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Music

Willie Nelson, Old Crow Medicine Show, and the Enduring Appeal of the Road Song

On the road again.

Photo courtesy of Willie Nelson

Last week, I went to see Willie Nelson and Old Crow Medicine Show play at the Prospect Park Bandshell. That night, the usually genteel South Brooklyn neighborhood found itself flooded with an excitable hodgepodge of smiley old hippies, young families with picnic blankets, affable bros, and wine-drunk millennials with flower crowns, all drawn together by the prospect of seeing country music’s coolest elder statesman join Americana all-stars Old Crow Medicine Show for a balmy summer evening of old-time rock’n’roll. The show was sold-out, the venue was rammed, and there were so many good vibes floating around that I didn’t even mind shelling out nine bucks for a thimble of red wine (the bars were restricted to that and beer, a situation that felt even more dire when Willie kicked off his set with “Whiskey River”).

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Photo by Adam Lyon

Enthusiastic sing-alongs peppered the air during Old Crow Medicine Show’s blockbuster “Wagon Wheel” (sit down, Darius Rucker) and while Willie coasted smoothly through a litany of his many, many hits in front of a massive Texas flag, stirring up an especially robust response for “On the Road Again.” Every time either mentioned the open road, the crowd roared along. Even now, even amidst the iPhone-clutching, gentrified splendor of Prospect Park, country music fans love a ramblin’ man.

The alluring trope of the wandering musician is far from new, and has bled into plenty of other genres, from hip-hop to heavy metal. These drifter’s ballads hold universal appeal, whether you’ve lived it or you wish you could. Mankind craves motion, for better or worse; we’re fascinated by travelers and vagabonds, with the tenets of Manifest Destiny imprinted on our bones and secret desires to pack up and head for parts unknown playing on loop in a hidden corner of our collective subconscious.

Over time, the ramblin’ man has found his image transmuted from that of a lonesome highwayman to a hard-touring road dog with a backpack and a sleeping bag. A lot of things have changed since Hank Williams’s skeletal frame and doomed warble first haunted roadside honky-tonks and medicine shows across the South, but no matter how lovely the scenery or strong the venue’s Wi-Fi signal may be now, a long drive’s still a long drive and a dingy bar’s still a dingy bar. It’s no surprise that the road song’s greatest champion, “truck-driving country,” has its own Wikipedia page; those endless hauls and dark nights don’t always come easy.

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A traveling musician's life is still hard, and still lonesome. It can break you, as we’ve seen happen to more musicians than we’d care to name, but it can give you the best times of your life, too; it’s not all doom and gloom. While so many of the best-known road songs come with a side of pathos—think Bob Seger’s weary “Turn the Page,” Blackfoot’s haunted “Highway Song,” or Hank Williams’s resigned “Ramblin’ Man”—Willie Nelson’s classic take on the style is cheerful and upbeat, the kind of song you throw on during the first week of tour when you still have clean socks and everything feels bright and pregnant with potential. When you hear him singing out in that warm, comforting Lone Star mumble about the freedom of it all, the joys of playing and the thrill of constant motion, Willie’s version of tour life sounds like heaven. You honestly believe that he's up there loving it, and that despite his leathery chops and storied career, there are still places that he's never been. The Red-Headed Stranger’s braids may have turned ashen, but he’s remains a master salesman, and with this song in particular, he’s shilling the dream of adventure and good times. It’s the perfect weed- and gasoline-scented tinder to help set stationary imaginations aflame, and the Brooklyn crowd roared its approval as “On the Road Again” unspooled through the darkening night.

It’s no coincidence that that song has been a stereo staple of every tour I’ve ever been on, alongside Motorhead’s rip-roaring roadie anthem “(We Are) The Road Crew” and Johnny Cash’s motormouth itinerary on “I’ve Been Everywhere”—two more songs that look on the brighter, brasher side of a nomadic life. It’s comforting to hear these songs and remember that many, many others have come before you, and many more will follow in your footsteps, and even if you’ve never taken Rollins’s word to get in the van, it’s more than likely that it resonates with you, too.

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Conversely, “Wagon Wheel” joins John Denver’s “Take Me Home (Country Roads)” on the homesick misery train. Denver’s imploring croon as he begs those country roads to “take me home to the place I belong” is a sharp reminder that, whether it’s in your mother’s arms or a worn-in seat at your local bar, home is more than just a state of mind. When Old Crow Medicine Show stomp through this now-immortal travelin' man classic (originally written around a song fragment of Bob Dylan’s), you can almost smell the sweet Appalachian air as the fiddle’s gentle scrapes lull you into a reverie and the highway stretches out towards the horizon.

The song’s famous geographical error still pops up like an uninvited wedding guest right as the song really gets locked into its groove; things were a lot fuzzier in the 70s, and Ketch Secor readily admits that he got his words jumbled, but I still like to think of it as an Easter egg they slipped in to keep seasoned road dogs on their toes. After all, those used to navigating those tree-lined backroads know for damn sure that Johnson City lies due east of the Cumberland Gap, and can tell you which truck stop along the way brews the the best cup of joe, too.

When you’re dirty, tired, and hungover a thousand miles from nowhere, that mythic siren song of the open road just sounds like creaking gears and radio static. Touring is still such an economic necessity for so many bands that it’s hardly likely that we’ll have seen the last of the road warriors anytime soon, even once Willie eventually hangs up his Stetson. To tour is to thrive, whether you’re DIY upstarts or a hoary old legacy act. It gets in your blood, like the speed dust in Lemmy’s veins or whatever unholy concoction is keeping Keith Richards alive. You can’t shake it once you’ve got it, and you’re hungry for a taste if you haven’t.

I’m here writing this from my desk in a nice air-conditioned office, but still dreaming of my last cross-country sojourn. Old habits die hard, and lifers like Willie Nelson tend to die with their boots on and bags packed. As Ol' Hank himself caterwauled from the bottom of his sad, sad heart before hard living called him to an early grave, “I love you baby, but you gotta understand, when the Lord made me, he made a ramblin’ man.” Kim Kelly just can't wait to be on the road again. Follow her exploits on Twitter - @grimkim