18 Wheels and the Truth
Growing up in the seventies meant that legends were often local as our world was smaller. Legends you knew gained stature from their adventures abroad, as most people didn’t travel very far. No one traveled like a truck driver so they seemed legendary to me. At the time, people still created songs about legends which is the origin of trucker music.
To me trucker music is almost synonymous with CW McCall. His song “Convoy” was such a detailed, fantastical haul across the United States that it was made into a movie which starred Kris Kristoferson and Ali McGraw. “Wolf Creek Pass” was inspired by a very steep piece of highway in Colorado. The melody details the delivery of a load of chickens with lyrics that detailed two truckers living on “Nehis (a type of soda) and onion soup mix” and driving a truck which wouldn’t have passed a Department of Transportation inspection as when the brake was applied it felt like “steppin’ on a plum.” It really paints a picture.
Truck drivers were friends and neighbors who went off to see things I only read about, almost like having an astronaut who lived just across the fence row. I think Dave Dudley captured some of my feelings when he detailed a week in the life of a truck driver with “Six Days on the Road.” When I hear this song it still makes me want a little of the romance of the road. Particularly as Dudley extols his rig’s virtues as he sings. “Well my rig’s a little old, but that don’t mean she’s slow. There’s a flame from her stack and the smoke’s rolling black as coal.”
These songs glorified the hard life and simple pleasures of truck driving. The place with the best coffee (Truck Drivin’ Man-Buck Owens) or the freedom of one man and his truck crossing the desert under the light of a full moon (Midnight Hauler-Razzy Bailey.) I suppose it is naive to believe myths created by songs but the myth of any story or song is that the tale is a condensed version of many experiences. A truck-driving song about sitting eight trucks deep waiting to load corn wouldn’t sell very well. Waiting in line is the reality of what happens sometimes behind the wheel however it doesn’t rhyme with… really anything.
I don’t know the public’s perception of the trucking industry. If the decline of truck driving music on country radio is any indication, maybe the world has forgotten the truck driver. Perhaps, there are even fewer of these local legends.
The American Trucking Association estimates a deficit of truck drivers approaching 82,000 for 2024. Maybe the romance of one person and a truck, driving under a moonlit sky, has been replaced by a need to be home every night.. Kathy Mattea’s, “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses.” is about the end of a truck driving career played out across America’s roads in a tractor-trailer. The song includes the lyrics, “A few more songs from the all night radio. And he’ll spend the rest of his life With the one that he loves.” It’s better to be home than to be a legend, that’s a song worth writing.
