How To Tell If Your Songwriter Has Not Been To Arkansas

Heard this one on the radio while mowing the lawn yesterday:

Lyrics include:

It’s a lonely stretch of blacktop out into the blue

Ah, gentle reader. As you know, I have vacationed in Arkansas (Hot Springs in in 2017 and Fairfield Bay in 2023 (that long ago already, he asked, nesting parentheses like a programmer)), and I have been to a couple of cybersecurity conferences in Bentonville, and I have been to Berryville in 2021 and in 2024. So I have driven a bit around northwest and central Arkansas, including around Hot Springs, and:

The topography does not lend itself to blacktop extending to the horizon. Probably not even on Interstate 30 which (I just learned, researching this post and discovering it might not be as clever or arch as I thought) runs between the two. It is not Texas or Kansas where the lines are long and straight. It’s curvy and hilly, probably even on the interstate.

Also, of note: In the two-and-a-half hours I spent on mowing part of the yard, I heard three songs that mentioned Little Rock (and not “Little Rock” by Colin Raye, and not “Little Rock” by Reba McEntire which is not about the city). It sure punches above its weight in country and western music, ainna?

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