cat toy on a string and even after their independence, the country passed through some dark and dismal times. And through it all, they’ve retained their identity and emerged into what they hope will be a brighter future. Thus, the George Harrison penned song seemed aptly suitable.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

So it’s not a song but sometimes tossing in a little Monty Python is irresistible.

Istanbul not Constantinople.

This was another sly text reference to the novelty song written by Jimmy Kennedy and Nat Simon on the 500th anniversary of the Ottoman Empire ousting the Byzantine Empire and their renaming of Constantinople to Istanbul. The song was made famous by The Four Lads with a well-known cover by They Might Be Giants. I chose neither. Please ignore the photos.

Cosmic empire.

I chose another George Harrison song to emphasize both the imperial rule and the emerging optimism of Albania.

Everybody eats when they come to my house – Tirana Day 2 – Afternoon.

It’s a post about a food tour. This Cab Calloway performance of the Jeanne Burns song seemed like a perfect fit.

Your table manners are a cryin’ shame.

This section header comes from the song Eat It by Weird Al Yankovic. I’ve never seen myself eat but it’s probably true that my table manners are a cryin’ shame.

Driving slow on Sunday Morning – Goodbye for now to Tirana.

My first full day with the Intrepid group started on Sunday Morning and our drive to Shala River was anything but fast. Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael share the songwriting credit on this Maroon 5 top 40 single.

I’ll be his & he’ll be mine.

This line is from Chapel of Love a song made famous by The Dixie Cups – that was co-written by Jeff Barrie, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector. I chose it because our progress was slowed when we rode behind a wedding procession.

The Long and Winding Road – from Lezhë to Komanit.

This certainly describes the road to the dam at Lake Koman. Although credited to Lennon and McCartney, it’s almost certainly entirely Paul’s composition. How much of the arrangement belonged to George Martin is another question. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles.

The other end of the telescope.

I had a short blue text rant but I put this phrase in bold so it might trigger a recollection for those of you who are familiar with the Til Tuesday song of the same name. And if it didn’t, here’s your chance to listen to the Aimee Mann and Elvis Costello penned tune.

Komani my house, my house.

So maybe you needed to be reading my mind a bit to work your way through the pun to the song Come On-A My House. In the early fifties, Rosemary Clooney had a massive hit with this song c0-written by Ross Bagdasarian and his cousin, author William Saroyan. (Bagdasarian later created The Chipmunks under the name David Seville.)

I know I’m gonna love you any old way.

My decision to use a lyric from the song Baby It’s You written by Burt Bacharach, Mack David (Hal David’s older brother) and Luther Dixon might be another stretch. We were on the Shala River and a quick listen to the song’s opening bars will show why I made the connection. This time, I’m including three versions – The Shirelles, The Beatles, and Smith.

The Shirelles.

The Beatles.

Smith.

It ain’t so neat to admit defeat – Cutting short Monday’s walk.

I’m not sure I could have found a better match to the central event of this day than I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats. The songwriters are Bob Geldof and John Peter Moylett.

Hand me down my walkin’ shoes.

Maybe if I’d had hiking boots instead of walking shoes the hike might have ended differently. Maybe not. The lyric comes from Walk of Life written by Mark Knopfler and recorded when he was the frontman for Dire Straits.

To the fairies they draw near – From Shala River to Fishtë.

Loreena McKennett penned this work for the 2008 Disney Animated film Tinker Bell. In case you missed the translation of Mrizi i Zanave, the name of the agritourism farm where our group spent the night, it’s Shade of the Fairies. Cool match, eh?

When I get feeling better when I’m feeling no pain.

I doubled up on my Canadians in this post. The section started with the sunset so I thought this Gordon Lightfoot song fit the bill.

Maybe not Under Pressure but definitely under Durres.

My feeling here was that I had to soothe the impact of a forced cross-language pun. Although the name of the Albanian city of Durres looks like the English word duress, the pronunciations aren’t similar but I’ll stop at nothing when punning.  The writing credits for Under Pressure go to David Bowie and all four members of Queen – John Deacon, Brian May, Freddie Mercury, and Roger Taylor. I suspect you’ll enjoy the song much more than my pun.

Walkin’ in the wildwood – From Durrës to Divjaka-Karavasta.

