Wrong Side of the Road<\/a>,\u201d Tom Waits<\/p>\nA thesaurus will tell you that \u201croad\u201d and \u201cstreet\u201d are synonyms. This is more evidence that synonyms are an imaginary creature dreamed up by people certain that denotation matters more than connotation. If you want to know the difference between a street and a road, go get three or four Tom Waits albums, it doesn\u2019t matter which, and pay attention to when he sings about streets and when he sings about roads. Tom\u2019ll explain it for you.<\/p>\n
Or just go through these song titles and substitute in \u201cstreet\u201d for \u201croad\u201d and consider how it changes them. The King of the Street is a very different person from the King of the Road. Lonesome Road sounds like a journey while Lonesome Street sounds like a location \u2014 same with the Road\/Street of the Righteous. Crossroad Blues is a life-changing turning point while Cross-street Blues sounds more like a traffic problem. And Hit the Street to Dreamland just sounds vaguely disreputable. I somehow lack the Willie Nelson classic, but On the Road Again is a very different sentiment than On the Street Again.<\/p>\n
Or consider what just might maybe be, sometimes, my favorite song: Thunder Street just would not do. Nor would it be quite the same if Mary were to waste her summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these roads.<\/p>\n
Synonyms? There\u2019s no such thing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After doing \u201cstreet\u201d songs last week, this seemed like the logical next step. Oddly, I had exactly 31 songs with \u201cstreet\u201d in the title, and the same number with \u201croad.\u201d Some kind of volatile helplessness reigns \u2026 \u201cAt the End of the Road,\u201d Julie Miller \u201cBright Side of the Road,\u201d Van Morrison \u201cCar Wheels on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[239],"class_list":["post-9969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-music"],"yoast_head":"\n
Hitting the 'Road'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After doing "street" songs last week, this seemed like the logical next step. Oddly, I had exactly 31 songs with "street" in the title, and the same\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/31\/hitting-the-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hitting the 'Road'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After doing "street" songs last week, this seemed like the logical next step. Oddly, I had exactly 31 songs with "street" in the title, and the same\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/31\/hitting-the-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-31T11:01:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-30T19:08:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2012\/08\/drybones1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/31\/hitting-the-road\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/31\/hitting-the-road\/\",\"name\":\"Hitting the 'Road'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-31T11:01:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-30T19:08:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"After doing \\\"street\\\" songs last week, this seemed like the logical next step. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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<\/a>\u201cFarther up the Road,\u201d Vigilantes of Love