About The Song
In 1983, David Allan Coe released “The Ride” as the lead single off his album Castles in the Sand. The song became one of the biggest hits of Coe as it spent nineteen weeks on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, where it peaked at No. 4.
It also spurred the success of Castles in the Sand as the album ranked No. 8 on the country albums chart – making it a huge comeback for Coe, who had had the same mark eight years earlier.
Written by Gary Gentry and J.B. Detterline Jr., “The Ride” finds David Allan Coe trying to hitch a ride from Montgomery, Alabama, to Nashville, Tennessee, with a guitar on his back. Luckily, a stranger in an antique Cadillac gave him a ride.
However, he felt there was something strange about the ride – especially with the mysterious driver who was ghostly white pale. Soon, the man played some country classics and started asking him how dedicated he was to becoming a star in the country industry.
The driver later dropped him off south of Nashville and told him he was going back to Alabama.
So, he stepped out of the Cadillac and thanked the Mister. However, the man told him he didn’t have to call him Mister and revealed that “the whole world called me Hank.”
It turns out that peculiar man was no other than the ghost of country legend Hank Williams, Sr. – who died in the backseat of his 1952 Cadillac. He and his hired driver were on a long drive from Williams’ home in Montgomery, Alabama, to perform a concert planned in Canton, Ohio.
Video
Lyrics
Well, I was thumbin’ from Montgomery
I had my guitar on my back
When a stranger stopped beside me in an antique Cadillac
He was dressed like 1950
Half drunk and hollow-eyed
He said, “It’s a long walk to Nashville
Would you like a ride, son?”
And I sat down in the front seat, he turned on the radio
And them sad old songs comin’ out of them speakers
Was solid country gold
Then I noticed the stranger was ghost-white pale
When he asked me for a light
And I knew there was something strange about this ride
He said, “Drifter, can ya make folks cry when you play and sing?
Have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues?
Can you bend them guitar strings?”
He said, “Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside?
‘Cause if you’re big star bound let me warn ya, it’s a long, hard ride”
Then he cried just south of Nashville
And he turned that car around
He said, “This is where you get off, boy
‘Cause I’m goin’ back to Alabam'”
As I stepped out of that Cadillac
I said, “Mister, many thanks”
He said, “You don’t have to call me Mister, Mister
The whole world called me Hank”
He said, “Drifter, can ya make folks cry when you play and sing?
Have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues?
Can you bend them guitar strings?”
He said, “Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside?
‘Cause if you’re big star bound let me warn ya, it’s a long, hard ride”
He said, “Drifter, can ya make folks cry when you play and sing?
Have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues?
Can you bend them guitar strings?”
He said, “Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside?
‘Cause if you’re big star bound let me warn ya, it’s a long, hard ride”
If you’re big star bound let me warn ya, it’s a long, hard ride
You know you got a lot of competition out there
Now the sound, it ain’t like it was in the ’50s when I was here
And then you got Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson
You got Clarke and Billy Joe Shaver and David Allan Coe
And you even got my son