Assonet is one of two villages in the town of Freetown, Massachusetts in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. An original part of the town, Assonet was settled in 1659 along with the city of Fall River, then a part of Freetown. It rests on the banks of the Assonet River. As of the 2000 census, the village had a total population of 4,084; up from 3,614 in 1990. As of the 2014 census the village had a total estimated population of 9,093 (from www.census.gov).

History

Assonet was first settled in 1659, shortly after the completion of Ye Freemen's Purchase. It was part of the Plymouth Colony until the 1691 merger with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The word comes from the local Wampanoag Indians, who had a settlement in the area, and has two meanings: "place of rocks" and "song of praise." Those meanings are traditional, but the former can be segmented as:

where hassun or assin, which is a word used by southern New England Algonquian, means "stone". The -et is a locative suffix: "at the place of the stone". As the region is mainly a tidal marsh, the stone referenced is most likely Dighton Rock in the Taunton River next to Assonet Neck. The entire region was sold to the English in 1659 by the Wampanoags, but, due to the Algonquian mobile way of life and the splitting and recombining of social units, the Nipmucs may have been subject to or at the time part of the Wampanoags.

Massachusetts ⁱ/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsᵻts/, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, Vermont and New Hampshire to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Massachusetts is the 7th smallest state by land area, but the 15th most populous and the 3rd most densely populated of the 50 states. With an estimated 6.8 million residents in 2015, it is the most populous of the six New England states and has the nation's sixth highest GDP per capita. The capital of Massachusetts, as well as the state's largest city, is Boston. The state features four separate metropolitan statistical areas: the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan area in the east, the Worcester metropolitan area in the center, the Springfield metropolitan area in the west, and the Barnstable metropolitan area in the southeast. Over 80% of Massachusetts' population currently lives in the Greater Boston Combined Statistical Area.

"Massachusetts" is a song by the Bee Gees, released in 1967. Written by Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb. Robin Gibb sang lead vocals on this song and it would become one of his staple songs to perform during concerts on both Bee Gees and his solo concerts. It later appeared on their 1968 album, Horizontal.

It was their first No. 1 hit in Australia and the UK and eventually became one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over five million copies worldwide. When the brothers wrote the song, they had never been to Massachusetts. In a UK television special on ITV in December 2011, it was voted third (behind "How Deep Is Your Love" and "You Win Again") in "The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song".

Writing and inspiration

The song was written in the Regis Hotel, New York City during a tour of the United States. The song was intended as an antithesis to flower power anthems of the time such as "Let's Go to San Francisco" and "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" in that the protagonist had been to San Francisco to join the hippies but was now homesick. The idea of the lights having gone out in Massachusetts was to suggest that everyone had gone to San Francisco.

This Is How the Wind Shifts is the seventh studio album by Canadian post-hardcore band Silverstein, released on February 5, 2013 through Hopeless Records.

It is the first album to not feature long time lead guitarist Neil Boshart and first to include new guitarist Paul-Marc Rousseau.

Background and recording

Silverstein announced they had signed with Hopeless on November 15, 2010. Vocalist Shane Told said the band have been "huge fans of the label since their inception". Hopeless released the band's Rescue (2011) album in April 2011 and Short Songs (2012) album in February 2012. In mid-to-late August, the band went on the Short Songs, Short Tour; the last tour they would go on before starting to work on a new album. In late September, the band announced that guitarist Neil Boshart hasn't been in the band for the preceding month and was replaced by Paul Marc Rousseau, who has previously worked for the band.This Is How the Wind Shifts was recorded at Sundown Studios in Guelph, Ontario, Canada with producer Jordan Valeriote. Valeriote also engineered and mixed the album. It was mastered by Troy Glessener at Spectre Mastering.