Monday Music: I Dream a Highway (Gillian Welch)

My thanks to Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of Poetry Unbound, for introducing me to "I Dream a Highway," by Gillian Welch.  Here is what he said about it in an email from the On Being Project:

The first time I heard it, I was transfixed. I sat at my table — it was on the radio and I was cleaning the kitchen after a party. I turned out the lights and listened to the song in the dark. Ever since, I have turned to the song from time to time, always with the lights off, always with my eyes closed.

It’s a song of extraordinary longing. When I was writing this, I wrote “a poem of extraordinary longing,” and my mistake isn’t much of a mistake. The voice in the song wonders what will sustain her through a long winter, and she dreams of a highway back to a “you” — who is the you? A lover, perhaps. Or a friend. Or a family member. Or herself. Or all of these. It’s a lyric that’s seeking healing, not perfection. It’s a lyric that’s so full of yearning, it bears its own healing in the sounding of the words.

 

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