Washington Post assigns each state a new state song, ‘and I feel fine’ about Maine’s

Back in November, men’s lifestyle website thrillist.com issued what it called the best song for every state, an effort that unimaginatively lunged for the most recent popular song that uttered the word “Maine” and moved on to the next state in its pile.

(We were awarded the ditty “Portland, Maine,” released a couple months earlier by country star Tim McGraw and by the time of thrillist.com’s ranking, already analyzed from every angle by local marketers, media outlets and even performers.)

R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe (Reuters photo)

R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe (Reuters photo)

Today, the Washington Post tried its hand at a similar exercise, but with a slightly more scientific approach. The Post was motivated to look at official state songs after news that Virginia began looking for a new such song to replace its previous — and apparently racist — 1878 state song “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.”

So the Post declared that “every state needs a new state song” and went about trying to assign them.

The Post used EchoNest, described by the newspaper’s blogger as “a technology company that provides algorithms to well-known music sites.” EchoNest can tell what musical performer people from each state are listening to moreso than the national average based on things like music downloads and streams and the like.

With each state’s most distinctly favored band identified, the Post picked a song by that artist to serve as the “new” state song. Got it?

We know from having posted in this very space about Mainers’ music streaming habits that, at least by EchoNest’s metrics, R.E.M. is our most distinct listening pleasure.

So which R.E.M. song did the Washington Post pick to serve as our new state anthem?

If you’re curious, the video posted at the top of this clip is the current state song, which the Post thinks should be replaced. The Post doesn’t say what the “end of the world” has to do with Maine, but perhaps it’s because our state is the end of the line heading north before hitting Canada.

Recent data from the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and the Pew Research Center found that Maine has fewer residents who claim a religious affiliation than any other state, as well as the lowest percentage of residents who pray, so perhaps the more appropriate R.E.M. song would have been “Losing My Religion.”

According to the Post piece, New Hampshire should toss it’s tried and true song “Old New Hampshire” and replace it with the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’,” while Massachusetts should dump “All Hail to Massachusetts” and go instead with the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.”

Click here to cycle through all of the states’ current and suggested state songs.