Of all of America’s great cities, few are more lively than New Orleans! With a name like “The Big Easy”, it’s no surprise that music and partying is an integral part of the culture.
The nickname is originally believed to have been chosen to try and contrast “The Big Apple”, New York.
New Yorkers have the reputation of constantly running around on top of being the “city that never sleeps”. New Orleans is known for the opposite! You go to New Orleans to relax, party, and have some fun in some of its historic areas.
“While many theories abound, one of the more popular hypotheses can be traced back to a newspaper column. “In the 1960s, New Orleans gossip columnist Betty Guillaud allegedly coined the moniker while comparing ‘the Big Easy’ to ‘the Big Apple,'” Reader’s Digest writer Juliana Labianca writes. While New Yorkers were perpetually running around, laid-back life in New Orleans reigned, hence, The Big Easy.” – Southern Living
One of the essential elements of New Orleans is the music scene!
Street performers to New Orleans are like bees to honey. You can’t have one without the other! On the famous (or maybe infamous) Bourbon Street, you can almost always find a group or individual musician making a living playing music. Or, if not making a living, just having fun doing what they love!
Many of the street performers play in the French Quarter section of the city, but one performer, in particular, makes his rounds everywhere!
With a culture so steeped in music, it’s no wonder that the city has developed its own special elements that can’t be found anywhere else. One of the funniest (and most relevant for animal lovers like us) is the dancing horses! In many places of the world, loud music attracts cops in a bad way. In New Orleans, they show up looking to party with everyone else!
One video shows just how much the police love to party.
In one of many videos, we get to see a horse-mounted police officer walking around the streets, making sure everything is operating as it should be. What’s different about this horse is that it can dance! We see it leaving a bar and grooving to some music – a truly incredible sight.
As the horse and officer leave the bar, we can see and hear a live jazz band killing it inside.
When the horse leaves the bar, however, he isn’t done partying! Swaying from side to side to the beat, you know he has some suave groove. As a man plays a washboard strapped to his chest, the horse skips back and forth like a professional dancer – he might just be showing off!
This is a regular part of the nightlife here and it’s pretty incredible!
Imagine walking down the street and seeing jazz performers playing along with a horse dancing. Now THAT’S Big Easy.
We happened upon this police horse going into a bar to spark the music so it could dance in the streets.
Check out the video of the horse below!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
