The coun­try music clas­sic “I’ve Been Every­where” was first record­ed by Lucky Starr in Aus­tralia in 1962, then lat­er adapt­ed by Hank Snow, var­i­ous oth­er artists, and even­tu­al­ly the great John­ny Cash. The lyrics begin:

I was tot­ing my pack along the dusty Win­nemuc­ca road
When along came a semi with a high an’ can­vas-cov­ered load
“If you’re goin’ to Win­nemuc­ca, Mack, with me you can ride.”
And so I climbed into the cab and then I set­tled down inside
He asked me if I’d seen a road with so much dust and sand
And I said, “Lis­ten, I’ve trav­eled every road in this here land!”

I’ve been every­where, man
I’ve been every­where, man
Crossed the desert’s bare, man
I’ve breathed the moun­tain air, man
Of trav­el I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been every­where

I’ve been to:
Reno, Chica­go, Far­go, Min­neso­ta
Buf­fa­lo, Toron­to, Winslow, Sara­so­ta
Wichi­ta, Tul­sa, Ottawa, Okla­homa
Tam­pa, Pana­ma, Mat­tawa, La Palo­ma
Ban­gor, Bal­ti­more, Sal­vador, Amar­il­lo
Tocopil­la, Bar­ran­quil­la, and Padil­la, I’m a killer

I’ve been to:
Boston, Charleston, Day­ton, Louisiana
Wash­ing­ton, Hous­ton, Kingston, Texarkana
Mon­terey, Fara­day, San­ta Fe, Tal­lapoosa
Glen Rock, Black Rock, Lit­tle Rock, Oskaloosa
Ten­nessee, Ten­nessee, Chicopee, Spir­it Lake
Grand Lake, Dev­il’s Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete’s sake

And that’s not all of the loca­tions the nar­ra­tor trav­els to. If you chart and con­nect all of the des­ti­na­tions men­tioned in the song — as Iain Mul­lan has done in this handy, dynam­ic map — you’ll find that the singer cov­ers some 112,515 miles (or 181,075 kilo­me­ters). Even bet­ter, you can watch the trav­els take place in real-time on a Google map. Just click play, and you will be on your way.

For more trav­els on a Google map, don’t miss our recent post:

Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Turned Into Google Dri­ving Direc­tions & Pub­lished as a Free eBook

Last fall, our read­ers loved watch­ing Iron Horse, a blue­grass band from Alaba­ma, per­form­ing a most unusu­al ver­sion of Metal­li­ca’s “Enter Sand­man.” The band’s take on Metal­li­ca’s anthem was orig­i­nal­ly record­ed on the 2003 album, Fade to Blue­grass: Trib­ute to Metal­li­ca, where Iron Horse — with Tony Robert­son on man­dolin, Vance Hen­ry on gui­tar, Ricky Rogers on bass, and Antho­ny Richard­son on ban­jo — played Metal­li­ca hits in blue­grass fash­ion — “or at least as blue­grass as it’s pos­si­ble for Metal­li­ca songs to be.”

This Jan­u­ary, the quar­tet released a new video, this time cov­er­ing “Rock­et Man.” Sung by Elton John in ’72, writ­ten by Bernie Taupin, and inspired by a Ray Brad­bury sto­ry, Rock­et Man has been covered/performed by Cold­play, Kate Bush, My Morn­ing Jack­et and many oth­ers. But, if you have a score­card, you’ll almost cer­tain­ly give Iron Horse top marks for cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty. Hope you enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Blue­grass Ver­sion of Metallica’s Heavy Met­al Hit, “Enter Sand­man”

Robert Plant and Ali­son Krauss Sing Coun­try Ver­sions of Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” & “When the Lev­ee Breaks”

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Do they look a bit scruffy, the Doors on live Dan­ish TV in 1968? My image of the Doors is for­ev­er col­ored by Oliv­er Stone’s The Doors. But the real Jim Mor­ri­son had even bet­ter hair than his dop­pel­gänger Val Kilmer (“not a case of cast­ing,” quoth Ebert, “but of pos­ses­sion”), even if the above per­for­mance is less Lizard King than lounge lizard. John Dens­more lays back on the beat, gets out the way of Morrison’s free asso­cia­tive poet­ry. Gui­tarist Rob­bie Krieger riffs intent­ly, looks sub­dued. Always the one to watch, the recent­ly depart­ed Ray Man­zarek plays hyp­not­ic base­lines with his left hand while his right dances around melod­ic blue note phras­es. It’s a very cool show, but the lack of an audi­ence is pal­pa­ble.

