It’s April. As it was Blobby‘s turn to pick the theme, he chose… thoroughfares: Streets, Lanes, Roads, Freeways, Trails. Paths. But no Stairways!

A little secret: There’s one song on the planet that I can hear and want to join in almost every time I hear it. Well, depending on the arrangement. There’s been some real doozies. And if you don’t all hit that first note together in harmony, well, you can just forget it. There’s no recovering.

But back to what I was talking about. And I’ll probably have this song in my head for the next few days after posting this. I don’t know what it is about this song, but it just appeals to me in a way few other songs have. And the fact that I want to sing along every time just adds to that.

I give you one of the most recent arrangements of this song.

Minnesota’s Home Free doing their 2015 a cappella version of “Seven Bridges Road”:

And I really hate that entire “This video contains content from . It is restricted from playing on certain sites. Watch on YouTube.” message that almost EVERY FRAKIN’ VIDEO has these days. Argh!

But seriously. How can you not like that?

I blame my a cappella roots growing up in the Church of Christ. And going to a private Church of Christ school. And being in the chorus. And then going to a Church of Christ university. And again with no instruments in worship. I never really did understand the difference between using physical musical instruments versus using your mouth to reproduce them. But that’s just one of many things I never understood about the church in which I was indoctrinated.

(And if you want something completely different, check out Home Free’s cover of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass”: https://youtu.be/BuyGVhQFLbs.)

And now for a history lesson!

“Seven Bridges Road” was originally written and sung by Steve Young in 1969. Something about the original feels very “Gordon Lightfoot” to me for some reason, I’m not sure what though:

In 1973, the song was rearranged by Ian Matthews, and will sound very familiar to a certain version that most people know:

The Eagles were using it as a warm up song, and did it live in 1980, which is what most people know:

Dolly did a great even more bluegrass cover in 2001:

(And check out Home Free’s cover of Dolly’s “9 to 5”: https://youtu.be/9xxv_Fizvsw. Seriously, you’d think I’m promoting them or something…)

And I’m a sucker for a barbershop quartet. Here’s Forefront’s version:

And for any of you Supernatural fans, here’s Jensen Ackles and a few other cast members singing it at VegasCon:

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make harmonies with myself.