The Song Stuck in my head: The Civil Wars’s “20 Years”

I was never a Grey’s Anatomy fan but I do pay attention to (and have always been impressed with) their use of perfectly placed songs music during montages. In 2009, I just happened to stumble across the end music montage at the end of one of their sixth-season episodes. The song, “Poison and Wine” by The Civil Wars, was then stuck in my head and I rushed to my laptop to download it on iTunes. Coincidentally, the duo of Joy Williams and John Paul White were loading the video onto iTunes and it was almost to the second that the video finished uploading as the last note of their song played on that Grey’s Anatomy episode. The song was subsequently exposed to the national audience and the newly uploaded song debuted at #4 on iTunes Singer/Songwriter chart.

The song “Poison and Wine” was a recent upload to iTunes (they actually loaded it to iTunes after learning that the song would be used on the episode of the show 4 days before the episode aired) at that time because the song had previously only been available as a download from their website on a recording entitled Live at Eddie’s Attic. They toured like madmen and in 2011 the duo released their first studio album, Barton Hollow; and it was the #1 most downloaded album on iTunes, was the #1 Folk album according to Billboard chart, was the #2 album on the Rock Billboard chart and was #10 on the Billboard Top 200. The album was skyrocketing in popularity and one specific song struck my ears. As they toured with Adele and wrote songs with one of their fans, Taylor Swift, I was listening to the album in rotation with a couple others.

Now springboard 7 years and 11 months, the BBC article in which they referred to the album as “a timeless, anachronistic record” rings true. The song “20 Years” from that Barton Hollow album has been on repeat for about the past two weeks. It’s what is stuck in my head and I suggest you take a listen.

Featured Image: 

The Civil Wars in 2012 attributed to Phil King – Image on FlickrUploaded by UAwiki, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25311372