About The Song
A handful of individuals have achieved notoriety in the country music industry who could certifiably be labeled as “geniuses.” Even more have been categorized merely as “eccentric.” Yet, in nearly a hundred years of serving up superb entertainers and great performances, the genre has encountered only one man who took his eccentricities and his genius and combined them in a way that somehow made sense to millions, while also leaving everyone wondering, “Where is this guy coming from?”
Roger Miller was one of the most unique talents to ever find the Music City spotlight. Like numerous country music luminaries, Miller joined the service to escape the dire poverty of his raising, and while there, he began singing and playing for his military buddies. A pretty common story, except that the material that Roger came up with was uniquely whimsical, humorous and “off-the-wall.” His writing and performing talent was soon noticed by the military brass, and Miller was soon transferred to “Army Special Services,” where he was designated to perform in a hillbilly band. Writing much of the outfit’s material, while picking up drum, fiddle and guitar prowess, Roger became the group’s featured performer. After his discharge from the service in the mid-1950s, Miller thumbed his way to Nashville and found work as a bellhop at one of the city’s posh hotels, all the while writing songs and becoming friends with other struggling writers.
One of Miller’s first big breaks came when Ray Price selected one of his tunes – “Invitation to the Blues” – as the flip side of “City Lights.” It was ironic that Roger’s first successful effort at songwriting was backing Bill Anderson’s initial hit composition. Bill and Roger had known each other for a couple of years and had often traded ideas. Now Nashville had noted their talents at the same time. Thanks to scoring a Ray Price record, Miller would write for Faron Young’s publishing company for a while. His work on a host of future hits, including “In the Summertime,” convinced RCA to give him a shot at recording. He produced one hit for the label, the #6 “When Two Worlds Collide” (co-written with Anderson), before moving on to the Smash label (a Mercury subsidiary). It was there that he would find real success.
There was little doubt that Roger was talented, but to many it appeared that he was also crazy, and prone to wasting time on compositions that were written just for laughs. While “normal” scribes spent days perfecting serious songs, Miller was often content to while away his time writing things that made no sense. More and more, his work seemed to have no commercial value. Many of these Miller products were so strange that they made novelty songs seem downright serious. More often than not, even those who called Roger a genius also labeled the young man a “flake.”
Somehow Smash saw a method in the madness and caught onto what the rest of the country music industry had missed. When Roger toured, those who bought tickets to his show liked Miller best when he made them laugh. In many ways, he was a stand-up comedian who delivered his jokes in lyrics and music. His skewed point of view always seemed to connect, especially with the younger crowd. Without even realizing it, Miller had invented a type of funny folk music. Sensing that there was some value here, the label thought it would be worth the risk to release one of Roger’s most unique songs.
“Dang Me,” complete with a bizarre nonsensical chorus line and a mostly dialogue-driven verse, somehow became a major hit in 1964. It stayed at #1 on Billboard’s country chart for six weeks and went to #7 on the Billboard “Hot 100” pop chart. Miller picked up five Grammy awards for “Dang Me.” The equally strange “Chug-a-Lug” and “Do-Wacka-Do” also logged high placements on Billboard’s country and pop charts that year. This sudden crazy success gave Miller a chance to finally be taken seriously.
While writing his fourth single for the Smash label, Roger called upon two of his own life experiences. The first was the poverty that had been at the core of his first 20 years of life. The other was the strange gypsy lifestyle which he had lived as both a songwriter and an entertainer. In his first years out of the Army, Miller had held down dozens of jobs for as many as “a few days at a time.” He had lived in cheap hotel rooms, run-down rental houses and rusting mobile homes. He had bummed countless cigarettes and gotten by many days on ketchup sandwiches and watered-down coffee.
Yet, in the midst of all this, Roger never lost his smile or his sense of humor. Like an innocent child, he’d turned even the worst day into an adventure. During that time he had also discovered that there was a sense of power in running your own world and depending upon no one else. In Miller’s mind, the fact that he wasn’t beholden to anybody made him rich. And now, as he was fielding offers for his own network television show, and putting more and more money in the bank, he realized that he had been just as wealthy and more in control of his life when he had been struggling. “King of the Road” was his story, a serious song that dealt with poverty in an upbeat fashion.
Roger’s ode to independence, set in stark depression, somehow made people feel good. The melody had a grace, and the lyrics floated in such an easy manner that listeners would sing them without even noticing it. To country music fans growing up during the Depression, “King of the Road” represented their “good old days.” To younger folks, whose desire for adventure and freedom was stymied by the realities of having to make a living and take care of a family, the song described their longings. To Smash Records, this little ditty was solid gold.
“King of the Road” soared to #1 on Billboard’s country singles chart on March 27, 1965, holding that position for five weeks. On the pop side, it worked its way up to #4 on the Billboard “Hot 100,” a major achievement for a country record to place that high. “King of the Road” also topped Billboard’s adult contemporary chart for ten weeks, tying Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John” for most weeks at #1.
At the 1965 Grammy Awards, “King of the Road” won six trophies for Miller (he had already won five the year before for “Dang Me”) and his two-year total of eleven held the mark for 33 years as the most Grammys ever won by a country artist until Vince Gill surpassed him in 1998. As of January, 2024, Gill had picked up 22 Grammy wins out of 44 nominations.
Video
Lyrics
Trailer’s for sale or rent
Rooms to let, 50 cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road
Third boxcar, midnight train
Destination Bangor, Maine
Old, worn out suit and shoes
I don’t pay no union dues
I smoke old stogies I have found
Short, but not too big around
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road
I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
Every lock that ain’t locked, when no one’s around
I sing, trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, 50 cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road
Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, 50 cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom buys…