When you travel, listen to Chris Rea

There is a precise moment, when dusk devours the highway and the headlights begin to reflect on the wet asphalt, in which Chris Rea’s voice becomes the only possible soundtrack. A few days ago, the musical cartographer of my most intimate travels passed away, the man who was able to transform the Delta blues into a universal language, also suitable for the mists of Europe.

Gravel and honey

I discovered Chris Rea while travelling. The blues is my favorite traveling companion and at that moment I was looking for a new voice that could sweeten the kilometers on the highway. Bless the playlist and the algorithm that decided to offer me this wonderful artist from Middlesbrough: it was enough for me “Auberge“to swear eternal love to that song that was gravel and honey at the same time. At that point – as always happens when I fall in love – I had to know everything about him: I started from the record from which the prison song was taken and listened to it in its entirety. Everything was already there on the cover: the evocative image of his car, the Caterham Super Seven (which Rea called “Blue Seven”), painted in oils by the artist Alan Fearnley and launched on a journey on a country road, at sunset.

It was all there, because the essence of Rea is there: in the journey and in the engines. He had a great one passion for carson board which he has often found inspiration for his music. He owned and drove several vintage cars, including a 1957 Morris Minor 1000 police car. He was a friend of Eddie Jordan, owner of the Jordan Formula 1 team, and once helped him in the pit lane: “I was in full uniform. He put me in charge of the tire warmer for the right rear wheel of Eddie Irvine’s car,” the excited singer-songwriter once said.

On the roadAlways

It is no coincidence that one of his greatest successes (perhaps The older) sees him sitting in a car, traveling home at Christmas. “Driving Home for Christmas“was born in 1978, when Rea came to the end of his record contract and separated from his manager. The record company didn’t want to pay for his train fare from London to his home in Middlesbrough, so his wife picked him up in her old Austin Mini. On the way back, it started snowing and they got stuck in traffic. Rea said: “I looked at the other drivers and saw that they all looked so sad. Jokingly, I started singing we are coming home for Christmas…then, every time the streetlights illuminated the interior of the car, I started writing the lyrics” (here is Rockol’s in-depth analysis on the song).

The road doesn’t just lead home and it’s not just idyll: always from traffic, in this case from the intersection between the M4 and the M25, “The Road to Hell“, where the British motorway becomes a Dante’s circle. Technical progress and speed are a trap that disconnects man from his soul, and slide guitar it is no longer sweet, but sharp. We can consider it an exception because, in most cases, Rea’s music is anything but dark: it is harmonious, nostalgic, thoughtful. As in “On the Beach” And “Looking for the Summer”, where the journey moves south, towards the sun and the Mediterranean (Christopher Anton Rea still had an Italian father).

Travel as a metaphor

You don’t just travel by car, but also with your mind. Chris Rea’s songs can also be this, spiritual itineraries towards a place (the beach) or a season (summer) that represents lost innocence. Time slows down and the music follows it, reflecting the spirit of those who are not in a hurry to arrive, but want to enjoy the journey.

To be romantic to the core, one can think of his guitar technique, style slidesas if to an extension of his soul: the bottleneck (that cylindrical accessory that the guitarist puts on his finger and holds down on the strings) it slides on the handle like tires on asphalt; the glissando of his Stratocaster becomes the gear change of an engine or the whistle of the wind cutting through the bodywork. For this reason, every time we turn on the headlights in the fog, we must listen to a Chris Rea record: it will be the perfect travel companion.

You get ideas for songs and you’re actually on a road – the road always becomes a metaphor for where we’re going in life.