As a wise man once said, "It's all the same; only the names have changed."

The other night I was at a bar Ma'am, you'll have to be more specific and I heard a song that filled me with such immense joy that I smiled for the first time in a week and knew I needed to get a copy of it.

The tune in question is Wagon Wheel, by Old Crow Medicine Show. What was it about this song? I wondered as I listened to it ad infinitum all weekend. Couldn't put my finger on its je ne sais quoi.

In terms of craftsmanship, it's a bit common.* Was it the fiddle? I like me some fiddle. I thought about the chords. G D Em C. Pretty mundane. Hm.

So it turns out that the chords to Wagon Wheel are identical to Son Volt's Windfall, another song that, when I first heard it, rocked my world. It was all rather Pavlovian.

I am disappointed by how predictable (and easily triggered) the nostalgia button in my subconscious is. Since my discovery, I've been going through my favorite songs trying to determine how many of them are also composed of the magic G-D-Em-C progression. It turns out that number is 379.

*Interesting sidenote: It was originally written by Dylan, but never finished.