![]() This would be the Roadrunner (Twice), the most successful version. In late 1974, Richman recorded a stripped-down version of the song for the Beserkley, which apparently took a little over two hours. Two more 1972 demo versions, produced by the notorious LA music svengali Kim Fowley, would be released in 1981 on a patchy album called The Original Modern Lovers, and a live version from 1973 would appear a quarter of a century later on the live record Precise Modern Lovers Order. The 1972 John Cale version was a demo for Warner Brothers, and only saw the light when the Beserkley label in California collected the Modern Lovers' demos and put them out as the Modern Lovers album in 1976. Richman apparently wrote the song in around 1970. The Unofficial Jonathan Richman Chords website lists 10 discernibly different versions: seven given an official release and three bootlegs. There are plenty of versions of Roadrunner. 'I think this is great,' said the person next to me. For some reason I noticed a pudgy boy with short hair wandering through the sparse crowd, dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt on which was printed, in pencil, 'I LOVE MY LIFE.' Then he climbed up and played the most shattering guitar I'd ever heard. "When I went to see him play in 1972, his band - the Modern Lovers, which is what he's always called whatever band he's played with - was on stage nothing was happening. "Richman's music did not sound quite sane," Greil Marcus wrote. What characterises Richman's work, and Roadrunner especially, is its unblighted optimism. Imagine them singing not about drugs and darkness, but about all the simple beauty in the world. But if you want to know what Jonathan Richman was about, first think of the Velvet Underground, and then turn it inside out imagine the Velvets cooked sunny side up. Or perhaps you recall his cameo as the chorus in There's Something About Mary (the Farrelly brothers are dedicated fans). Maybe you've heard the instrumental Egyptian Reggae, which hit No 5 in 1977 and earned him an appearance on Top of the Pops. ![]() Maybe you don't know much about Jonathan Richman. Its power was in the simplicity both of its music - a drone of guitar, organ, bass and drums around a simple two-chord structure - and of its message that it's great to be alive. Its impact would be felt in other ways, too: musicians playing on this song included keyboard player Jerry Harrison, who would later join Talking Heads, and drummer David Robinson, who went on to join the Cars. Another 20 years on and Cornershop would cite it as the inspiration behind their No 1 single Brimful of Asha, and a few years later, Rolling Stone put it at 269 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. As punk took shape in London, Roadrunner was one of the songs the Sex Pistols covered at their early rehearsals. Its first incarnation, Roadrunner (Once), recorded in 1972 and produced by John Cale, but not released until 1976, was described by film director Richard Linklater as "the first punk song" he placed it on the soundtrack to his film School of Rock. One version of Roadrunner - Roadrunner (Twice) - reached No 11 in the UK charts, but the song's influence would extend much further. As Greil Marcus put it in his book Lipstick Traces: "Roadrunner was the most obvious song in the world, and the strangest." It is a paean to the modern world, to the urban landscape, to the Plymouth Roadrunner car, to roadside restaurants, neon lights, suburbia, the highway, the darkness, pine trees and supermarkets. It is a song about what it means to be young, and behind the wheel of an automobile, with the radio on and the night and the highway stretched out before you. ![]() Roadrunner is one of the most magical songs in existence. In January this year, I made my own rock pilgrimage to the suburbs of Boston, to drive the routes described by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers in the song Roadrunner, a minor UK hit 30 years ago this week. They flock to Robert Johnson's crossroads, to Graceland, to the Chelsea Hotel, hoping to glean some insight into the music that moves them. People make rock'n'roll pilgrimages to Chuck Berry's Route 66, to Bruce Springsteen's New Jersey Turnpike and Bob Dylan's Highway 61. A shopping trolley whirls its way across the tarmac unaided and the cars of Route 9 rush by. Outside there is snow in the air and the wind is up. Dusk in a supermarket carpark in Natick, Massachusetts.
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