I’m back today from Italy and Germany, from a trip that included 13 trains, 8 flights, and about 50 miles of walking from one art show to the next.

With me through all this were the following:

Loretta Lynn’s “Family Tree”
Harry Nilsson’s “Take 54”
Queen’s “‘39”
Lily Allen’s “Not Big”
The Decemberists’s “O Valencia!”
Band of Horses’s “The Funeral”
and of course, They Might Be Giants, in the form of “The Mesopotamians”

I know very little about each of these artists (except Queen and TMBG). I do not know the correct lyrics. The mix was a gift. What I can’t get rid of in my post-travel haze is “The Funeral” and “O Valencia!” I keep hearing, “On every occasion, one-million day funeral.”