Mor­ri­son was at his best, and prob­a­bly also worst, before crowds of admir­ers. He has no lack of them in anoth­er ’68 per­for­mance, this time at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. Where the Dan­ish gig is cabaret, this is a shaman­is­tic hap­pen­ing: Mor­ri­son wears some­thing like a sleeve­less toreador’s jack­et and the band plays loud, espe­cial­ly Dens­more, who bash­es his drums like John Bon­ham. Jim Mor­ri­son seems entranced, and real­ly stoned. Dens­more lat­er said he’d just dropped acid: “I could tell once we hit the stage because his move­ments, his per­for­mance, was a lit­tle delib­er­ate; a lit­tle like he was hold­ing it togeth­er. But he was fan­tas­tic.”

The Hol­ly­wood Bowl is the show to see. It was a mag­i­cal night. It was a big deal to play the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. We were all so excit­ed. We’d had din­ner with Mick Jag­ger just before the show and he was right in the front. For any fan of The Doors — young or old — this is real­ly the way it was; this is the way to see what it was all about.

In nei­ther of these con­certs is Mor­ri­son quite the unhinged mani­ac of leg­end, but things, as they say, had already begun to unrav­el. Two years lat­er the band would play its last show with Mor­ri­son at The Ware­house in Decem­ber of 1970. Some believe the Doors peaked in 1967 and nev­er topped their debut (a “stoned, immac­u­late clas­sic” and the dark under­bel­ly of Sgt. Pep­per’s sun­ny psy­che­delia). I don’t buy that at all. But even if these shows catch them on the start of a decline, it was a long slow burn, and beau­ti­ful to watch.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Doors Key­boardist Ray Man­zarek (1939–2013) Tells the Sto­ry of the Clas­sic Song, ‘Rid­ers on the Storm’

“The Lost Paris Tapes” Pre­serves Jim Morrison’s Final Poet­ry Record­ings from 1971

A Young, Clean Cut Jim Mor­ri­son Appears in a 1962 Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­mo Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

A quick heads up, cour­tesy of Metafil­ter: Deep Elm Records turns 20 years old next year and announced yes­ter­day that all 200+ of its albums are avail­able on a “name your price, no min­i­mum” basis:

“If you have means please show [the bands] love by nam­ing your price. If you do not have any means, in exchange for each down­load we kind­ly request that you post, share, tag and tweet to tell your friends about each album as our bands depend on your word of mouth.”

The indie record label has released LPs by bands such as Lights & Motion, The Apple­seed Cast, Brandt­son, The White Octave, and Planes Mis­tak­en for Stars, plus a num­ber of com­pi­la­tion albums, includ­ing The Emo Diaries. If you’re look­ing for a place to get start­ed, one read­er on Metafil­ter offers up this list.

* v/a, The Emo Diaries, Vol. 1
* David Singer, The Cost of Liv­ing * Apple­seed Cast, Low Lev­el Owl, Vol. 1 + 2
* Triple­fas­tac­tion, Cat­tle­men Don’t
* Walt Mink, Colos­sus
* Cam­ber, Beau­ti­ful Cha­rade
* Accents, Growth And Squalor
* Paper­moons, New Tales

Relat­ed con­tent:

New Jer­ry Gar­cia Web Site Fea­tures 5,000 Hours of Free Music, Plus Some Fan­tas­tic Archival Mate­r­i­al

Down­load Free Music from 150+ Clas­si­cal Com­posers, Cour­tesy of Musopen.org

Free: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art and the Guggen­heim Offer 474 Free Art Books Online