Music: Lyric Sheets

Chuck Berry's (below) Route 66 isn't what it used to be. Neither is it where it used to be. No longer designated a National Highway, the legendary road, which spanned east-west from Chicago to California, is now split between several other interstate highways.

Not Route 66

Not just a way from A to B

It went from ILL. to Ca.

Via quite a lot of Okla. Mo.

But missing Ark. and La.

Two thousand miles of history

Chuck Berry set to song

Demoted to a ghost road

They must have got it wrong

To uninvent a legend

Like "Mainstreet USA"

The place for backbeat drivers

And rockers' motorway.

From shining northern cities

Past hillsides further south

The kind where men will stop you

To praise your

"purdy mouth".

Past place-names so exotic

To eager English ears

That lyrics lodged like leeches

And stayed for 20 years

For instance; hearing "Flagstaff"

And wondering where it is.

It's gratifying to find it.

Smack-bang there in Ariz.

Route 66 has vanished

The number's there no more

Re-christened Fifty-five now

Then westwards, Forty-four

Which makes you feel cheated

Or actually aghast,

To find that someone's stolen

The way back to your past.