Hitting The Right Note

The itinerary is finalised. The motels are booked. Other than wait for the road trip to come around, there's just one thing left to be done.

Compile the soundtrack. The perfect Monday afternoon project.

The reality is that we'll be hooking up the iPod and working our way through a whole bunch of albums and playlists. That said, there’s still room for a collection of tracks that symbolise and bring to life the geography, the emotion and the literal act of driving those 1,100km across Victoria and New South Wales.

And, of course, coming home to Kate.

Enough of the preamble. Here's how it's shaping up:

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
We gotta get out while we're young
Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win

I Get Around – The Beach Boys
I’m getting’ bugged driving up and down the same old strip
I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip

Roadrunner - The Modern Lovers
Going faster miles an hour
Gonna drive past the Stop 'n' Shop
With the radio on

The Year of Driving Languorously - The Lucksmiths
I want to feel the northerly down my sleeve
I love a sun burnt elbow pointing to the sea

The Great Dividing Range - The Lucksmiths
I find it strange that these mountains make me miserable
But the Great Dividing Range merely proves we’re indivisible

This Road - James Blundell
I love this road
When I miss my home
I guess I was born to ride that white line

The Road Goes On Forever - Robert Earl Keen
They got a hotel by the water and a quart of Bombay gin
The road goes on forever and the party never ends

Lido Shuffle – Boz Scaggs
He be makin' like a beeline
Headin' for the borderline
Goin' for broke

Along the Road to Gundagai - Peter Dawson
Where the blue gums are growing
And the Murrumbidgee’s flowing
Beneath that sunny sky

Our Don Bradman – Art Leonard
For when he goes in to bat
He knocks ev'ry record flat
For there isn't anything he cannot do

Long Way Round - Stereophonics
Gonna roll up the sidewalk
I'm gonna tear up the ground.
Comin' round to meet you
The long way round.

Return of the Grievous Angel – Gram Parsons
20,000 roads I went down, down, down
And they all led me straight back home to you