Lafayette: The Sound Track

You know how in a movie there's usually a soundtrack, right?

And you can love the soundtrack and even buy the soundtrack, but you know, of course, that soundtracks don't exist in real life. Because that's only in the movies.

Except in and around Lafayette. Here, there really is a soundtrack





The soundtrack envelops me whenever I get into the car and comes by way of a local station such as KRVS - Radio Acadie. (An in-house KRVS concert video above, featuring one of my favorite zydeco musicians, Corey Ledet, on the accordion.)

Cajun and creole, la la, zydeco, swamp pop.

Picture it. Driving down a shaded street over which live oak limbs stretch, and in the spring, as it is now, azalea bushes at their peak of splashy color.

Passing shops with delectables by Poupart Bakery, T-Coon's, Chris' Po-boy, Jolie's Bistro

Crawfish signs, signs for boudin and cracklin's.

Deep-porched, steep-pitched bungalows sitting atop cement blocks .... drawbridges

... and on the radio you hear English and French, and songs old and new that have you tapping the steering wheel to the beat of a waltz, a two-step, a jig, or the zydeco eight-count.

A real-life soundtrack.