I Dream a Highway

(I remember falling asleep to this 15 minute downer on the late night family car trip back from bluegrass festivals – I was raised on Gillian Welch.)

Welch does not a dream of new opportunity, but of “a highway back to you love.” The road, or in this case the highway, is a way to get back to what we love. It is this simple backward mobility that acts as a reminder of what is important. Whether or not the highway will physically take us there, we are reminded of our sorrow for lost love, and the image of the road takes us there in dreams.

Here we find the sorrow of modern American promise (as she sings of faulted wanderings across the country). In the past, the road meant looking forward towards opportunity, but now it’s a highway that looks backwards towards better days. In short, the best of America is now behind us.