8. Little Walter - Key to the Highway
Covered at length on Derek and the Domino's Layla album, this Big Bill Broonzy song about leaving gets right to the black heart of the matter. "I'm gon' leave here runnin' / Cos walking's just too slow." Thank God for good Roads. They almost make up for bad women.
9. The Grateful Dead - Friend of the Devil
The more obvious Grateful Dead song for this list is "Truckin," but "Friend of the Devil" captures the spirit of unholy alliance with the Road much better. Again we see the theme of running from criminal activity, a motif that pops up so much, one wonders if all American have criminal tendencies. They very well may. But the distinctive thing about this song is its easy-going feel, which buries the tension of what is probably a terrible situation. That's a very hippie thing to do, I have found.
10. Ry Cooder - Paris, Texas
The title song from the Wim Wenders film of the same name, this is a Road song only because I think it is. There are no lyrics, and nothing to explicitly link it to the idea of the Road, but it shares many of the same qualities. It is spare and wide and dusty. It echoes. It is musically laconic, as if it's so knowing, it doesn't have to say much to get its point across. It is not a traveler on the Road, it is the Road itself, the place that is not a thing, the cause and the consequence. God bless it.
Downloads of these songs are available from Analog Roam.
Article comments
1 - Uncle H
Great list of road songs! But I must add the best of the whole bad bunch: the Triffids "Wide Open Road" (from their 1986 album "Born Sandy Devotional"). Triffids were not an American band, but they do have roads in Australia too you know.
(Posted by someone who doesn't even have a drivers licence...)
2 - BJ
Great topic. God, I hope it's not a lost art just yet.
Don't forget:
I'm a Lonesome Fugitive (Merle Haggard)
Diamonds on my Windshield (Tom Waits)
Six Days on the Road (any version except Sawyer Brown's - personally, I'd take Gram & Emmylou)
Anything by Friends of Dean Martinez (more road songs without lyrics ... specifically, road songs for mojave desert)
BJ
3 - Elsa Grassy
Wow! I thought I was the only one on this earth to be obsessed with road songs! I'm actually writing a pre-doctorate thesis on them (any kind - truck songs, hobo songs, train songs...).
So if you happen to have anything to say about this subject, if you're willing to share information about the art of singing the road, or even if you just have a comment to make, please SEND ME A MESSAGE!!!
vivelsa@yahoo.fr
Thanks!
4 - Mike
link for downloads doesn't work. seems to have been hijacked by meds dealer.