Review: <i>Roadrunner</i>, by Joshua Clover

Joshua Clover takes readers on a circuitous but fascinating ride in this book on the proto-punk garage rock classic "Roadrunner."A two-chord paean to joyriding, rock 'n' roll radio, and the city of Boston, "Roadrunner" was written by a teenaged Jonathan Richman and later recorded by various incarnations of his band, the Modern Lovers.As Clover explains, "Roadrunner" is a single that exists in multiple versions with a rather confusing release history.It was first recorded with John Cale producing in 1972, then again in 1974 with different personnel (though Richman's backing band was still called "the Modern Lovers").Neither version was released commercially until 1976, when the earlier version appeared on the Modern Lovers' self-titled debut album.Both versions were released on a seven-inch single in 1977, with the 1974 version listed as "Roadrunner (Once)" on the A side, and the 1972 version listed as "Roadrunner (Twice)" on the B side (7-8)."Roadrunner once, roadrunner twice" are lines from the song-they precede two brief moments of stop time that interrupt the otherwise propulsive momentum in both recordings.A live version released in 1977 became "Roadrunner (Thrice)."By the time this song-his most iconic composition-was finally released, Richman had largely abandoned it and his early sound.All three versions are semi-extemporized accounts of driving around Boston at night with rock 'n' roll radio as the soundtrack.The songs within the song lend a kind of poetry to the sights Richman points out-the Route 128 beltway around Boston, the Stop & Shop, the neon, the modern moonlight, the suburbs.The radio also keeps the song's solitary motorist company ("don't feel so alone").As Clover summarizes, "The theme is, What I saw while driving around" (11).It is also a rock 'n' roll song about the transcendent power of rock 'n' roll songs, or again, in Clover's words, a "foundational story for rock & roll, a folktale" (26).Clover's account of "Roadrunner" quickly steers readers off the main thoroughfare onto less-traveled byways.One might have expected him to dwell on the influence of the Velvet Underground, a band Richman reportedly saw as many as 80 times live, and briefly followed to New York from his home in Massachusetts.In its harmonic simplicity and list of rearrangeable lyrical lines, "Roadrunner," it is often pointed out, resembles "Sister Ray." Jerry Harrison's prominent organ solo on the Modern Lovers tune recalls Cale's on the Velvets' song.Given the Modern Lovers' influence on early punk, one might expect Clover to dwell on the song's immediate legacy, perhaps offering a thick