“When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”
- Yogi Berra
Has there been a more useful metaphor for songwriters than the idea of the “Road?” It's way up there, for sure. It's useful because it's so relatable. We've all traveled many kinds of roads in life, literally and figuratively. Smooth roads, rocky roads, open roads, our own personal roads to Damascus. And who doesn't love a roadtrip with its endless possibilities for adventure? So it's no wonder songwriters have made good use of the idea. Just to barely scratch the surface, we've had: The Long and Winding Road, Copperhead Road, Telegraph Road, Tobacco Road, Yellow Brick Road, Country Roads, Long Road to Ruin, Holiday Road, Middle of the Road, Broken Roads, King of the Road, Red Dirt Road, Old Man Down the Road, Gypsy Road, Seven Bridges Road, The Road to Nowhere, The Road to Shambala, The Golden Road and On the Road Again.
Streets are handy too: Where the Streets Have No Name, Baker Street, Dancin' in the Street, Shakedown Street, Street Fightin' Man, Boogie Street, Mulberry Street, Racin' in the Street, Street Life, Positively 4th Street, Takin' it to the Streets, Street of Dreams, Dark End of the Street, Empty Streets, Dead End Streets, Street Party, Street Corner Serenade, and on and on.
And then there are Highways: Carefree Highway, Ventura Highway, I Am the Highway, Highway to Hell, Lost Highway, Highway Star, Highway 61 Revisited, Highway Junkie, Highway Blues, Highway Robbery, Lonesome Highway, Highway Runner, Tombstone Highway, Cosmic Highway, Roll on Down the Highway, because, after all, Life is a Highway.
I won't even go into Avenues and Boulevards.
So what's your favorite song from all those categories? For me, I have a clear winner. It's The Road off of Jackson Browne's 1977 live, “Running on Empty album.” The idea of life on the road for musicians has been covered by many, like Simon and Garfunkel's Homeward Bound, Bob Seger's Turn the Page and AC/DC's It's a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock and Roll. But for my money, Browne's version of the song, written by Danny O'Keefe, captures what I imagine is the the weariness of the travel, isolation and loneliness that's in the twenty-two and a half hours not on stage under the lights.
And Happy birthday today to our Goddaughter, Meg. She's turning fifteen. Can it be?!