Saddest Song of 70s??

All truck driving songs fall into one of four broad categories: Horny As Hell, I'm Incompetent, Breaking The Law And/Or Hopped Up On Drugs and Somebody Died. And the archetype of the last category is Red Sovine's Teddy Bear. It isn't enough that the little boy's trucker dad perished and mom's never at home cause she has to bust ass waiting tables (probably for greasy truck stop lotharios). No, the kid has to be paralyzed too and get his only meaningful interaction from talking to overstressed, profane drivers that wander within range of his CB.

 

'Diary' - Bread
Great premise

 

Why was truckin culture so damn popular in the 70s compared to every other decade? Had its own unique niche of music, movies, TV, etc. Being in a big rig really meant you were the shit for awhile there.

 

Bread's whole catalog was pretty much tearjerkers. I can't remember any really happy songs of theirs.

 

Well, the CB explosion meant truckers could talk about their trucking activities (exciting, interesting or not) in real time. That kinda gave it an aura of immediacy.

And there were a hell of a lot of truckers in the 1970s. With the interstate highway system fully operational by then, truck shipping took over a lot of the volume handled by trains in earlier decades. I'd guess more people per capita worked in trucking in the 70s than any decade before or since.

 

No love for Honey, by Bobby Goldsboro? Young wife dies:

 

Unlike today when they are tracked and micromanaged to a fair-thee-well despite being mostly (cough, cough) independent contractors, truckers then had a pretty high degree of autonomy during their work hours. As more of America got stuffed into cubicles, it seemed like a form of escapism or rebellion. And as opposed to cowboys, which seemed like mostly an abstract concept, you could see a truck driver around every bend, which made them easy to identify with.

 

Me too. Just depressing.

 

Yes, it does. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald was haunting.

 

A board classic.

 

Badfinger's "Without You" is sadder because of all the tragedy that followed a few years later.