words and music by Arlo Guthrie
CHORUS:
I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want a tickle
'Cause I'd rather ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want to die
Just want to ride on my motorcy...cle
It was late last night the other day
I thought I'd go up and see Ray
So l went up and I saw Ray
There was only one thing Ray could say, was:
CHORUS
This song is about the time that I was ridin' my motorcycle.
Going down a mountain road, at 150 miles an hour, playin'
my guitar. On one side of the mountain road there was a
mountain, and on the other side there was nothin' - there was
a cliff in the air.
Now, when you're going down a mountain road at I50 miles
an hour you gotta be very careful, especially if you're playin'
a guitar. Especially if that guitar is an acoustic guitar.
Because if it's an acoustic guitar, the wind pressure is greater
on the box side than on the neck side, because there's
more guitar on the box side. I wasn't payin' attention ..
Luckily I didn't go into the mountain - I went over the cliff.
I was goin' at 150 miles an hour sideways and 500 feet down
at the same time.
I knew it was the end. I looked down, I said ''Wow! Some
trip". I thought it...well I knew it was...I knew it was my last
trip, and in my last remaining seconds in world,I decided
to write one last farewell song to the world.
Put a new ink cartridge in my pen. Took out a piece of paper.
I sat back and I thought awhile. Then I started writin':
I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want a tickle
'Cause I'd rather ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want to die
Just want to ride on my motorcy ...cle."
I knew that, it wasn't the best song l ever wrote, but I didn't
have time to change it. I was comin' down mighty fast.
But as you all know, and as fate would have it, I didn't die. I
landed on the top of a police car. And he died. I drove away
on the road that he was on. I came into town at a screamin'
175 miles an hour, playin' the motorcycle song.
I came into town, I jumped off my bike, the bike went around
the corner by itself, went up on the stand by itself, turned
itself off.
I walked over to my friend. He was standin' there eatin'
pickles. I said "Hi, what's happenin'?" He looked at me in the
eye and said "Nothin'".
You gotta sing it with that kind of enthusiasm. Like you just
squashed a cop...
CHORUS
The lyrics THE MOTORCYCLE SONG of ARLO GUTHRIE is also present in the album Alice's restaurant (1967)
Arlo Guthrie è un cantautore folk statunitense nato a Coney Island, New York, nel 1947. Figlio del celebre poeta e scrittore Woody Guthrie, Arlo ha ereditato la passione per la musica e il forte impegno sociale che caratterizzano l'opera del padre. La sua carriera musicale inizia negli anni '60 con un sound folk acustico influenzato dal movimento folk revival. Il suo successo internazionale arriva nel 1968 con il brano "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", una lunga ballata satirica che racconta la storia di un evento reale e diventa un inno contro la guerra del Vietnam. Guthrie è noto per le sue canzoni narrative, spesso di grande lunghezza, che trattano temi sociali, politici e ambientali. Tra i suoi brani più famosi figurano anche "Coming into Los Angeles", "City of New Orleans" e "The Motorcycle Song". Arlo Guthrie continua a esibirsi dal vivo e a registrare nuovi album, rimanendo un'icona del folk americano.
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