Wagon Wheel

This is a great tune.  It's been around for years, but I just recently bought the mp3 and learned to play it.

I first heard the song, I think, at the Junos in Halifax (also could have been the ECMAs), way back in ought-six.  The singer was Matt Anderson.  Listen to him sing.  It will change your life.  His url may be "stubbyfingers" but those stubby fingers fly like the wind.  The song certainly made that night.  It was a duet between Matt and Charlie A'Court, a Maritime country singer.  We were at the Palace.  Yes, the Palace.  Probably the only time I was there after I turned nineteen.  Suffice it to say, Matt and Charlie toned the place down a bit and a rockin' good time was had by all.  There are several versions of Matt playing the song on YouTube - this is a good one.

So later on, I learned a bit more about the song - that the nidus for the song was from an old Bob Dylan bootleg tape.  Bobby D (my close personal friend) had started to write this song for the soundtrack to a Western film but it somehow was never completed.  Wikipedia has all the details of that little saga here.

From the fragment of the Dylan bootleg, the Old Crow Medicine Show went on to fill in the blanks, writing what is now a modern classic folk tune.  You can see their video here, although I recommend listening just to the song itself first, to have your own video playing in your head.  Don't get me wrong, though, their video is creative and worth a watch!

Finally, here are the lovely lyrics:

Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I'm thumbin' my way into North Caroline
Starin' up the road
Pray to God I see headlights

I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a-hopin' for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight

So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
Rock me, mama, like a south-bound train
Hey, mama rock me

Runnin' from the cold up in New England
I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time string band
My baby plays the guitar
I pick a banjo now

Oh, the North country winters keep a-gettin' me now
Lost my money playin' poker so I had to up and leave
But I ain't a-turnin' back
To livin' that old life no more

So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
Rock me, mama, like a south-bound train
Hey, mama rock me

Walkin' due south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly
Had a nice long toke
But he's a-headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee

And I got to get a move on before the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh
At least I will die free

So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
Rock me, mama, like a south-bound train
Hey, mama rock me