Driving Song

Nov 7 2013

You could just make out my head

in the back row

of the grade school choir,

where I was eventually told

to mouth the words.

Look like you mean it, she said.

Now, at home games

I fake the anthem,

my pinched voice

vaguely wavering

in a rough approximation

of notes.

But in my sound-proof box

on cruise control

I belt it out, full-throat,

a back-up singer, in perfect voice.

In the thin traffic of farm country

when a driving song comes on

all is harmony,

making long lonesome notes

around a single microphone

with Bill Munro, and the Blue Grass Boys,

or a Red Rider

on Life is a Highway

high-fiving Tom.

If you happened to pass

my glass-walled studio

you’d see me in song,

mouthing along

my inaudible words,

one hand

absent-mindedly drumming.

Accompanied by the white noise

of rushing air

the thrum of rubber

the engine’s steady hum;

muffled sound, out-run

as I throttle up.

I crack a window

to a blast of wind

so I can’t even hear myself.

This is fabulous, I think,

singing with all my heart.

There are some songs that are perfect driving songs; and the best example I can think of is Tom Cochrane’s Life is a Highway. I’m not a big fan of rock or pop; but that would lift anyone. I wonder how many speeding tickets that one song is responsible for?

For those of us who are singing-impaired, the car is the safest place to let loose. I may be badly out of tune; but cruising down the highway, it sounds like perfect harmony to me!