Needs More Banjo

As I was driving home from a friend's place the other night, my mp3 player – in shuffle mode – gave me two consecutive songs featuring banjo: Electrolite by REM, and White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons, and it reminded me of just how much I enjoy the use of that particular instrument.

I'm not sure where I first heard a song with banjo, but there would have been a few songs floating around while I was young.

Given I remember it being on television, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the theme song to The Beverly Hillbillies by the bluegrass duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs; if you've somehow never heard/seen it, here it is:

Another contender would of course be the famous Dueling Banjos from the film Deliverance – even though I've never seen the film (and certainly didn't when I was young; something for which I'm profoundly glad in hindsight), I can only assume I heard it because it got used in other films, television or got played on radio. Here it is:

Third on the list would be Journey of the Sorcerer by the Eagles, which was the theme song for the television version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy¹. It wasn't until many years later that I learned that it was an Eagles song, and I was quite surprised because a) it's far closer to progressive rock than the west-coast country rock sound, and b) it never occurred to me that a 80s British sci-fi show would feature the music of such a band.

Here's a the version used in the recent film adaptation:

Finally there's The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie. I was a huge Muppets fan as a kid – watching it on a Sunday evening was as much of a ritual as watching Dr Who on weeknights.

Here it is:

Since then there've been a few songs here and there that I've noticed with that delightful plunking² sound in there somewhere – and the occasional song where it's the primary instrument, like on of my all-time favourites, Falling Aeroplanes, by Darren Hanlon. US Folk/pop/progressive artist Sufjan Stephens featured banjo on many of the songs on Illinois; UK act Travis used one in Sing, the first single from their album The Invisible Band; and the aforementioned Mumford & Sons (unsurprisingly, given they're a folk-rock band) include banjo on every song on their acclaimed debut album Sigh No More.

So yeah, I notice songs with banjo in them, though I'm sure I've missed a few.

Yes, that's a picture of me with a banjo. I'm not playing it because a) it was out of tune, and b) I've no idea how, beyond picking out what I think are notes; it was a prop in the Burnside Players production of By Jeeves³, for which I was the production manager. I just couldn't help but pick it up and annoy the cast and crew with it at any point where I wasn't otherwise doing something.

Anyway, given my fondness for the instrument, I'm rather hoping it's going to keep being used in popular music as well as in folk and country and bluegrass and everywhere else it shows up.

¹It was also used in the radio series, but I didn't hear that until many years later.
²For want of a better word.
³It's a great show, a little-known Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourne collaboration based on the Jeeves and Wooster stories by PG Wodehouse. Ours was actually the Australian premiere.