“Route 66” by Asleep At The Wheel

Asleep at the Wheel put their own "Route 66" on Wheelin' and Dealin' in 1976, taking on a Bobby Troup tune that had already been rolling down the highway for three decades. Troup wrote it in 1946, and the song grew out of a road trip of its own: he and his wife Cynthia loaded up their 1941 Buick and drove from Pennsylvania to California so he could try his luck as a Hollywood songwriter.

He first thought about a tune for US 40, the road they started on, until Cynthia came up with the title "Get Your Kicks on Route 66". He began it during the ten-day drive and finished it in Los Angeles with a map in front of him, and the lyrics tick off cities and towns along the route west from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.