Wagon Wheel

I had wanted to write about the evolution of my feelings on the song Wagon Wheel by the Old Crow Medicine Show:

A. Erin and I live in Eugene, Oregon and we have "invested" our money in a 1996 Mazda Protege. Its glowing green-blue color won us over immediately, and we drove it around the block for an test drive with the emergency brake on. The Protege has a CD player and our friend Mallory has made us a mixed CD featuring the mellow music that is popular in her world (as well as a few mid-nineties throwbacks) and one of the songs, which we play shamelessly on repeat, sometimes on lazy, aimless drives through town or to the coast, is called Wagon Wheel. It is a sexy comfort and calls attention to our misspent youth. We love that song and wail along and feel quite rustic, although we are happy to be in our own vehicle and not hitchhiking like the free spirit in the song. I am pretty sure I have missed out on ever having anything like this singer's life because I have a Gameboy and shop at the Gap, but I can create moments that get me close enough.

B. Without really meaning to, I have stumbled into a lifestyle not entirely dissimilar to the Wagon Wheel singer's. Or at least I have a front-row seat to it. I am working for my dad on his fishing boat and eating slices of warm cheese for lunch and technically living in a "village" and the meaning of "rural" and "community" has coagulated in a pile of discordant political views and alcohol. It is approximately three years since I first heard the Wagon Wheel song and it's hard to even really hear it anymore when I do. It sounds like the noise of an oil painting. So to hear it one night at a  bonfire, coming from humans whose names I know, who are playing guitars, is abrasive and decidedly overwrought. But that's all it takes, and suddenly real people with real dirt on their chins are spilling their beers and stagger-dancing to it. I feel cynicism bubbling under my skin, but I'm just drunk enough to declare I love this song.

C. Wagon Wheel has been covered by a popular country group, and as a result it is popping up in shopping malls and on the radio when my boyfriend's mom has control of the dial. I have so few feelings about it that this new incarnation barely registers, but I still hum along out of some vague sense of duty to the myth of the trail-worn traveler who is just looking to have a good time.