TheBanyanTree: Speed

[B Drummond]

A song has played over and over in my mind today.  Things happen like 
that sometimes --a frame of mind I drift slowly into and stay until a 
shock comes along to sling me reeling out of.   And when I'm at this 
place and sing along to the song,  my voice always quivers and my eyes 
never fail to mist every time when I get to the lyrics,


"can it outrun her memory?"


I guess it's that there's something cathartic about the open road and 
speed for me as well.   I identify with it.  Freedom and flight from 
memories that are slowing me down, thinking that all I really need is a 
little more speed and new vistas.


Maybe it was what drove Bob Creamer and the owner of a shiny new gold 
Pontiac GTO 389, a hot rod from the factory with 3 two-barreled 
carburetors, to lean hard on the gas and push that car to a speed too 
fast for the curve on the Panama City cutoff one night in April of 
1968.  Bob, they said,  had a weakness for fast cars.


Maybe Bob, too, was trying to outrun a memory.


He lost control of the GTO right in front of the old African Methodist 
Church.  The big live oak withstood the force admirably when the car 
struck it about 12 feet up from the base.  The tree outlived the 
impact.  Bob and the owner of the car died on that impact.  


Dear Lord in heaven, what a sight it must have been the next morning 
when the pastor came to open the church in preparation for the morning 
service and found a mangled muscle car in the churchyard -- with Messers 
Creamer and Jones both in the front seats, them every bit as mangled as 
the car. 


 From zero to a terminal velocity on a dark of the moon night in north 
Florida, Bob left me without an employer and a wife and two kids without 
a husband and father.



Speed (by Montgomery Gentry)


I'm tired of spinning my wheels.
I need to find a place where my heart can go to heal.
I need to get there pretty quick.
Hey mister, what you got out on that lot you can sell me in a pinch.
Maybe one of them souped up muscle cars.
The kind that makes you think you're stronger than you are.
Color don't matter, no I don't need leather seats.
All that really concerns me is:

Speed, an' how fast will it go.
Can it get me over her quickly.
Zero to sixty, can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need,
Is an open road,
An' a whole lot of speed.

I'd like to trade in this old truck,
'Cause it makes me think of her and that just slows me up.
See, it's the first place we made love, where we used to sit and talk,
On the tailgate all night long, but now she's gone,
An' I need to move on,
So give me:

Speed, an' how fast will it go.
Can it get me over her quickly.
Zero to sixty, can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need,
Is an open road,
An' a whole lot of speed.

Throw me them keys so I can put some miles between us.
Tear off that rear view mirror, there's nothing left to see here, yeah.
Let me lean on that gas, oh she catches up fast,
So give me:

Speed, an' how fast will it go.
Can it get me over her quickly.
Zero to sixty, can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need,
Is an open road,
An' a whole lot of speed.

That's what I need.
I'm tired of spinning my wheels.
I'm tired of spinning my wheels.

<instrumental fade>



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