Ol 55

What do you do when your girlfriend abruptly dumps you very early in the morning? Well, you leave in a hurry. Then get in your trusty old car and drive slowly home. Thinking about your sudden change of life circumstances, you notice small details and have moments of poignant emotional clarity. Early morning commuters and truckers are in more of a hurry than you, so you take the slow lane and they pass you when they can. Driving through the pre-dawn darkness, you imagine the road as a metaphor for life and how to live it. How did you get here, and where will you go next? You feel sad, but optimistic. "Dang!", you think, "I could write a great song about this..."

The Eagles' version got more airplay, but I've chosen the elegantly simple arrangement of Tom Waits' original recording as our point of departure. Piano leads the charge with acoustic guitar providing accompaniment. I could hear light bass and drums filling out the sound. We'll start with a clean 2-part vocal harmony and then maybe see if more harmony vocals can add any extra value. We'll definitely stop short of the severely overproduced territory the Eagles took this song to. How many vocal tracks on their version - eight? Ten? Twelve? With this song, I'm pretty sure we'll find that less is more.