Roadrunner

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers' infinitely open song Roadrunner" tells us about the nature of rock, the history of pop, the fate of capitalism, the trajectory of the United States, and the experience of driving around at night. Locating rock & roll at the intersection of radio and the highway, the song sees its basis in car culture and in industrial production more broadly. If rock & roll is the last great invention of America's Industrial Revolution, "Roadrunner" is the song of that revolution's exhaustion. It offers us a vision of pure circulation, going round and round. Following this logic, the book moves backward to a shared origin story for rock and "Roadrunner," then forward to the song's inheritors at an ever more global level, featuring chapters on Chuck Berry, Cornershop, and MIA, before returning to the title track. This ensemble conjures circulation in all its forms: of commodities, financial crises, global pandemics, the techniques of political insurgency, migrant populations, and the accompanying circulation of sounds, songs, musics, and cultures--making along the way an argument about the politics of pop music writ large"--