Wagon Wheel (song)
"Wagon Wheel" is a song co-written by Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show.[2] Dylan recorded the chorus in 1973; Secor added verses 25 years later. Old Crow Medicine Show's final version was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in April 2013. The song has been covered numerous times, including charting versions by Nathan Carter in 2012 and Darius Rucker in 2013.[3]
This article is about the 2004 song. For other uses, see Wagon Wheel (disambiguation)."Wagon Wheel"
February 10, 2004
2003
3:52
Content[edit]
The song describes a hitchhiking journey south along the eastern coast of the United States from New England in the northeast through Roanoke, Virginia, with the intended destination of Raleigh, North Carolina, where the narrator hopes to see his lover. As the narrator is walking south of Roanoke, he meets a trucker who is traveling from Philadelphia through Virginia westward toward the Cumberland Gap and Johnson City, Tennessee.
Old Crow Medicine Show's version of the song is in swing 2/4 time signature, with an approximate tempo of 76 half notes per minute. It uses the I–V–vi–IV pattern in the key of A major, with the main chord pattern of A–E–F♯m–D.
Music video[edit]
Old Crow Medicine Show released a music video for "Wagon Wheel" to YouTube on September 7, 2006. It features the band serving as the musical accompaniment to a burlesque sideshow at a traveling carnival. The video features cameo appearances by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who appear as ticket takers for the show. Rawlings also produced and played guitar on the track.
As of July 2023, the video has over 75 million views on YouTube.[28]
"Wagon Wheel"
"Wagon Wheel"
January 7, 2013
- 4:57 (album version)
- 2:53 (radio edit)
- 4:02 (album version)
In popular culture[edit]
South Dakota Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Weiland sang a parody of the song "with lyrics rewritten to match his campaign message" at a campaign "folk-rock concert" at the Strawbale Winery north of Sioux Falls in October 2014. Parody lyrics included the line: "I can't run a nine million-dollar campaign, but I don't have EB-5 to explain".[63] Senator and 2016 Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine played the song on harmonica with local act Nikki Talley and Jason Sharp at the Catawba Brewing Company in Asheville, North Carolina on August 15, 2016.[64][65][66]
In 2019, as part of the release of Ken Burns' miniseries Country Music, Bank of America released a video of the song, featuring six musicians from across the United States, with the tag line "Nothing connects the country like country." Each musician sang one line for the first six lines of the song.[67][68]
In 2023, English football team Leyton Orient secured promotion to SkyBet League One, and Wagon Wheel became the unofficial song of the O’s unforgettable season, being sung in the dressing room following the promotion, after Orient midfielder George Moncur introduced it to the squad. The song was played prior to the club’s title winning game versus Crewe Alexandra, and the O’s stadium announcer Barry Galvin also serenaded the squad with his guitar following the game, singing the song in the changing rooms after the side secured the title with a 2-0 victory.