The small town of Baudette, Minnesota, sits on the U.S./Canadian border, about as far north in the contiguous U.S. as you can get.  Famous for snowy winters and a giant concrete walleye that sits downtown, it's also home to a now-decommissioned Coast Guard navigational beacon, a LORAN tower built to guide people across and around the Great Lakes.

The Tower is a Baudette landmark, rising hundreds of feet above the bog that surrounds town and signaling to drivers that they're almost home.  But recently, it marked the sudden end of another traveller's journey. In the latest installment of their Song+Stories series, in which musicians contribute original songs that contribute to the narrative, Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister worked with the band Mountain Man.  Together, they share this tale of avian navigation gone wrong.   

Produced in 2011.

The Tower (compilation, with song)

Song+Stories is a Long Haul original – a project born of our own frustration with much of public radio these days.

Each story is a total experiment in collaborative storytelling, that blends carefully-crafted documentary tape with original songs written as an integral part of the story’s narrative. In each piece, a musician chosen for his/her unique perspective helps shape the narrative by contributing to it in song. 

The result is a unique amalgam of journalism and art: stories that lyricize the voices of regular Americans through Long Haul’s award-winning reporting and production, and the words and music of some of the nation’s most creative and thoughtful songwriters.  

Song+Stories

(Produced in 2006; description from the original broadcast.)

For the past 60 years, people in northwest Tennessee have tuned each weekday at noon to a radio program on WENK/WTPR called The Swap Shop. For twenty minutes, listeners call or write offering to buy, sell or trade an item or a service in a radio version of the classified ads, things which range from a piece of used plywood, to a green cloth Berkline recliner, to a ten-acre farm. Long Haul sent Nashville-based musician Kurt Wagner (of the great band Lambchop) some program excerpts; he responded with a song, Paperback Bible.

The Swap Shop (compilation with song)

The Tower

Written and performed by the band Mountain Man for "The Tower," a Long Haul Song+Story, in 2011.

Vision (by Mountain Man)

Since the 1930s, delighted throngs have gathered just outside Linesville, Pennsylvania, to toss bread to a writhing stew of carp and ducks at the Linesville Spillway. The carp are so thick that mallard ducks literally hop, skip and jump on the fishes' backs to compete for a slice of bread.  Famous worldwide as the place “where ducks walk on the fish,” the Spillway draws as many as a half-million tourists a year, part of a small but critical tourism economy bolstered by the sale of day-old Wonder Bread from bread shanties that line local streets.

But recently, the people of Linesville learned about some big changes planned for the spillway.  Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister paid a visit and, in collaboration with musician Tim Fite, have the fishy tale of the fight for the right to throw bread - the latest in their Song+Story series.

(Produced in 2008; description from the original broadcast.)


Loaves and Fishes

Written by Tim Fite in 2008 for Loaves and Fishes, a Long Haul "Song+Story."

Bread In the Water (by Tim Fite)

For the past 60 years, people in northwest Tennessee have tuned each weekday at noon to a radio program on WENK/WTPR called The Swap Shop. For twenty minutes, listeners call or write offering to buy, sell or trade an item or a service in a radio version of the classified ads, things which range from a piece of used plywood, to a green cloth Berkline recliner, to a ten-acre farm. Long Haul sent Nashville-based musician Kurt Wagner (of the great band Lambchop) some program excerpts; he responded with a song, Paperback Bible.

(Produced in 2006; description from the original broadcast.)

The Swap Shop

Kurt Wagner wrote this song, "Paperback Bible" as part of his 2006 collaboration with Long Haul Productions on "Swap Shop," a Song+Story documentary.  Paperback Bible is performed here by Wagner's great band, Lambchop.

Paperback Bible (by Lambchop)

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker was thought to be extinct – until recently, when a bird was allegedly spotted near the small town of Brinkley, Arkansas. The sightings were big news in a community depressed by recession and population loss. Our story weaves the locals' reaction with an original song written and performed by musician Sufjan Stevens. 

Winner of the Sigma Delta Chi award for best national radio feature.  The description is from the original broadcast.


The Lord God Bird

Sufjan Stevens wrote "The Great God Bird" as part of his 2005 collaboration with Long Haul Productions on "The Lord God Bird," a Song+Story documentary.  

The Great God Bird (by Sufjan Stevens)

Audio documentaries and stories hand-crafted by award winners Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister.