Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “Valley Clouds” by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop:

Another highlight of this summer’s End of the Road Festival was Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop.  They played as a duo on The Garden Stage, and played a wonderful set of beautiful and interesting songs, including the material they’ve recorded together, Iron and Wine songs, and some well-chosen cover versions (a reworking of “Islands in the Stream” was a particular highlight).  During their set, two parrots flew over and crapped on the crowd; they worked it into the song they were performing without missing a beat.  Either that or they’ve spent as much time training parrots as they have on their songcraft.