What is it about a tune? I was rolling along and then … Bam! Journey’s “Still They Ride” came on. And I was back. Back to where so much began.

Small-town life, where I walked the railroad track and used a week’s worth of saved quarters from lifting couches and loveseats to purchase a bottle of Mountain Dew and a Snickers from the gas station. It’s a Circle K now, but when I was a tyke, it was not that, but a little country store where the lady in a black tank top and raspy smoker’s voice knew me and my cousin, Robert, as we came with our quarters to drop into the slot for Asteroids and PAC-MAN, then bite into our Snickers for which we’d saved all week.

Seems silly sentimental now, but it was all so real then … and as I rolled down the road and Steve Perry’s voice launched me once again into nights riding the blacktop country roads, blasting Journey and dreaming of girls, smelling girls’ perfume in the skating rink that was but a tin tent but that we thought a haven of damsels. It washed over me again. The power of music in youth. Still they ride … through the night.

Jesse rides through the night
Under the Main Street light
Ridin’ slow

This ol’ town, ain’t the same
Now nobody knows his name
Times have changed, still he rides.

Traffic lights, keepin’ time
Leading the wild and restless
Through the night

Still they ride, on wheels of fire
They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive
Chasing thunder

Spinning ’round, in a spell
It’s hard to leave this carousel
‘Round and ’round
And ’round and ’round

Still they ride, on wheels of fire
They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive
Chasing thunder