“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?”
I don’t know why it is, but sometimes songs get stuck in my head while other things quickly slip through the ever-widening cracks. The grocery list, that thing I was supposed to tell my wife, or the name of the guy I just spent 10 minutes talking to, frustratingly, poof, they’re gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday.
Undoubtedly, those pesky memory neurons have been sucked into some cranial black hole, never to see the light of day again.
But a song that I hear when my iPhone’s alarm goes off in the morning, well that tune rumbles around my head all day long.
Here’s Your Sign
Many thanks to Les Emmerson the frontman for the Canadian rock group, Five Man Electrical Band. Legend has it that Les wrote the little ditty, “Signs”. The maniacal musical masterpiece that got stuck on the rinse and repeat cycle between my ears at 6:01 am in the morning.
The song came to Les on his Route 66 road trip in California. He got frustrated by the many billboards that obscured the beautiful scenery.
The song was on for the group’s second album, Good-byes, and Butterflies, in 1970. Eventually re-released as a single, it went to No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Billboard ranked the gold record as the No. 24 song for 1971.
Trivia, yes, obscure, never useful in any meaningful adult conversation, is the other bane of my existence. And yes, it just pops randomly into my head as well, but I digress.
Hammer Time
So what’s writer to do with a song that’s stuck in his head? Well, they say when your favorite tool is a hammer, you end up treating everything as if it were a nail.
In this case, you combine your love of Corvettes with the beauty of unusual signs. Just about every passionate Corvette owner has a few photos of their Vette parked beside a vintage sign, old gas station, or race track billboard.
We asked our readers for photos of “Corvettes with Signs” and they definitely responded. Originally this was going to be a one-off article, but judging by the strong response, we’ll make it a multiple part series.
So keep sending in your photos.
Keep Them Coming
Thank you to everyone who sent over the photos of their beloved Corvettes parked beside an unusual building, or vintage sign. We’ll keep publishing the photos in this series as long as you keep sending them over.
Besides, it really does helps get that song out of my head. You know, the same one you’re humming right now.
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?”
Articles We Recommend:
Tail of the Dragon – A Voice That Drives My Heel,
Talking Corvettes with Chris Lindamood,
Simpson Farm – Rusted Rapture,