Those of us out here in the western part of the state may come from different backgrounds, follow different politics, practice different faiths, cheer for different sports teams.
There is one thing, though, that unites almost everyone: We all love to complain about Interstate 81.
We don’t necessarily agree on how to fix it, but we all agree it’s a difficult, and sometimes dangerous, road.
The main problem is that we have a lot more trucks than the road was ever designed for — and because of the mountains, they can’t maintain a constant speed. They grind their way up, then go racing down the other side. Driving on I-81 is often like trying to drive on a train track with high-speed trains rushing past. For those who like facts, here are some: On Interstate 95 north of Petersburg, trucks account for just 5% of the total traffic. South of Petersburg, the share of traffic on I-95 and I-85 that belongs to trucks rises to 8% to 10%. On I-81, the figure is 20% to 30%. On certain days at certain hours, that figure may top 50%.
This column isn’t about that, though. At least not directly. Instead, it’s about a new song by the Texas-based country star Charley Crockett. If you don’t spend your time listening to the Outlaw Country channel on Sirius XM like I do when I’m driving, Crockett’s name may not ring a bell. Suffice it to say, he’s kind of a big deal these days. At age 40, he’s one of those overnight sensations who has been decades in the making and has come up in a very different way than most country singers — he’s spent time living in France, Spain and Morocco. To my ear, Crockett sounds like old-time country much like the kind Glen Campbell produced in the late ‘60s, not the kind of slick country pop we often hear Nashville producing today, but that’s beside the point.
Instead, what has really gotten stuck in my ear is a song off Crockett’s new album. The album is “$10 Cowboy,” and the song is “Good At Losing,” a sort of travelog about his career:
They laughed at me in New York City
Called me a fool in L.A
I doubt that Nashville saw me coming
Besides the bar folks working late
That’s not the part important to us. These lines are:
Lawmen they caught me in Virginia
No need to tell you what I done
Make sure you get your act together
Before you roll up 81
I tell the story behind those lines in a separate story today. Here, let’s look at something else: the potential for more songs about Interstate 81.
I’ve lamented before that there aren’t enough songs written about Virginia. Short version: Virginia doesn’t rhyme well with words the way Tennessee does, or the Carolinas do when converted to “Caroline,” or Alabama when it’s turned into “Alabam.” This seems to shortchange Virginia culturally. Bristol is the birthplace of country music, but country music is more likely to name-check other states. Maybe Virginia just doesn’t conjure up the same mental image that songwriters want. Virginia’s been successful at promoting itself as a technological capital — that’s good for business, but not many people are writing songs about data centers.
That’s where Interstate 81 comes into play. Maybe Virginia is too broad a topic. However, there are lots of songs that mention specific roads. Perhaps we need to figure out a way to give Interstate 81 that same mystique. If there was ever a road built for the blues, this is the one.
I’m not counting generic road songs such as AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” although that’s said to be about the Canning Highway between Perth and Fremantle in the band’s native Australia. I’m talking about songs such as “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” that mention a specific road. For me, “Route 66” is the best highway song of all. It was written in 1946 by Bobby Troup, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania but instead pursued a career in acting and music. He wrote the song based on his cross-country trip to California. He wanted to write the song about U.S. 40, but his wife, Cynthia, suggested that “Get your kicks on Route 66” would make for a better line. (She was right.) The list of people who have recorded this song is a who’s who of the music world: Chuck Berry, Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, John Mayer, the Rolling Stones. Mayer’s 2006 version, included in the Disney/Pixar movie “Cars,” was nominated for a Grammy award — six decades after the song first came out. I can’t draw a connection between the song and any economic development along the route (which stretches from Chicago to Santa Monica, California), but let’s skip over that inconvenient detail.
Bob Dylan referenced the New Orleans-to-Minnesota U.S. 61 on “Highway 61 Revisited” although that song’s not really about the road the way Troupe’s “Route 66” is. The Zac Brown Band had a hit with “Highway 20 Ride” — “every time I turn that truck right around at the Georgia line and I count the days and the miles back home to you on that Highway 20 ride.” Fun fact: Brown’s co-writer was Wyatt Durrette, more specifically Wyatt Durette III, son of the former Virginia state legislator and gubernatorial candidate. The Drive-By Truckers have “72 (This Highway’s Mean)” about U.S. 72 that goes from Memphis to Chattanooga, but that’s a little more obscure. Farther north, the Canadian-born Neil Young references the Trans-Canada Highway in “Bound for Glory.” Gene Pitney had a whole song called “TransCanada Highway” about how he “met a woman in Vancouver / nearly drove me out of my mind.” I could go on and on (and some of you will no doubt send me lists of all the songs I haven’t mentioned), but you get the idea.
There are two famous songs that could have mentioned Interstate 81 but don’t. “Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde” by Travis Tritt mentions meeting a woman “at a truck stop in Johnson City, Tennessee” but then moves their exploits to “rolling on 95.” And then there’s “Wagon Wheel” with its geographically confused lyrics:
Walkin’ to the south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly, had a nice long toke
But he’s a-headin’ west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee
If you’re “walkin’ to the south out of Roanoke,” maybe you’re on I-81 (and breaking the law about pedestrians on the interstate) but if that trucker from Philly is truly “a-headin’ west from the Cumberland Gap,” he sure won’t be in Virginia. And if he’s going from the Cumberland Gap to Johnson City via Roanoke, maybe the trucker has had “a nice long toke,” as well.
Either way, in both cases Interstate 81 misses an opportunity for lyrical fame.
So right now we think of Interstate 81 as a necessary evil — a menace of a road. What if we could turn that into a cultural asset through song?
Charley Crockett has given us a few lines about I-81 to sing along with. Who can give us more?
Where’s the political commentary?
OK, I took a break from politics to write about country music star Charley Crockett and his new song that references a drug bust on I-81. However, I’ll have more political commentary on other days. You can also sign up for West of the Capital, the weekly political newsletter I write. It goes out every Friday at 3 p.m. This week I deal with:
- The politics behind renaming the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke.
- A Lynchburg Republican posts that Trump campaign in Virginia is “a total disaster.”
- A comparison of Tim Kaine’s poll numbers in 2024 with those from six years ago.
- Plus more!
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