by Carrie Brownstein

This past weekend, I recorded a musical project with some friends. I was asked to write theme music to a short film that will be released in conjunction with an upcoming book titled State by State. The book is inspired by the WPA and subsequent Federal Writers' Project, which commissioned our country's best writers at the time to document the details — topographical, cultural and historical — of each state. State by State is one book instead of 50, and it contains essays by contemporary writers, each offering his or her own take on one state in the nation. (Full disclosure: I wrote the essay for Washington state.)

This was the assignment: "This generation of writers is a descendent of Bellow and Terkel and Richard Wright... Well, same idea, but with music."

Here, then, is the problem. Normally, I wouldn't play guitar for an hour and wonder whether it sounded like a Sinclair Lewis novel — like Main Street, for instance. And if I want to make adjustments in the song, I wouldn't say to myself, "Make it more like Cather's The Song of the Lark." I've written music and lyrics based on novels, but I've never tried to make rhythms, melodies or intentions parrot that of a writer.

Needless to say, it was a challenge. Using the vocabulary of one medium to inform another can be interesting, but it can also enervate or confuse the essential quality of either one. When you read record reviews that conjure Bukowski or Algren, do you feel smart, or merely embarrassed? And if a book review ended with the words, "It RAWKS!"... well, let's just say that might not be a compliment.

Another conundrum with writing the theme song was ascertaining what, exactly, constitutes the sound of America. If one of the points of the book is that each state still possesses unique and esoteric qualities — thus far immune to dilution as caused by transportation, technology and globalization — then what kind of musical piece sums up both the parts and the whole of this country?

When I think of American music, I don't think of Americana. I think of rebellion, even if couched in beauty or a whisper. I think of friction, elation and clawing one's way toward contentment, at least momentarily. I think of Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey, the MC5, the Stooges and the Ramones. I think of Black Flag, Wilco, TV on the Radio and Screaming Trees. Camper Van Beethoven, Sam Cooke, Minor Threat and Patti Smith. None of the music soothes without first conjuring grit, mess, sorrow and contradiction. It's not sterile; it's infectious.

Yet is French or Icelandic, Brazilian or Canadian music also this way? Is it possible for music, for writing, for art to still be married to a continent, to a country? And what is it about pop music, those huge dance hits that march their way across borders while other songs and genres remain more geographically isolated? What bands or artists feel tied to a certain part of the world?

All I know is that, when trying to sonically capture America, I kept thinking of a British band called Led Zeppelin.