When we were first married, John sold his little sports car and we bought an El Camino, it was silver with a white stripe, it suited us, half sports car half truck, I loved that car.
When I found this song The El Camino by Amos Lee and Willie Nelson, I thought this should be good, John loved Willie. But when I played it, I found it was not a song about that great car we used to drive. It is a song about a road.
There is a road in Europe that takes travelers on a pilgrimage to find themselves and God. A pilgrimage of faith, that has been travelled for more than a thousand years, by people who are on a journey to save their soul. The road ends at a church in Santiago Spain and it is believed that the disciple James is buried there. The road is called the El Camino.
This a song about travelling down that road...
well all my friends who treated me so well
you know I'm headed out to that Mission Bell
gonna wash my soul, gonna get it clean
heading down the border road called the El Camino...
I believe in all I've loved and all I've seen,
heading down the border road called the El Camino
yeah my hearts grown sick... my hearts gone blue
and I've done wrong by you, I don't know what to do
but I'm movin on, it really breaks my heart, leaving you behind...
all my ships have sailed away,
the price of this politic -
that there's plenty of time to pray and plenty of time to waste away.
well to all my friends that I've loved the most
you know I'm headed out to that other coast.
gonna wash my soul, gonna get it clean
heading down the border road called the El Camino.
...and it is a song about John.
