From the recording Our Lady of the Highways

This track is from Roadside Saints (Azalea City Recordings 2006). It features Rosie Shipley (fiddle), Pat Wictor (pedal steel), and producer John Jennings (piano, bass). Our Lady of the Highways stands on the right side of northbound I-95 just south of the Delaware border. She is especially beloved of truck drivers and traveling musicians.

Lyrics

Thank God for the radio and convenience-store coffee Three hours you’ve been on the road, and it should have been dawn North-bound to Delaware, you’ll pass the temple where Our Lady of the Highways stands looking on Blessed be the children and the strangers We are all together, we are all alone All the sleepless dreamers, all the restless angels Bless all the wanderers far away from home Red lights in the passing-lane - hundreds of pilgrims All your fellow-travellers, you don’t know their names Some come throuh here every day, some come from a long long way Our Lady of the Highways loves them all the same Blessed be... White rag on the driver’s door, glass on the shoulder The ditches and the medians blossom with shrines Fake flowers and a wooden cross and the names of the ones we’ve lost Our Lady of the Highways knows they’re yours and mine Blessed be... Hear the swish of the wiper-blades, rain on the windshield Passing exit 100-A to the town of Rising Sun Black sky fading into blue - clouds shift and the sun peeks through Our Lady of the Highways welcomes every dawn And blessed be... © Zoe Mulford 2004