Welcome to Night Vale Is a Gateway to Queer Country Music

Elizabeth Davis is a second generation writer living in Dayton, Ohio. They live there with their spouse and two cats - neither of which have been lost to ravenous corn mazes or sleeping serpent gods. they can be found at deadfishbooks.com when they aren't busy creating beautiful nightmares and bizarre adventures.

Welcome to Night Vale, a small desert town where there’re lights in the sky at night and one can always trust the radio. Well, not with interns, but with the news. News of the small town, of Cecil’s family, of the Intergalactic Blood Space War and always no matter if it be Cleaning Day, a mayoral election, or an even greater disaster there, will always be The Weather. 

I doubt that Welcome to Night Vale needs an introduction – not if you've found yourself here in the year 2024. But on the off chance you are a digital archeologist reaching from the future, a magpie pecking at a lost phone, or anchorite who has finished their decade-long silent retreat from the world with a thirst for good country music, Welcome to Night Vale is a long-running podcast about the daily life of a surreal town with multiple live shows, crossovers, and strange adventures under its belt. One of its most beloved features is the Weather segment, a song from a band you have never heard of before. It's a breather during the actual episode and a source of unwise Bandcamp purchases late at night. 

But I probably need an introduction – as Danny Schmidt sings that "This Too Shall Pass." All you need to know is that I grew up on Country FM radio all during my childhood. 99.1 FM if you live/lived in my town, the one that played the Spongebob theme song every morning.  Why I grew up with this radio station is a mystery I only realized as an adult – maybe it was just the one that my mom could get my sister and I to agree on as a kid.