Well, it’s past midnight in Boston and time just creeps
Something like one-thirty in the morning
Heat’s on, wife’s gone, can’t get no sleep
And the weather outside is thunderstorming
I was gonna hit the road at the crack of dawn
But there’s no sense in laying here and waiting
So I shake a leg and shake off a yawn
Jump into the car and start the engine cannonading
Well she ain’t no fifty-nine Cadillac, Jack
She ain’t no classic-ass fifty-seven Chevy
They say she burns rice, I think “they” are full of shice
‘Cause she takes me to places unreached by those heavies
And this morning she’ll take me far away from this place
Where the only direction is backed into a corner
No more wild race, no more disgrace
And four more hours before I slip across the border
Full tank of gas and the oil changed
Fistful of quarters for the toll change
Got the stereo cranked and blasting through the roof
With my favorite rock’n’roll bands
Lightning and thunder surround me
Like hell breaking loose all around me
Well it doesn’t matter ‘cause my old world shatters
and my enemies scatter as I’m headed
down to Jughandleland.
At a truck stop on the Connecticut shore
Sleeping diesels roar to life
I give my own little roar and at half past four
I join the procession down eye-ninety-five
It’s a slalom race of pylons and shifting lanes
Barriers and ever-changing patterns
Of construction and constriction, arranged and rearranged
Like negotiating the rings of Saturn
And all the suburbanites in their little bedroom towns
Clustered along the main route
Bleed into the stream and slow the flow down
In the hardened artery of the morning commute
The tollbooth valves traffic like the flow of blood
Metering movement toward the city
Struggling and straining, holding back the flood
It doesn’t for a minute look pretty
But then the triple bypass road opens up
And the next thing you know, I’m free
Through the rear view I can see the sun coming up
As I ride the wave to the Tappan Zee
The river opens before me
I make my way over the span
Making good time as I slip across the line
Into Jughandleland.
Four in the morning, time to go to work
Decked out in my suit and tie
Better a limo driver than a sales jerk
And at the time not much else to try
To and from the airports for commission and tip
On the road for a three-year spell
Waiting for the arrival of my big ship
And in the meantime, get to know the roads real well
Every little diner, motel, or go-go bar
Every little shortcut and back road
I could tell you how long and I could tell you how far
I could tell you how big the load
You’d think the magic and the freedom of the road would be lost
After countless trips so mundane
And after years of breathing in the stop-and-go exhaust
You’d think I’d lose a big piece of my brain
But there’s something there that keeps me behind that wheel
Maybe something I got from my dad
Just something I am, something I feel
Maybe something I just wish I had
Something I can’t get a handle on
Something I can’t understand
Something that keeps me turning right when I need to go left
Down in Jughandleland.
Twelve times three years since I started the voyage
And I’m still counting the white lines
Through slowdowns and backups I still have the courage
To look for Destination 99
No sleek machine with today’s gasoline
All the new boxes look alike
All the old cruisers are on the oldies scene
And prices are at an all-time spike
But tonight I’m back in my beat-up old box
Headed to I don’t know where
Crashing through the barriers and the roadblocks
Looking for something I know is out there
And if the highway’s blocked I’ll take the secondary
Nothing’s gonna stop my quest
And if the secondary’s backed up I’ll take the tertiary
Driven with a spirit obsessed
From the Parkway to the Turnpike to the steel graveyard
From the bombed-out back roads to the boulevard
From those in cars to make a living to those living in their cars
From the faded and the jaded to the shooting highway stars
They’re lost but somehow not hopeless
They still struggle for an upper hand
They may be wounded or dead but they’re resurrected
Forever and ever in Jughandleland.
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
This song, an outtake from my Soul In Exile magnum opus, is (of course) a blatant Bossism. It started its life as "Another Cruising on the Highway Song" back in the days when I lived in Boston and wished nothing more than the ability to move to the Jersey Shore. It told the story of my post-midnight road trips from Boston to the Shore on nights when my then-wife went home to mother and I had no reason to keep eating beans.
Well, that marriage ended and I moved down to the Shore, and in short order I set about the business of putting together a band and finding my way into the local music scene. I made the mistake of showing "Another Cruising on the Highway Song" to a well-meaning person on the scene who said I shouldn't use it; comments like that can have a lot of negative impact on sensitive songwriters, and so the song remained in mothballs for the next few years.
But then Soul In Exile began to assume monolithic proportions, and I found that there were part of the story I still wanted to tell. So I pulled "Another Cruising on the Highway Song" out of storage and gave it a serious second look. Thinking I would create something with a hip-hop beat and a sample from an old bootleg in my possession, I recast the whole song in Springsteenian terms, added some autobiographical elements, and changed the title to be a play on one of Bruce's most epic songs.
I had the full intention of including it on one of the next albums, but seeing as I already had enough megillahs in the track list as well as another song, in my own voice and not Bruce's, that told the story more effectively, I decided to take this one out of the lineup and add it to the outtakes file.
Still, I like the musical idea of a sample of an alternate take of Bruce's song set over a hip-hop beat, so this may yet see the light of day.