Songs of the Highway, No 7: 'Hello, I'm a truck,' by Red Simpson

Overdrive Radio

Trucking’s music history has no shortage of light-hearted songs, such as Kay Adams’ “Little Pink Mack,” Charlie Walker’s “Truck Drivin’ Cat With Nine Wives” or The Legendary Shack Shakers’ “The CB Song.” One of the most humorous, thanks to its sharp barbs aimed at truckers, is Joe Cecil “Red” Simpson’s “Hello, I’m a truck.” It hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in January 1972, making it the biggest hit single in Simpson’s long music career. “This song takes a different angle on the trucking experience,” says Todd Uhlman in this specia Songs of the Highway edition of Overdrive Radio. Uhlman's a specialist in American culture at the University of Dayton in Ohio. “It’s not about the trucker. It’s about the truck.” At the same time, the truck isn’t shy about criticizing truckers. The truck-narrator notes how drivers love to share “tales of daring” and “the girls they've left behind.” The truck criticizes its own driver, too, and, as Simpson often does, references other trucking songs: “Look at him sipping coffee and flirtin' with that waitress. And where do you think he left me? That's right, next to a cattle truck. Why couldn't we have put me next to that little pink Mack sitting over there?” Hear more about the truck's place in trucking-music history in this edition, and find so much more in Overdrive's 2021 60th-anniversary series covering trucking history and more via http://overdriveonline.com/trucking-history