Welcome to the first round of State Songs, The A.V. Club's new video series. The idea here is to match up three things from one state: a performer, a song, and a location. For this first group of videos, we chose the massive state of Texas (and found a fortuitous sponsor, Texas Tourism), and four incredible artists agreed to participate. First up is Sam Beam, a.k.a. Iron & Wine. Though he was raised in South Carolina, Beam now lives with his family outside of Austin. As for a Texas song, he already had an original in hand that fit the bill perfectly: It's called "Waves Of Galveston," and not only is it gorgeous, it's also not going to be on the new Iron & Wine album. (That's called Ghost On Ghost, and it'll be out April 16.) Beam performed the song for us at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas, a historic roadhouse that hosted pretty much every major name in Texas music, from Willie Nelson on down. We'll have four Texas videos, premiering every Thursday starting… now! Enjoy. Oh, and check back in early April—we'll be announcing a contest whose winner will get a trip to Texas, with travel plans supplied by The A.V. Club.
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