"Tishomingo Blues" by Garrison Keillor
"Oh, hear that old piano from down the avenue. I smell the pine trees, I look around for you.
- lyrics from the Prairie Home Companion movie soundtrack
"Oh, hear that old piano from down the avenue.
I smell the [noun], I look around for you.
Oh my sweet, sweet old someone, coming through that door.
It's Saturday and the band is playing.
Honey, could we ask for more?"
– Tishomingo Blues
The show's theme song changed from "Hello Love" to "Tishomingo Blues" when PHC "came back" for version 2.0 in 1990. In a statement from the official website:
The show was starting back up in New York, with a big band, and "Hello, Love" is a country song, so I made a list of other possibilities, and it came down to "Tishomingo Blues" and Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA" which I liked but our music director Rob Fisher questioned whether I really wanted to sing "Well O well I feel so good today, we just touched down on an international runway, jet-propelled back to the USA" every Saturday night and he also mentioned the potential copyright problems. "Tishomingo Blues" is public domain and Chuck Berry is not and a person might want to opt for the simpler, less complicated route, so I wrote words for the middle section of "Tishomingo Blues" — "Hear that old piano from down the avenue — I smell the roses, I look around for you" — and I've been singing it to that sweet old someone coming through the door for almost 25 years now.
- Blues-blues-2 PHC/LFH Official Site
- Blues-blues-2 PHC/LFH Official Site
The 'smelled item' changes in many episodes, often being replaced with words relating to the season or city the show was aired in. Replacements include but are not limited to:
- Chili
- Onions
- Roses
- Tulips - 1997-03-29
- Lilacs
- Crocus
- Spruce trees