By Bella Butler EBS STAFF
Montana embraces stillness better than just about anywhere. Even with droves of people filling its empty pockets, the state holds space for a rare and valuable peace that the American pace of life often robs us of. It’s one of the reasons we come here—to breathe. As winter arrives on the mountaintops and drips into the valleys, there’s a certain frigid magic that occurs across Montana’s prairie lands. A cold wind blows dry snow through the native grasses, stripping them of their lingering, stubborn offspring. The wind exhales a soft whistle, audible only in the placidity of this landscape. It’s a scene that captures Montana’s most compelling contradictions: gentle beauty and grit, grace and toil, intimacy and distance.
For this Big Sky Beats, we bring you a playlist that we hope captures the essence of this scene. Inhale, exhale and enjoy. Start listening here.
- “I’ll Be Here in the Morning” by Townes Van Zandt
- “Howl” by the Bones of J.R. Jones
- “Graceland” by Justin Townes Earle
- “The Stable Song” by Gregory Alan Isakov
- “I’ll Fly Away” by Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss
- “White Clovers” by Wind and the Willows
- “Lean In” by Rising Appalachia
- “After All is Said and Done” by Junip
