I’ve long been aware that this song exists via cultural osmosis, but i’d never heard it until it came on an oldies station I was listening to today. The trucker lingo wasn’t that hard to figure out, but I have to say I don’t understand the story it’s trying to tell at ALL.
This is what I got out of it;
Some truckers decide to start driving in a row
The cops chase them
???
Profit!
Why are these truckers all driving around in convoy? Why do there get to be “thousands” of them? Where are they going? Shouldn’t they be making deliveries or something?
And why do the cops have a problem with this? I don’t hear any description of the truckers doing anything more illegal than trying to evade a toll bridge, and this is after the point where the cops have deployed jeeps,* tanks*, and “a bear in the air” to stop them from driving around in a row. Was it a slow day and “The Man” just needed to find someone to hassle to take the edge off?
It’s been a while since I watched it, but I’m sure that you’re talking about the title song for the movie “Convoy”. The storyline in the imdb link should explain the song.
ETA: Just checked the wiki entry for the song, and saw that I had it backwards, i. e. the song inspired the movie, not the other way. Maybe it still helps.
For those who want the Cliff’s Notes version, basically, it’s a safety in numbers thing. If you have a big long line of trucks exceeding the speed limit, the cops can only pick off one or two at a time, leaving the majority unbusted.
They were also failing to pull over at weigh stations, IIRC.
(Oh sure, that movie gets all the acclaim, but where’s the love for Supervan? Maybe the song wasn’t as good. “Riiiidin’ Hiiiiiigh in my Superrrrrvan” )
Watch the movie if you want a (too) deep explanation!
Although the film is not exactly what I’d call ‘good’, for a movie based on a song (and a novelty song at that) its not only not godawful but it’s rather gritty and dark. The song Convoy was hugely popular amongst us kids at the time (grade-school kids!) And even though by the time the movie came out I was a teenager I was kind of shocked at all the seriousness and violence it contained.
[ul]
[li]Franklin Ajay as the ‘black’ trucker (with an afro literally the size of OJ’s in Naked Gun III) getting the shit beat out of him in a southern jail![/li][li]Burt Young’s ‘Pig Pen’ as a bit of a broody sociopath![/li][li]Kris Kristofferson as ‘Rubber Duck’ telling Ernest Borgnine’s smokey, “Well piss on ya! And piss on your law too!”[/li][li]Borgnine pummeling Rubber Duck’s truck head-on with an M60 machine gun in an attempt to stop him from crossing the Mexican border (by murdering him!)[/li][li]Him ostensibly succeeding! (Rubber Duck is machine gunned to death?! WTF?!)[/li][/ul] Definitely more serious (and better) a movie than Take this job and Shove It! was…
Well, okay, but is that all? I mean, if you just look at the lyrics without having them explained, it seems like they’re planning something much more elaborate and sinister. But apparently, all they were doing was driving down the road together–in a “convoy,” and speeding, perhaps–and this for some reason leads law enforcement to respond with some kind of paramilitary action? And so they decide to continue all the way to New Jersey without stopping? In other words, the rhetoric of the song and the explanation for what they were actually doing just don’t match up.
I haven’t seen the movie, but how on earth could you ever make something like this at all meaningful?
I think the song appealed to/was rooted in the anti-establishment feeling that was prevelant in the 70’s. An over-reaction by The Man would fit the purposes of the the song pretty well. If the reaction by law enforcement made sense, who would feel sympathetic to the truckers’ plight? (The truckers represent the working class “everyman”, I guess.)
That was the general theme of the movie “Smokey and the Bandit,” too. Running a truckload of Coors to Georgia (that was before Coors was distributed nationally), the Bandit running interference in his black Trans-Am, Sheriff Buford T. Justice being the stereotypical 'Respect mah authori-tah" type of over-the-top Southern law officer.
Meaningful wasn’t the point of course - but it’s fanwankable as sort of a positive feedback loop. The convoy starts running, the cops try to stop it, more trucks (and the microbus) join up to help, more cops, the convoy becomes more about a protest than delivering goods, etc.
But, like most novelty songs (c.f. The Streak, you don’t want to think about it too hard.
Optimus Prime’s Japanese name is Convoy. Just for the record.
It would have been a very different movie if they’d gone that route. I mean, I never actually saw the movie, but if it turns out they DID do that, I will be very surprised.
–
“Unrestricted highway speeds are the right of all sentient beings! Truckers, transform and roll out!”
