Lost Art: The Road Song - Page 2

Someday all we will have left of the expansive and endlessly fascinating American Road is the legend. It's fortunate, then, that some of America's finest artists have taken the trouble to immortalize it. It is with that spirit that I present this, the first installment of Lost Art, a soon-to-be-regular feature on Analog Roam. From thousands of choices, I have selected ten songs that I feel best embody the spirit of something that is slipping away from us. All the leaving and running and wide-eyed exploring that we wish we could do on modern American roads has been done for us in these songs. And while vicarious living may not be the finest sort, at least it's something.

1. Little Feat - Willin'

Two fixtures of the Road meet in this song: the trucker and the outlaw. The narrator of "Willin'" is proudly both, smuggling cigarettes and Mexicans, drinking and drugging, and getting his job done, all at the same time. It's a strange work ethic, to be sure: "If you give me weed, whites, and wine… I'll be willin' to be movin'." When he says "whites," he's not talking about sheets and underwear. That's good ol' fashioned trucker-grade speed.

Few songs so perfectly and plainly combine weariness with optimism. "I've been warped by the rain / Driven by the snow / I'm drunk and dirty, don'tcha know / And I'm still… willin'." In a way, everything you need to know about the oddly determined self-declared underdogs that occupy the better part of North America is right there in that line. There's a bit of bragging thrown in, too, for good measure: "I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari / Tehachapi to Tonopah / Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made." That's both an impressive list of places to have been, and a strange one – what are these places? They are more names than places. He's been from nowhere to nowhere, again and again. Spend enough time on the Road, and that's where you'll end up, too. The difference between the trucker and the rest of us is that he's happy there, and celebrates the place, as if his driving record alone is proof of a life well spent. What could easily have been a sad song about the Road becomes a joyous one when told from the point of view of a man who loves it dearly.

Article Author: Kenan Hebert

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