Although the first part of this post finishes up my time in Durres, I chose the Joe South song Birds of a Feather as my musical reference because we ended the day in Divjaka-Karavasta National Park that featured a short walk in the woods and a pelican lesson. Paul Revere and the Raiders had a hit with their cover but I’m sticking with the original.

A day once dawned – sunrise in the marsh and lunch in Babunjë.

There may be a more appropriate lyric line to apply to our pre-dawn bird-watching excursion but if there is, I couldn’t think of it at the time. I’m open to suggestions but for now, here’s From the Morning written and performed by Nick Drake.

She’s got me rockin’ and a reelin’.

This is another bad attempt at a language crossing pun. Anyone who’s familiar with the Beach Boys cover  of this song in the video below would be familiar with their opening phrase “Uh-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah Bah-a-ran” and for my occasionally twisted brain it triggered “Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-Ba-bun-jë. I don’t know how or why. It just happens. Meanwhile, here something you might not know. Fred Fassert composed the song for his sister – Barbara Ann Fassert and when he recorded it in 1961 with his band The Regents, it reached number 13 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The Beach Boys made it even more famous.

Let down and hanging around – Orikum.

This line felt right to me because while I was let down by the fact that we weren’t actually staying in Vlorë, not everyone in the group was. Some were content just hanging around Orikum. The song is Let Down by Radiohead. All five members of the band, Ed O’Brien, Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Thom Yorke, and Philip Selway share writers credit.

There’s got to be a morning after.

No, it wasn’t a terrible day so perhaps choosing this song performed in the video below by Maureen McGovern and written by Joel Hirschhorn and Al Kasha was a bit overly dramatic but anyone who puns Barbara Ann with Babunjë is going to be a little cheeky.

angel of the morning.

Okay. The subject matter of the song and the text couldn’t be more detached from each other. But I like the song and saw an opportunity to include a reference to it in the text without disrupting the flow too glaringly. While you can’t go wrong listening to the first hit version recorded by Merilee Rush, I chose to include the more country interpretation by Juice Newton. And here’s another piece of trivia. The songwriter Chip Taylor wrote not only this one but he also wrote Wild Thing.

These songs of freedom – Independence in Vlorë.

It’s always good to have a little Bob Marley in your day and, while the broad themes of his Redemption Song don’t quite evoke the struggle for Albanian independence, the opening couplet of the chorus, “Won’t you help to sing / These songs of freedom certainly does. At least for me.

You say you want a revolution.

In many contexts, the choice is obvious. This, to me, is one. It’s The Beatles and written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

And the fast version.

Trouble ahead, Trouble behind.

Sometimes, the choice isn’t obvious. Still, I think this line of lyrics from The Grateful Dead song Casey Jones pithily describe the dilemma the newly independent Albanians faced. Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter share writing credit.

Walking on the big stuff – a climb to Tragjas.

For this post, I wanted the title to capture the physical and emotional breadth of the Intrepid group’s late afternoon and evening hike so I chose Walking on the Milky Way by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. Songwriting credits go to Andrew McCluskey, Keith Small, and Nigel Joshua Ipinson Fleming.

Are the stars out tonight?

I’m reasonably certain I’ve used the Harry Warren and Al Dubin song I Only Have Eyes for You in at least one other trip. But I like the song and I don’t have many repeaters. And, because I was focused on the road during that dark walk down that hill, I was able to wonder if the stars were, indeed out that night. I decided to go with the Art Garfunkel cover as opposed to The Flamingos original.

That’s when we fall in line ’cause we got Berat.

I don’t know if tying the phrase we got Berat to the GoGos We got the Beat stretches the band of tortured puns to its breaking point but I have to assume it’s close.  I’ll try to redeem myself with a bit of trivia even if you can find it on Wikipedia. Charlotte Caffey, the band’s guitarist and keyboardist, drew her inspiration for writing the song from the band’s cover of the Smokey Robinson hit Going to a Go-Go from which the band drew its name and from the opening of the theme to the television show The Twilight Zone.

Goodbye to the world that I know.

The fact that I made an overly dramatic description of the end of the group part of the tour should have been a clue to my use of a song lyric as its source. The song is Looks Like the End of the Road. The songwriter is Jeremy Lister and the video is Alison Krauss & Union Station. (Again, only a line or two in isolation is applicable but that’s how I roll.)

Here where the sky is falling – Kukës.

