Lennie Gallant

Which Way Does the River Run

There is a quiet magic to early mornings, that brief window before the day demands your attention and your mind is free to drift. Listening to Lennie Gallant’s ‘Which Way Does the River Run’ on a slow morning or a long coastal drive hits you in a place that’s hard to put into words.

Lennie Gallant’s music was the soundtrack to my early twenties. Back then, I was waitressing in Lunenburg, and his songs seemed to find me at all the quieter moments. I’d listen late at night after the restaurant had emptied and the hustle and bustle had settled down. I’d put his music on again in the early morning while rolling silverware before my shift started. Looking back, those songs are tied to a particular time in my life, one filled with long days, big dreams, uncertainty, and the feeling that anything was possible.

On the surface, it’s a story about two people meeting for the first time, driving down open stretches of highway with nowhere they strictly have to be. Making love on a hardwood floor in Gaspé Bay, watching the sun go down, watching the needle hover over an empty gas tank, it paints these vivid, cinematic pictures of what it feels like to be young, untethered, and a little bit lost.

But the real magic of the song is the question in the chorus: Which way does the river run through this town? Which way does the wind blow when the sun goes down?

It’s not really about geography. It’s about that feeling of longing to know where you belong when the world feels overwhelmingly big and fast. It captures that moment in life when you didn't have everything figured out, when you were just riding out the storms, holding onto the person next to you, and trusting that the road would lead somewhere good.

We spend so much of our adult lives trying to steer the ship, map out every step, and control where we’re going. But listening to a song like this reminds you that some of the best moments of your life happened when you were just letting the current take you.

Sometimes you don't need all the answers. Sometimes you just need a good song, a quiet room, and the memory of how beautiful it felt to just be along for the ride.

Other listens: Lennie Gallant “Meet Me At the Oasis,” “Peter’s Dream,” “Pieces of You,” and “Sequoia.”