Getting Kicks on Route 66

Officially decommissioned in 1985. old Route 66 (the "Mother Road") is no longer a single, continuous highway. However, roughly 85% of its 2,448-mile original alignment—running from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California—is still drivable today, preserved via state highways and local roads. The photos here are  courtesy of America's Photographer Gary Firstenberg, who is travelling the Mother Road as we celebrate America's 250th birthday. 

The first portion of this historic road was paved with cobblestones the day after the Colonies attained their independence in September 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Once subservience to Britain was in the rearview mirror, their eyes turned West. 

OK, that last paragraph was fiction, but Route 66 is not. Here's proof.

One of America's great highways. 

Another is Highway 61, the Blues Highway.

Sometime soon we'll take a little trip down that one as well.

Thank you, Gary.

See more by Gary Firstenberg:

www.firstinphoto.smugmug.com

Paul Revere's "Kicks" Revisited

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2014

Pandora is a free internet music site that enables you to choose music of nearly any genre which they supplement with additional tracks of the same style. If you pick the Beatles, they do not play just Beatles music but rather contemporaries to the Beatles as well. It's a good way to become acquainted with other artists, or re-acquainted. And it isn't just pop or rock, but includes jazz and even classical.

While listening to some Sixties group my Pandora channel played a song by Paul Revere and the Raiders, a group I'd utterly forgotten about but which had produced a sound I liked at the time, as well as a number of hits.

What's interesting is that while your online listening to the music you can flip over to Wikipedia and read about the groups you once listened to on Top 40 radio. (Don't do this if you're listening to Pandora at work.) What you learn will often surprise you.

For example, Paul Revere & the Raiders were not from Boston like I'd imagined. Yes, they dressed in those Revolutionary War outfits, but the group got its name from the founder, a fellow named Paul Revere Dick of Boise, Idaho. Of interest to me was that Paul Revere was no kid with a group, but a seasoned veteran. Born in 1938 he had a band going before he was twenty, but it would be almost another ten years before catching the national spotlight. In between, Revere owned a batch of restaurants.

SideNote: A lot of performers were fairly seasoned by the time we "discovered" them. I remember when Petula Clark's "Downtown" became a hit in that same time frame. I only learned last week, again through Wikipedia, that she was nearly as old as my mother (born this week in 1932), not the teenybopper attracted to the big lights, big city that I imagined. No wonder she could sing with such force. 

One of Paul Revere & the Raiders' hits was a song called "Kicks", which remains on the charts as one of Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song has a serious edge to it. It also has a Dylanesque style of scripting so that the English teacher might give it low marks for improper punctuation. Along with "Hungry" and "Him or Me (What's It Gonna Be?)" this was one of the songs I liked around my freshman year in high school.

Kicks

Girl, you thought you found the answer on that magic carpet ride last night
But when you wake up in the mornin' the world still gets you uptight
Well, there's nothin' that you ain't tried
To fill the emptiness inside
But when you come back down, girl
Still ain't feelin' right

Chorus:
(And don't it seem like)
Kicks just keep gettin' harder to find
And all your kicks ain't bringin' you peace of mind
Before you find out it's too late, girl
You better get straight

No, but not with kicks
You just need help, girl

Well you think you're gonna find yourself a little piece of paradise
But it ain't happened yet, so girl, you better think twice
Don't you see no matter what you do
You'll never run away from you
And if you keep on runnin'
You'll have to pay the price

[repeat chorus]

Bridge:
No, you don't need kicks
To help you face the world each day
That road goes nowhere
I'm gonna help you find yourself another way

Chorus:
(And don't it seem like)
Kicks just keep gettin' harder to find
(Oh, you don't need kicks, girl)
And all your kicks ain't bringin' you peace of mind
(You just need help, girl)
Before you find out it's too late, girl
You better get straight

* * * *
To some the song's message may seem simplistic, but it's a serious issue for people from all walks of life. What happens when your ambition to win a Super Bowl or walk on the moon is fulfilled? Maybe you're a daredevil and thrills are your kick. Or a magician whose kick is thrilling others. Maybe your kicks come from power, or from Dionysian sexual encounters. Or travel and adventure.

In this song it's a drug kick. Unfortunately, the effects just don't do it for us and we need a little more to get that amped feeling which is so fleeting and temporary. Real life satisfaction is about something more than this. But then, that's another story.

Meantime...  Listen to the music.