I was on my way to Kosovo and, as you should know from this post, Kosovo’s population is almost entirely ethnically Albanian. Though you might think of her as British, Dua Lipa is among those Kosovar Albanians and, in fact, holds citizenship in all three countries and lived in Pristina as a teen. I thought it was time for me to feature a song by an Albanian artist and, by its title alone, Homesick co-written by Dua Lipa with Chris Martin of Coldplay captures the feelings of every refugee.

Some things looking better, baby.

I chose this title for this post because, as inspiring as the story of the people of Kukës is, reading about war and refugees gets a little heavy and I wanted you to know that things were about to lighten up. At least a little. Technically, Cold Heart Dua Lipa / Elton John PNAU Remix was created by the Australian electronic trio Pnau using samples from four Elton John songs – Rocket Man, Sacrifice, Kiss the Bride, and Where’s the Shoorah? with Dua Lipa singing the Rocket Man chorus.

Where have all the good men gone.

The section is about Ibrahim Rugova – a true Kosovan hero – and the song is Holding Out for a Hero. Although Dean Pitchford shares songwriting credit, it’s one of many 1980s power pop ballads credited, at least in part, to Jim Steinman and sung by Bonnie Tyler.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor.

A statue of a man sitting cross-legged and a song – 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago in which the first chorus opens with this lyric. Could there be a more natural fit? Robert Lamm wrote it. Peter Cetera sings lead for the band.

It’s just a shot away.

It’s hard to escape echoes of war in the Balkans. Prizren might not have suffered to the same degree as Pristina or other parts of Kosovo but it wasn’t untouched either. I chose Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones because of its raw portrayal of the horrors of war. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote it.

If you’re looking to find a place in the summer sun – Ohrid.

If you recognized this post title as a lyric from the song Indian Lake by The Cowsills, you could be more of a sixties music nerd than I am. I doubt that Lake Ohrid has much in common with the lake of this Tony Romeo tune but hey, it was still summer (or feeling like summer) and the day had a lake.

There’s bound to be a better ride Than what you’ve got planned – busing to Sarandë.

Yes, I know I just used a song about summer so why choose a couplet from Paul Simon’s A Hazy Shade of Winter? The answer is simple. Because I met C, the bus ride was much, much, better than I’d anticipated. I like the Bangles version.

If I could make days last forever.

I chose this to emphasize how wonderful C made that five hour bus ride. The song is Time in a Bottle written and performed by Jim Croce who died in a plane crash at the far too young age of 30.

It’s getting to the point – Blue Eye and Gjirokaster.

The connection should be obvious even if the post has nothing to do with Judy Collins. Blue Eye is in the post title and of the songs I quickly thought of with “blue eyes” in the title, Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s Suite: Judy Blue Eyes became the ear worm. Stephen Stills owns the songwriting credit.

Reflections of the way life used to be – travel days.

As was the case with the previous title, as soon as I thought of the subject of the post being mainly my reflections on my experience in Albania, this Holland-Dozier-Holland (that’s Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier) title became an ear worm primarily because this one line of lyrics captured some of my feelings about the country. The title is Reflections and the performers are The Supremes.

And then I’ll fly, so high across the sky – Tirana to Frankfurt.

Since I felt as though half of the post would be about air travel, (It turned out to be a bit less.) I got on board with the song Airplane by Plain White T’s. Tom Higgenson and Mike Retondo share the writing credit. Had I flown at night I probably would have been more inclined to use a line from Airplanes by B.o.B and Hayley Williams. But I’ll stand by my choice.

Through the ripples how they shine – a day in Frankfurt.

The lyric is from the song Three Coins in the Fountain an Oscar winning song written for the 1954 movie of the same name. It’s a Jule Styne melody with Sammy Cahn lyrics. And yes, the movie and song are both about Rome’s Trevi Fountain and wishes for love – neither of which apply to my wishless Frankfurt fountain walk. But Frankfurt’s are fountains and some of them are used as wishing wells. That was enough of a connection for me and, in the end, I’m the one who counts. Here’s Frank Sinatra singing it.

Fly the ocean in a silver plane – coming home.

This last song is another about travel. Again, even though it’s about a relationship, it’s a song I’ve long liked. Also, even though I think Vonda Shepard did a lovely cover of this for the tv show Ally McBeal, I’m going with Jo Stafford’s chart topping 1952 version.

And that’s a wrap. I hope you enjoyed the posts and, now, the music. Until next time, wherever you’re road may take you, I wish you safe travels.