Even with the pandemic confining touring musicians to their homes, Caitlin Canty has had an eventful year. She narrowly missed a tornado that tore down her Nashville street and today releases “Where is the Heart of My Country” – recorded while she was eight months pregnant, wondering what kind of world she would raise her child in.
“Where is the Heart of My Country” first sparked for me as I flew home from California and spent most of the flight gazing out the window. At 30,000 feet, the rivers and roads looked like the flowing veins and arteries of our country. The patchwork of quilted farmland and tight-knit cities drove home how connected we truly are as Americans despite the fractured state of our nation.
At the time, I’d been trading off between scrolling angrily through the news and reading Woody Guthrie’s autobiography, BOUND FOR GLORY, which likely helped direct my rage and sadness into this song. I was aching over our country’s growing division, disheartened by the people stoking the flames and inspired by strong voices raised in protest. I was thinking about the many chapters of America’s past and wondering where our story goes from here.
To record this song in the early months of the pandemic,Noam Pikelnyand I set up a makeshift studio at home with borrowed gear. I was eight months pregnant when I tracked my part; standing up, guitar slung to the side, the baby monitor as a talk-back mic. I am so grateful for the beautiful contributions from the band of Brittany Haas (fiddle), Paul Kowert (bass + guitar), Noam Pikelny (banjo), and Andrew Marlin (harmony vocal). The microphones are now torn down and the room where I sang “Where is the Heart of My Country” is a nursery. I hope by the time my son is old enough to understand the refrain, its question will seem like a relic of the distant past.
Lauren Balthrop created the video with some videos Caitlin personally shot while on tour over the years and her handwritten lyrics. There’s no stock footage here, it’s just Caitlin’s view out the window, bumping along dirt roads and highways, trains, and planes.
I love traveling this country more than almost anything, continues Caitlin. Watching this video fills me with longing to hit the road again. The song itself is something I feel like singing every time I read the news. I suppose you can’t go about fixing something until you realize how it’s broken. I hope we can find a way out of this dark moment into a new day, with greater empathy for each other and true appreciation for the beautiful land that sustains us.
