In the past couple of years, I’ve been listening to more and more of the Texas style singer/songwriters and I can’t get enough. I keep looking for more but there are a few I always come back to…Guy Clark, Townes Van Zant, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Steve Earle. In 1975 Guy Clark released this song on his first album Old No. 1 and eventually released 13 studio albums.
In the 1960s, Guy Clark tried his luck in the California music scene. He also built and repaired guitars and had a shop in San Francisco in 1969. In 1971 he was signed as a songwriter by Sunbury Music in Los Angeles, he decided to relocate to the company’s Nashville office in 1971. His arrival helped usher in a migration of new songwriting talent to the city.
Clark wrote this song while living in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. He and his wife, Susanna Clark, lived in a small, rundown apartment, and they felt out of place in the city. They wanted to leave Los Angeles and return to Texas, where he felt more at home.
The idea for the song reportedly came to Clark while he was driving on the freeway, scribbling lyrics on a paper bag. The line “pack up all your dishes, make note of all good wishes” showed his desire to escape the chaotic nature of L.A. at the time.
Jerry Jeff Walker was the first to record the song on his self-titled album in 1972. Walker’s version of this song peaked at #98 on the Billboard 100 so Walker popularized it.
L.A. Freeway
Pack up all your dishesMake note of all good wishesAnd say goodbye to the landlord for meThat son of a bitch has always bored me
Throw out them LA papersAnd that mouldy box of vanilla wafersAdios to all this concreteGonna get me some dirt road back streets
If I can just get off ofI’ll be down the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought, bought, bought
And it’s, here’s to you old skinny DennisThe only one I think I will missI can hear that old bass singingSweet and low, like a gift you’re bringing
Play it for me one more time, nowGot to give it all you we can nowI believe every thing you’re sayingAnd just to keep on, keep on playing
If I can just get off of this L.A. freewayWithout gettin’ killed or caughtI’ll be down the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought, bought, bought
And you put the pink card in the mailboxLeave the key in the front door lockThey’ll find it likely as notI’m sure there’s somethin’ we have forgot
Oh Susanna, don’t you cry, babyLove’s a gift that’s surely handmadeWe got somethin’ to believe inDon’t you think it’s time we’re leavin’?
If I can just get off of this LA freewayWithout gettin’ killed or caughtI’ll be down the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought, bought, bought
If I can just get off of this LA freewayWithout gettin’ killed or caughtDown the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought
So pack up all your dishesMake note of all good wishesAnd say goodbye to the landlord for meThat son of a bitch has always bored me
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