Highway Song (1979) – Blackfoot

Who’s up for a highway song? I first heard this only recently when I was researching another rocker from the Southern rock band Blackfoot called Train, Train. You see, that song and today’s featured song Highway Song were their big hits from the 1979 album Strikes, reaching No. 38 and No. 26 respectively on the US Billboard charts.

In both songs you can hear a Lynyrd Skynyrd sound throughout. Heck, even the vocals of Rickey Medlocke and Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant are similar in pitch and delivery. And what do you know? Rickey Medlocke played with an early incarnation of Lynyrd Skynyrd before later rejoining the band permanently in the mid-1990s. In effect, he became linked to both bands: Blackfoot and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Highway Song really is a classic American Southern rock song. I was about to call it “no-frills”, but where this song perhaps rises above the signature Southern rock sound, at least to me, is in its spectacular guitar solo which cranks the song into top gear starting just over halfway through. You wouldn’t believe that solo goes for nearly three minutes because the time just whooshes by while listening to it. This song is like their Free Bird.

Like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Blackfoot originated from Jacksonville, Florida and formed in 1969. The group disbanded in the mid-1980s but reunited several times afterwards, though later line-ups often differed from the original band, especially after Medlocke returned to Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1996.

[Verse 1]
Well, another day, another dollar
After I’ve sang and hollered
Oh, it’s my way of livin’ and I can’t change a thing
Another town is drawin’ near
Oh, baby, I wish you were here
But the only way I can see you, darlin’, is in my dreams

[Chorus]
It’s a highway song
You sing it on and on
On and on

[Verse 2]
Well, the hurt you leave behind
Its the hurt that’s on your mind
Oh, and last night’s show took its toll on me
Well, the city lights fly by me
As I lay my body in my bed
Oh, and dreams of you dance through my head

[Chorus]
It’s a highway song
You sing it on and on
On and on
Highway song
Is as lonely
As the road I’m on

[Verse 3]
It’s those big wheels are ready to roll
We’ve been flyin’ high and so low
Lord, and all this madness ain’t as crazy as it seems
Everywhere they stop to stare
I’m just a stranger on this road
Oh, I stand alone only in my dream

[Chorus]

References:
1. Blackfoot (band) – Wikipedia