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“Carolina” by Ben Gibbard (Home, Vol. V, Post-Parlo, 2003) Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard included this track on the now nearly-impossible-to-find split EP with singer Andrew Kenny. Here he sings of escaping an abusive relationship in favor of rolling hills and willows.“Deacon Blues” by Steely Dan (Aja, ABC, 1978) The Wake Forest Demon Deacons sure did used to suck at football. So bad, in fact, that it inspired Walter Beck and Donald Fagen to write a song about it. The team is contrasted next to the champs of Alabama’s Crimson Tide, though things have changed, but not by much.“Bite the Bullet” by Neil Young (American Stars ’n’ Bars, Reprise, 1977) Let’s see, an awesome opening guitar riff, followed by the line “Carolina queen/she’s a walking love machine/I’d like to make her scream/when I bite the bullet.” I think we can find a spot for this one.“North Carolina Line” by Gene Vincent (The Day The World Turned Blue, Kama Sutra, 1971) One of the last few songs recorded by Vincent before his unfortunate death, “North Carolina Line” remembers his youth in Norfolk, Va. and interstate racing with his buddies. Vincent would go on to leave an indelible impression on many great North Carolina rockabilly artists.“Wreck of the Old 97” by Vernon Dalhart (Victor, 1924) Here’s a good bit of bar trivia: Where was Engine No. 1102 headed after it departed from Monroe, Va. before its eventual crash in Danville, Va. killed nine? The answer is Spencer, NC and the ballad has become one of the most recorded in country music history.“Greensboro Woman” by Townes Van Zandt (High, Low and in Between, Rhino, 1972) The drunken spiritualist Van Zandt has a moment of clarity just long enough to say “thanks, but no thanks” to the women of Greensboro that he had met. There’s an aesthetic appreciation, he admits, but that alone won’t cut it.“Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show (OCMS, 2004) At a party to celebrate my 30 th birthday some new friends pulled out acoustic guitars and started playing “Wagon Wheel,” which had been out for less than a year at thattime. “This is like our ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’” Daniel Bayer explained to me. As a piece of recorded art that instantly enters the folk bloodstream, “Wagon Wheel” automatically meets the test. Fiddler and singer Ketch Secor spent several years in Greensboro playing old-time music with gutter punks, so the lyric’s authenticity is guaranteed: “Headed down south to the land of the pines/ And I’m thumbin’ my way into North Caroline.”“Ain’t Got No, I Got Life” by Nina Simone (’Nuff Said!, RCA Records, 1968) Recorded live at the Westbury Music Fair in New York State just three days after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Ain’t Got No….” bears a nearly unbearable intensity and grief. Born to Mary Kate Waymon and John Divine Waymon in Tryon in 1933, Simone made her way north like many other talented black North Carolinians of her day. Classically trained and defiant towards white supremacy, Simone was unapologetic about making music to give sustenance to black people, and her song rescues triumph from despair.“A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane (A Love Supreme, Impulse!, 1965) No jazz song burned an impression into my teenage ears quite like “A Love Supreme,” with its majestic exposition, frank spirituality and inspirational reach. My atheist cousin played it on Sunday mornings, and I witnessed an ecstatic worship service with instrumental testimonials at a church in San Francisco organized around the cosmology of St. John. Anyone who’s been to High Point, where Coltrane spent his formative high-school years, will understand his humility and religiosity immediately.“Chapel Hill” by Sonic Youth (Dirty, Geffen, 1992) The song is at once a tribute to a youth rock scene and a snapshot of a historical moment — the collision of the past and the future in North Carolina after the end of the Cold War. New York noise merchants Sonic Youth clearly took the measure of North Carolina’s flagship college town, with references to “a bookstore man” meeting the CIA and getting the “Cradle rocking.” In doing so, they confirmed that Chapel Hill was the coolest place in the nation to making and listening to music, while indicting moss-backed conservative Sen. Jesse Helms. The lyrics say it all: “We’ll round up the Durham HC kids/ And the Char Grill Killers/ Jesse H. come into our pit/ Ah, all ages show.”Find more good ones here: The 100 North Carolina songsThanks for the ask, y'all!