A sudden escape changed everything. Susanna Clark had reached her limit.
If we don’t get out of Los Angeles, I am going to go crazy.
Guy heard her. They left for Nashville in 1971. That decision turned into one of the most iconic songs of the Texas songwriting movement, L.A. Freeway.
Guy Clark had moved to Los Angeles around 1970 with hopes of building a songwriting career. The city never felt right. He worked at the Dopyera brothers’ Dobro factory. In his free time he pitched songs to publishers. The sky was yellow with smog. The traffic was relentless. Los Angeles felt like something to endure, not a place to belong.
Susanna saw the toll it took. She voiced what both of them already felt. If they did not leave soon, she would lose her mind. So they packed their belongings, including dishes, newspapers, and old food. They left the landlord behind. They drove away from the concrete and the yellow air toward Nashville.
In Nashville Guy Clark received a staff writing job. Not long after the move he wrote L.A. Freeway. The song did not glorify the escape. It focused on the ordinary mess left behind. Dishes and newspapers became symbols of a life being dismantled. The concrete of the freeway became a memory of the city that never fit.
Clark did not record the song first. Jerry Jeff Walker included it on his 1972 self-titled album. That version climbed to the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973. It carried Guy Clark’s name into the Texas progressive country world before he had released any album of his own. Jerry Jeff understood the restlessness in the song. It belonged to the same world of writers, drifters, and roads.
Guy Clark finally recorded L.A. Freeway for his 1975 debut Old No. 1. His version stripped the song down to voice, guitar, and details. No unnecessary decoration. He sang like a man still seeing the apartment, still feeling the grit. That restraint made the escape believable.
Los Angeles did not give Guy Clark the career he wanted. But leaving it gave him one of the songs that defined the career he built. The small debris of departure dishes, newspapers, a landlord, old food, concrete became the language of a classic. The wrong city helped reveal the right writer.
Scroll down to listen to the song.