byrdsongs, xlii

I’ve never been a big Little Feat guy because their music calls to mind Republican frat boys in flip flops and Bermuda shorts. To be fair, their self-titled first album is quite good, but I have very little time for Creole-inflected blues boogie. I don’t understand its appeal. Apparently youngsters on the college campuses like to smoke reefers and do the Dixie Chicken. I’d rather take my tasty bowl of gumbo and go have a prostate exam. But that’s just me... Lowell George and Bill Payne wrote some good songs for other artists, including Truck Stop Girl, which is included with the studio material on the Byrds’ Untitled. If you hate the Eagles’ brand countrified mellowness, then Truck Stop Girl probably isn’t for you. But I don’t mind a bit of commercially-accessible vanilla now and again, and this song has a few things going for it. I like hearing Clarence White sing lead vocals. His voice is thin and weedy, but it’s also vulnerable sounding and serves this material quite well. The song tells the story of Danny, who drives a rig and falls for a truck stop girl. When the girl rebuffs him, he’s so distraught that he drives off recklessly and gets into a fatal accident… Usually when I think of a truck driver, the (admittedly classist) image I have in my head is of a grizzled 50-something hop head. Perhaps he even has an impacted colon. But Truck Stop Girl destroys my stereotype. I see the driver in the song as a handsome young romantic, dark hair and deep blue eyes, rugged, sensitive, volatile, and wearing a faded denim jacket with a Byrds patch sewn in at the small of his back.  He was so young, and on a ten-city run, in love with a trick stop girl… The tragedy hits you momentarily, but the lightness of the music is such that it doesn’t linger for too long...