Why Can't We Write Our Own?

 

So many rock and roll songs are written about journeys across America.  This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, after all the music and the pioneering artists were all from the United States.  Being in a band in North Yorkshire is quite a long way from Memphis Tennessee, so there has always been a temptation to write a rock and roll song that captures the essence of America with a feel a little closer to home.

The trouble with this is that America is such a huge country compared to the UK.  The USA is forty times the size of little old England.  In the UK you are never more than 70 miles from the coast.  In the US the most central point is Belle Fourche in South Dakota.  This town of approximately 5000 people is over 1000 miles to the nearest coast.  That distance alone gives the songwriter plenty of acreage to reference on any particular journey. 

Take Route 66 for example perhaps the most famous of 'road' songs.  Chicago to Los Angeles is a journey of 2000 miles with big cities on the way.  Plenty of possible places to get your kicks on Route 66.

By contrast Helen Wheels by Wings, arguably the best known UK road song is about a drive from Glasgow to London via the M6, just over 400 miles.  Not a journey with the same number of highlights.  Places such as Kendal, Liverpool and Birmingham charming as they are don't stir the emotions in the same way as St. Louis or San Bernadino. 

When our drummer asked why couldn't we have our own Yorkshire rock and roll song, I had to go away and think very carefully about how we could.  I mean North Yorkshire has some spectacular driving roads, but it isn't exactly Oklahoma City.

So with a faithful 12-bar blues pattern in A, I went away and wrote Settle Rocks, about a journey along the A65 from Skipton to Settle.

This is a frequent journey that folk around here make.  Skipton is the nearest main town to Settle, so most will travel along the winding single carriageway road, often choked with farm or holiday traffic to get their weekly shop done.

References include the dodgy weather, it is Yorkshire after all, The Leeds Liverpool Canal, Tractors, Caravans, The Flying Scotsman on the Settle - Carlisle Railway and the famous Dales Three Peaks: Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-Y-Ghent.

Ok so it might not be as romantic as driving an open topped Ford Mustang through the wide open spaces of Arizona or New Mexico, but its our own bit of Yorkshire rock and roll.