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Something must have gone weirdly wrong with my education at some point.  I am British - English, to be specific.  I ought to know more about my own country than I do about America.  On a six-city tour of the US, however, I find that the opposite's true, particularly when it comes to geography.  I have had many opportunities to peruse the United Airlines magazine, with its double-page map of the States, and I find I know all sorts of interesting facts about this country I'm visiting, without having realised I knew them.  How do I know these facts?  Well, it's mainly a result of having been a country music fan for as long as I can remember.
 
For example, looking at South Carolina on my map (which I have now torn out of the United Airlines magazine), it occurs to me that there are many tall pines there - I know this because of Gram Parsons' Hickory Wind.  There is also at least one oak tree in South Carolina, because Gram used to climb it.  And that's not all I know about the distribution of American trees.  Thanks to Dwight Yoakam, I know that the dogwood trees grow south of Cincinnati.  And in Talk to me of Mendocino, Kate and Anna McGarrigle point out that the trees grow high in New York State, and shine like golden autumn.  

Trees aren't all I know about, in case you were wondering.  I also know there are wild skies in Montana (John Denver) and green rolling hills in West Virginia (Emmylou Harris).  I've picked up a few facts about the sizes of places - courtesy of Tammy Wynette, I know that Jackson ain't a very big town.  That's Jackson, Mississippi, presumably.  I can't find another Jackson, at least not one marked with a black dot, or a black dot filled in with red.  If there's another Jackson somewhere else in the States, it obviously isn't served by United, United Express, Star Alliance or its partner Code Share.
 
I'm more interested in people than in physical geography, however - always have been.  Or rather, I am mainly interested in physical landscapes insofar as they relate to people.  Looking at my map, I can see exactly how far Vic Mackey from The Shield would have to travel in order to visit Jimmy McNulty from The Wire - quite a long way.  No wonder they never got together to discuss their particularly tough cases.  I can see all the places Tammy Wynette went in her attempts to follow George Jones' elusive dreams and schemes - Utah, Alaska, Nebraska, Alabama.  Poor old Tammy - she must have had to take off her shoes at a fair few airports.  I wonder if, like me, she learned after a while (after my second US book tour) to wear slip-on sandals when travelling.  My trusty map shows me exactly how far Emmylou Harris would have to walk if she really did try the Boulder to Birmingham slog she keeps telling me she'd happily undertake.  I can look at where Bob Dylan was when he was stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues, but I can't find Luchenbach, Texas, where Waylon Jennings keeps inviting me to go - obviously United Airlines and the gang don't have a presence there, which kind of proves Waylon's point, I feel: out in Luchenbach, Texas, ain't nobody feeling no pain as a result of having sat in a cramped aeroplane seat for far too long.  Looking at the distance between New Orleans and Memphis, I think about poor old Beaufort Wilson (from What's Your Momma's Name? by Tanya Tucker) making that journey, hoping to find his lost love, and sigh wistfully.  I sigh again, rather more bitterly, when I spot Massachussets in the top right hand corner of my map, and think of Reba MacEntire's wayward husband, from Whoever's in New England - he does, after all, spend an awful lot of time in Massachussets.  I groan as my taxi from Kansas City airport to Lawrence, Kansas, takes me past a sign to Topeka - where the screen doors are banging, the faucet is a-dripping and the wash needs a-hanging, one wants a cookie and one wants a-changing, and one's on the way (Loretta Lynn).  Thanks to Loretta, I am not keen to go to Topeka - sounds like there are way too many small children there.  I grit my teeth angrily when I see Boston, Denver and LA - all miles away from each other - and think of that man from Tennessee (Please Come to Boston) demanding that Joan Baez fly all over the place to fit in with his regional/seasonal whims.  How many times can you expect a person - even a person who's in love - to put all her liquids and gels into a transparent plastic bag, for goodness sake?  And as for Guy Clarke - he must be the most geographically conflicted man in country music.  First he wants to get off the LA freeway without getting killed or caught, be down the road in a cloud of smoke etc...  Fair enough, but then once he's got him some dirt road back street - in Nashville, I assume, since that's where he's lived for much of his life - Texas starts rolling through his mind, even while he's saying he loves to be in Tennessee.  But then, if that Texas cookin' really is something, maybe it's understandable.
 
A weird thing that's happening to me on this tour, probably because the United Airlines map has made me think of all my favourite songs, is that a lot of those songs now, weirdly, seem to apply to me in a way that they didn't before.  For example, you know the song from the musical Oklahoma! that starts, 'I got to Kansas City on a Friday'?  Well, I did.  No, I really did.  By Saturday, I hadn't 'larned' much, however, other than that drinking too many cocktails is a bad idea, however nice they taste.  When I turned up at Kansas City airport the following morning and heard that my flight to Phoenix had been cancelled, I thought, 'By the time I get to Phoenix...I'll have missed my ****ing event!'  It must have been the way I sang it to the girl at the departure gate that persuaded her to put me on another flight, quickly.  In Denver, I had a bit of a problem: I ordered myself a glass of California wine in my hotel room, so I was with Nanci Griffith at least part of the way: 'Here I am in Denver, sipping the California wine'.  The next two lines of the chorus posed a problem, however: 'I've got all night to remember you, I'm in a Lone Star state of mind.'  Hm...  I don't know anyone in Texas, not really - well, I know David and McKenna who run Murder by the Book, a specialist mystery bookshop.  Maybe I could remember them all night...on the other hand, that might be a bit odd, since, lovely though they are, I'm not in love with them.  Oh well.
 
And now I'm in New York.  Welcome to the place dreams are made of, there's nothing I can't do (Jay-Z, Alicia Keyes).  Except have breakfast, because I've been writing this for too long in my hotel's Business Centre, and I've missed the 10 am deadline.  Damn!