The Highway Calls
THE HIGHWAY CALLS
No Intro:
Chorus:
Driving to the sunset, the night is near
The backseat dogs know we’re going somewhere
The highway calls us away.
The past is gone, now there’s only today,
I turn to her with a smile.
Forgot to lock the house, two hundred miles.
She sits real close, and that’s fine,
It sure feels nice as her left hand finds mine
We need this trip on our own
Roll down the window and turn off the phone.
Chorus:
Static on the radio so we sing our songs
Keep driving west ‘till a station comes on
(Instrumental rest of verse)
(Instrumental chorus)
There’s a motel on the right
Too many miles, time to call it a night.
Tomorrow’s sunrise brings a new day
We’ve got no plans, but we’re headed that way.
Final Chorus:
Driving to the sunset, the night is near
The backseat dogs know we’re finally there
This time together is good for our soul
You and me darlin’, 2 halves of the whole.
Outro
This is a road song. When I play it solo I’m quite a bit more busy with my right hand fingerpicking style, but with the band I strum it, at Scott’s suggestion. Leslie and I both wrote this song, and we each came up with the thought of having the dogs in the backseat simultaneously. After we finished this song we googled to see how many songs have been written with dogs in them. It’s surprisingly few. I’m thinking of doing a song-cycle now with dogs in every song, though the dog doesn’t have to be the main thought of the song. We’ll see! Meanwhile, our dogs are in the backseat, and I sure wish Leslie could sit closer to me when we drive, but we have captain’s chairs in the SUV. Oh, and the question I asked Leslie after the song was complete, does the couple in the song turn around because the door is left unlocked? The original lyrics on this song had a different second line in the second verse. The original couplet was “She sits real close and that’s fine, please/ Don’t read the billboards out loud, this time”. After recording the song with the band I needed to redo the vocals (a first for me), and I decided to change that couplet with “She sits real close and that’s fine/ It sure feels nice as her left hand finds mine”. But yes, once upon a time when Leslie and I were driving North on US287 from Dallas to Amarillo she started reading each billboard as we drove by, and there are a lot of billboards on 287. She didn’t realize she was doing it out loud – it was a funny moment. I probably should have left that lyric in the song, but I didn’t want the song to be an inside joke. This turned out to be a pretty good twostep, thanks to Scooter!