{"id":2366,"date":"2021-10-30T17:46:13","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T17:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/30\/saturday-night-at-the-oldies-route-66-and-kerouacs-favorite-song\/"},"modified":"2021-10-30T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T17:46:13","slug":"saturday-night-at-the-oldies-route-66-and-kerouacs-favorite-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/30\/saturday-night-at-the-oldies-route-66-and-kerouacs-favorite-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Night at the Oldies: Route 66 and Kerouac’s Favorite Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Route<\/a>Jack Kerouac in a letter from 17 January 1962: "Everybody is making money off my ideas, like those "Route 66" TV producers, everybody except me . . . ." (Selected Letters<\/em> 1957-1969, ed. Charters, Viking 1999, p. 326; see also p. 461 and pp. 301-302.)  Here<\/a> is the Nelson Riddle theme music from the TV series.  And here<\/a> is part of an episode from the series which ran from 1960-1964.  George Maharis bears a striking resemblance to Jack, wouldn't you say? And notice Maharis is riding shotgun.  Kerouac wasn't a driver.  Neal Cassady was the driver.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now dig Bobby Troup<\/a>.  And if that's too cool for you, here<\/a> is Depeche Mode.  Behind the Wheel<\/a> for good photos of the Mother Road. Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Dr. Feelgood<\/a>,  and others such as Asleep at the Wheel<\/a> have covered the tune.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack's Favorite Song<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Ellis Amburn, Subterranean Kerouac <\/em>(St. Martin's 1998), p. 324:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

One night he [Kerouac, during a 1962 visit to Lowell, Mass.] left a bar called Chuck's with Huck Finneral, a reedy, behatted eccentric who carried a business card that read: "Professional killer . . . virgins fixed . . . orgies organized, dinosaurs neutered, contracts & leases broken." Huck's philosophy of life was: "Better a wise madness than a foolish sanity." They drove to a friend's house in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and on the way, Jack sang "Moon River," calling it his favorite song. Composed by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, "Moon River"<\/a> was the theme song <\/a>of the popular Audrey Hepburn movie Breakfast at Tiffany's<\/em>. Sobbed by a harmonic, later swelling with strings and chorus, the plaintive tune's gentle but epic-like lyrics describe a dreamer and roamer not unlike Kerouac.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed they do. A restless dreamer, a lonesome traveler, a dharma seeker, a desolation angel passing through this vale of tears and mist, a pilgrim on the via dolorosa<\/em> of this dolorous life, a drifter on the river of samsara hoping one day to cross to the Far Shore. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another 'river' song in the same plaintive vein is Chase Webster's Moody River<\/a> from 1961. It has been covered by such artists as Pat Boone<\/a>, John Fogerty<\/a>, and Doc Watson<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Kerouac in a letter from 17 January 1962: "Everybody is making money off my ideas, like those "Route 66" TV producers, everybody except me . . . ." (Selected Letters 1957-1969, ed. Charters, Viking 1999, p. 326; see also p. 461 and pp. 301-302.)  Here is the Nelson Riddle theme music from the TV series.  … Continue reading “Saturday Night at the Oldies: Route 66 and Kerouac’s Favorite Song”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,202,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americana","category-kerouac-and-friends","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}