Published in the Quad-City Times on Aug. 2, 2024

JW Francis doesn’t have an address. 

Some weeks, he lives in his home state of Oklahoma at his grandma’s house in Sapulpa. That’s the town of around 20,000 where Daisy Edgar-Jones’ fictional “Twisters” character grew up — big news in the local papers, Francis says.

Other weeks, the 30-year-old indie rock songwriter lives with his parents in France, where they relocated when he was a teen. 

Occasionally, he’s back in New York, where he called Brooklyn home for eight years and started as a prolific, jangly rock musician working simultaneously in the Columbia University economics department.

The classroom looks a lot different than Francis’ home last year: the 2,100 miles of mountains between Georgia and Maine, where he completed the Appalachian Trail. There, he was given his nickname “Sunshine” by pals on the road. It’ll be the title for his album about the experience coming out in October.

For a few days this week, though, JW Francis’ home was in the Quad-Cities.

The self-proclaimed adventure junkie is on his latest kick: a roughly three-month canoe trek from the north end of the Mississippi River to the south. Minnesota to Louisiana, moving somewhere between 20 and 45 miles per day. 

“I just felt the call of the river,” he said. “I wanted to think like a river.” 

Francis has been on the river since July 1, and expects to wrap up in mid-September. 

The plan to become one with the Mississippi is working, he said, while nursing a can of Old Style at Lopiez Pizza in Davenport after docking at Veterans Memorial Park on Wednesday.

“I think in river metaphors,” Francis said through a wide grin, his red beard resting in his palm and his blonde hair spilling out of his blonder bucket hat. 

He recalls the story of when he got lost on his second day of the trip, because he trusted the way the wind blew the top of the water, instead of the way the current blew the river foliage under the surface. 

“I needed to look underneath to see where the current was actually going,” he said. “So immediately, my metaphor brain is like, ‘Oh, such a beautiful metaphor!’”

It’s hard to keep track of all these new realizations, so Francis journals every day with exact specifics. It’s perfect inspiration for a songwriter as productive as he is — Francis has released four full-length albums since 2020.

He hopes to make an album about this trip eventually. He likes the hypothetical title “Magic River.” 

Francis’ biggest lessons have been more intrapersonal than introspective. In southern Minnesota, he met the Bromenschenkels, a couple he found on a Facebook group called Mississippi River Angels. The group is full of folks who live along the river and are eager to help adventurers like Francis.

The couple gave him a beer, a hot meal and a shower — his first in seven days, at the time. Most importantly, they gave him company. 

“The first few days, I didn’t see a single human face,” he said. 

In LeClaire on Tuesday morning, disaster struck when a gust of wind turned Francis’ canoe sideways. He frantically paddled toward shore to avoid capsizing. An 85-year-old man named Mike called to him from the banks and warned him of the incoming storm.

The two sat through it together. Mike shared stories about his great grandfather’s Civil War service. He showed off his 1940’s pickup truck. Francis said he even gave him two pairs of wool socks. An imperfect material for staying waterproof, but a perfect gesture. River magic.

“He had all this cool stuff that he really wanted to show somebody,” Francis said. “I was happy to be that somebody.” 

Weeks before this trip, Francis had never been in a canoe before. He went through a quick training course to get up to speed. Prior to taking on the Appalachian Trail, he had no clue how to set up a tent.

The singer-adventurer likes to take things head first. 

“You only get one chance to live, so you might as well carpe all the diems,” he joked from his seat at Lopiez, before letting out an earned belly laugh. A laugh you’d expect from someone minutes removed from a greasy slice, and a day removed from nearly toppling in the nation’s largest river. 

So how does this trip work logistically?

Francis’ canoe — which he named Boaty — is holding two bags. One of them has the sleep essentials: a tent, a mattress pad, an inflatable pillow and a sleeping bag. He spends his nights on sand bars and campsites, where he has a love-hate relationship with the solitude. 

The other bag is the hub for dining and recreation: a WindBurner stove, Ramen, fruit snacks, protein bars, oatmeal, instant mashed potatoes, a journal, a guitar and five books. 

His river library includes a collection of Oscar Wilde’s fables, fodder to inspire Francis’ next head-first goal of writing his own book of fairy tales.

There’s also a used, almost certainly self-published diary he picked up in a bookstore in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It’s written by a then-25-year-old man who made the same Mississippi River trek in 1999. Francis is moving at the same pace, reading along each day from the same locations. 

“I haven’t looked him up,” Francis said. “I’m kind of waiting ’till the end, because at the end I want to look him up and write him a letter.”

Francis is likely to find more friends along the route. He’s been making videos about the trip that his team posts on social media, and it’s attracted quite a bit of attention. The reception has been mostly positive, but there are a few TikTok conspiracy theorists convinced Francis isn’t actually pulling it off. 

“They think I’m, like, a deepfake or something,” he laughed at the Lopiez bar, with local music promoter Sean Moeller. Francis appeared at Moeller’s venue the Raccoon Motel to play a few songs on Wednesday. 

It’s the music career that allows Francis the freedom to chase these dreams, he said, something he’s grateful for.

Francis insists that leaving home and living nomadically is easier than many people may think. He doesn’t miss his stash of belongings, sitting in a storage locker somewhere from before he decided to drop the address. 

Francis grew up playing video games like RuneScape and Legend of Zelda, and venturing into these new cities and skillsets feels like “unlocking new maps,” he said. 

“Every body of water now is open to me — I can explore it, because I’ve now added canoes, and that’s a wonderful feeling,” he said. “And now, I’m good in like 40 of the 50 states. It’s a big web of friends.”

“Anybody could be a friend.” 

Francis is planning to schedule more performances along the river.

Currently, he just has one confirmed: a wedding, at the request of two St. Louis area fans who participated in Francis’ yearly tradition of accepting commissions for customized Valentine’s Day love songs.

This year, he wrote 130. He’ll perform one of them at the wedding. He’s also going to be the officiant. Add that to the list: songwriter, French-Oklahoman, hiker, gamer, author of fables, adventurer, audacious canoer, ordained minister.

JW Francis doesn’t have an address. But he has quite the resumé. And a whole lot of friends.