There were times in my teenage years, alone, dependent, not sure what I was feeling, but feeling lousy and nothing could relieve that malaise like begging time with the family car to just drive, drive up and down Jericho Turnpike, drive onto the Expressway and going nowhere, up and down, the radio as loud as it would go and, if it was late at night, I could pick up stations from Detroit that got the blood flowing and the life coming back.
Jonathan Richman understands in this ode to driving Route 128 round Boston:
Helps me from being lonely late at night
I don’t feel so bad now in the car
Don’t feel so alone, got the radio on
Like the roadrunner
He wrote the song while living in New York and thinking of life back in his hometown and the life he left behind. Years later, Richman told WGBH, “You might not realize how lonely that song is… actually I was saying I’m in love with my own loneliness.”
It’s Whitmanesque in the celebration of what others would find mundane: suburban trees, neon signs, Stop and Shop, radio towers, it is love that has us name these things.
The Modern Lovers and this song are part of a thread connecting generations, movements and bands. You can hear the Velvet Underground in this song, specifically “Sister Ray,” but also rock and roll. Jerry Harrison played the organ and would later do the same for the Talking Heads. David Robinson pounds the drums and would later play the drums for The Cars. The Sex Pistols and Joan Jett (singing about driving the West Side Highway) were among the others to record the song.
A few years ago, the Mayor of Boston tried to have “Roadrunner” named the official song of Massachusetts. His idea gained some momentum, but there were too many other ideas and, eventually, nothing happened.
#Songoftheday #Spreadinghappiness #ModernLovers #Roadrunner #JonathanRichman
YouTube: https://youtu.be/6ZWoJ8_75Mo?si=K_c3Yy3iCO0WSY4X
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/15bnD6GnRtBfsJFkgToG72?si=05a84581b54040a7