Highway Patrolman

There are far more songs that make me happy than sad, but there are a few sad ones that I tend to enjoy. Some of these are non-vocal classical pieces by the likes of Éric Satie and Arvo Pärt. Others still are by such legendary purveyors of melancholy as Leonard Cohen, Joy Division and The Smiths. For me, listening to sad songs when I’m unhappy fulfills as important a function as listening to upbeat numbers when I’m feeling good. In fact, I derive no joy from listening to pop songs when I’m down in the dumps and much prefer listening to a singer who sounds even worse than I do. The one I’ve chosen isn’t a sad song as such, but the combination of its melody, lyric and the dejected voice of the singer always conjures up feelings of sadness when I hear it. Highway Patrolman was one of ten sparse acoustic songs that Bruce Springsteen wrote for his 1982 album Nebraska. It was also one of two songs from that album that Johnny Cash performed on his Johnny 99 album the following year (the other was the title track)