As a general rule, I don't like "life on the road" songs. I think they're a bit pretentious. I know that writers are admonished to "write about what you know" and one thing that professional musicians know about is traveling from town to town making music. But does that mean that everybody has to write a song or two about the experience?

It's like novelists who cast writers as main characters in their books. Again, it's the "write about what you know" thing and writers know about being writers. But Stephen King's "Misery" and John Irving's "A Widow for One Year" are the only two novels that I can recall reading where it worked well - where the protagonist couldn't have just as easily been something else.

Anyway, of the "life on the road" songs with which I'm familiar, Simon & Garfunkle's "Homeward Bound" is the only one that I think is a great song. I can abide Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", Waylon Jennings' "I Don't Think Hank Done 'Em This Way", Bob Seeger's "Turn the Page" and Jackson Browne's "Stay". Everything else just makes me want to take the songwriter aside and say, "Yeah, life on the road's tough. So go back to school and become a stockbroker."

Any others?

Bruce