Convoy (song)
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"Convoy" is a 1975 novelty song performed by C.W. McCall (pseudonym of Bill Fries) that became a number-one hit in the USA and helped start a worldwide craze for citizens band (CB) radio.
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[edit] The song
The song consists of three different types of interspersed dialog: a simulated CB conversation, the narration of the story and the chorus. It is the story about a fictitious minor trucker rebellion that drives from the west coast to the east coast of the United States without stopping. What they are protesting (other than the then-prevalent 55 miles per hour speed limit) is not stated in the song.
The "conversation" is between two truckers, using their handles "Rubber Duck" and "Pig Pen", but we only hear the Rubber Duck side of the conversation.
Rubber Duck (driving a Kenworth with a load of logs) is at the "front door" (the leader) of three eighteen-wheelers (tractor and semi-trailer) when he realizes that they have a convoy. Following the Rubber Duck is an unnamed trucker in a "cab-over Pete with a reefer on" (a refrigerated trailer, hauled by a Peterbilt truck configured with the cab over the engine), while Pig Pen brings up the rear in a "Jimmy" (GMC truck) hauling hogs.
During the song, Rubber Duck keeps complaining about the smell of the hogs, so he keeps asking Pig Pen to "back off" (fall further behind). Pig Pen has fallen so far back that by the end of the song when Rubber Duck is in New Jersey, Pig Pen has only gotten as far as Omaha.
The convoy begins June 6th on "I-one-oh" (I-10) just outside of "Shakytown" (Los Angeles, California, known by that name due to its frequent earth tremors). By the time they get to "Tulsatown" (Tulsa, Oklahoma), there are eighty-five trucks in the convoy and the "bears" (police) have set up a road block and have a "bear in the air" (police helicopter) monitoring the situation. By the time they get to "Chi-town" (Chicago, Illinois), the convoy has been joined by a "suicide jockey" (truck hauling explosives) and "eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus", and the police have called out "reinforcements from the 'Illinoise' (Illinois) National Guard". The convoy crashes another road block when crossing a toll bridge into New Jersey, and by this time they have "a thousand screamin' trucks" in all.
[edit] Sequel
McCall's "'Round the World with the Rubber Duck" is the sequel to "Convoy". In this continuation, the convoy leaves the United States and travels around the world, through England, France, West and East Germany, the USSR, Japan, and Australia.
[edit] Remakes
C.W. McCall recorded a new version of the song with different lyrics for the soundtrack of the 1978 film Convoy. C.W. McCall also made two additional re-recordings of the original song, one for his 1990 album The Real McCall: An American Storyteller, and the other for the 2003 Mannheim Steamroller album American Spirit.
The song was covered in 2004 by Paul Brandt. The video features Brandt and fellow country singers Jason McCoy and Aaron Lines as well as Calgary Flames defensemen Mike Commodore and Rhett Warrener as truckers and George Canyon, of Nashville Star fame as the highway patrol officer. The video can be seen on CMT in both Canada and the United States.
[edit] Trivia
- The song charted in many countries around the world where CB radio didn't even exist and often set off floods of illegally imported American CB gear. Several countries quickly established legitimate CB radio services in response.
- A 1978 film also called Convoy was loosely based on the song.
- Fries, who provides McCall's voice in the long-running series of commercials for the Metz Baking Company, cowrote "Convoy" with Chip Davis - whose assembly of backup musicians for the ads eventually became Mannheim Steamroller.
- Pig Pen's "twenty" (slang for 10-20, or current location) of Omaha is a reference to Omaha, Nebraska, the headquarters of Chip Davis' American Gramaphone label which released the song.
- There was a sequel done by C.W. McCall titled "'Round the World with the Rubber Duck". In 2000, T A Chafin produced a sequel titled "Convoy 2000".
- The Futurama episode "Parasites Lost" featured this song at the opening. Executive producer David X. Cohen mentions in the DVD commentary that he remembers from his youth this song as having been "rockin'".
- In The Simpsons episode "'Tis The Fifteenth Season," Homer drives through a shady part of town while listening to the radio, which was playing "Christmas Convoy," a parody of "Convoy" describing Jesus' birth. [1]. In another Simpsons episode, "Radio Bart," Homer sings a few bars of the song to demonstrate a toy microphone he had given Bart for his birthday (a TV commercial for the toy also includes lyrics from the song).
- A couple of months after C.W. McCall's version made number 2 in the UK singles chart a parody version charted,"Convoy G.B" by Laurie Lingo & the Dipsticks (in reality BBC Radio 1 DJ's Dave Lee Travis and Paul Burnett). Their version reached number 4.
- British comedian Benny Hill momentarily parodied the "Convoy" concept, musically and visually, during a memorable sketch about a wheelchair race made up of nursing home residents. Benny's wheelchair had a CB unit.
- In the episode of My Name Is Earl, "Made a Lady Think I Was God", Earl plays a prank similar to the one Bart plays in "Radio Bart". When they are first spying on the lady, Earl, Randy and Joy sing the song almost as a homage to the Simpson's episode.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by "Saturday Night" by Bay City Rollers |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single January 10, 1976 |
Succeeded by "I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow |
