Library lovers and staff alike find inspiration in the stacks of the Kansas City Public Library. They know that a good reader can do just about anything, go anywhere, and engage with writers and ideas that span the ages.

One staff member at Central Library, Nash High, is sufficiently in tune with the books to have written a Library-centric song a few years ago – the kind to sing around the house for fun.

But it was a variety of fun that wouldn’t stay hidden.

The song is called “Old Town Library” and has a definite country and western vibe, a departure from High’s typical work, which they describe as “light, tinny folk music.” It’s also now one of many hundreds submitted in videos to NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest.

High filmed in front of Central’s circulation desk; the presence of a desk is one of the few stipulations of entry.



“Well,” the song goes, “you won't find me in the uptown bars/With their grapefruit drinks and their baseball stars/Nor them salons with their hairdo magazines.” No, you’ll find this cowpoke “down at the old town library.”

High has been with the Library for six years and works in technical services. Six years ago was also about the time they entered their first Tiny Desk Contest.

“In other years, I basically just played a song. This year is kind of like, well, it would be really funny to do a whole thing,” High says.

“A whole thing” meant rounding up some friends to form what quickly became Nash and the Ramblers. Drummer Mark Coulter has played with High in their band Tiny Escalators. Fiddler Alison Hawkins and bassist Carly Atwood play with True Lions and have also entered the Tiny Desk Contest. Each group’s albums are available where you stream music.



The “Old Town Library” video opens with footage of High, dressed in black and wearing a cowboy hat, exiting the parking garage through the Library’s Community Bookshelf. They descend the concrete, book-shaped steps and ramble past The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Plato’s Republic.

In the Central Library across the street, High arrives at the circulation desk in stately Kirk Hall, as similarly clad bandmates are tuning up in front of a reproduction of George Caleb Bingham’s oil painting “Martial Law or Order No. 11.” Bingham’s image dramatizes a Union Army decree that forced residents of rural western Missouri from their homes shortly after the Lawrence Massacre – not exactly the realm of cowboys, but a scene suggesting the Wild West, nonetheless.

After a quick tip of the hat, High straps on a guitar, strums the strings once, and begins.

The music builds from library-quiet to a raucous gallop of drums and even a little cowbell. Halfway through, the Library’s Lindsey Foat, who acted as videographer, captures a spinning shot of one of the three chandeliers. The rotation calls to mind a wagon wheel.
Kirk Hall’s grandeur lends itself surprisingly well to cowboy music.

As the singer offers a lamentation about “this gal” who may be out of reach because she not only reads “lit’rature” but “them plays and poetries,” Foat pans the camera to shots of High selecting and checking out a pile of books. “Maybe Plato can make me wise,” they twang.
“It’s fun and all the entries are posted online. So, it’s also a good way to share music, even for everyone who doesn’t end up winning,” High says. 

NPR’s winner will be announced on its website soon and play a Tiny Desk concert at NPR’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The individual or group will also appear on All Things Considered and tour with NPR Music.

As Nash and the Ramblers sing…

Read, watch, and listen along with "Old Town Library." Nash created this list of library resources related to lyrics of the song.