MUSIC PLACES | ROAD TRIPS | SERENDIPITY

I’ve Been Everywhere… Thanks To Two Writers

Buddy Gott started this journey. Kay Flanagan continued down the road. I decided to ride along.

Image © Jacob Lund | Flipped and optimised by the author using Canva Pro.

I love the word serendipity. It describes those happy accidents where one unexpected thing quietly leads to another.

FYI: There’s also an amazing, iconic restaurant in NYC called **Serendipity 3**, a place that’s been open since 1954 on the city’s Upper East Side. If you’re ever on the road there, make sure you try their Frozen Hot Chocolate!

I’d only just published my latest story (I’ll leave a link at the bottom if you’re curious), about an imaginary Irish cross-border supergroup where fiction gradually blends into reality. Although the story is set in Newry, it also takes readers to Derry, Dublin and Limerick through the songs they perform and the places they call home.

Moments later, a notification from Buddy Gott appeared inviting writers to share their favourite places in music. After reading his challenge, I noticed Kay Flanagan had published a story the day before celebrating roads and road trips in song, so I had to read hers next.

Neither story inspired the other, as far as I know, but reading them one after the other got me thinking about all the roads I’d travelled and the places I’d been. I have been fortunate, having lived in 4 countries, but not everywhere… yet.

So naturally, this song came to mind. One I’d never really compared before, yet found myself wanting to…

“I’ve Been Everywhere.”

I usually prefer live performance videos for** **Rate-A-Record stories, since it’s more fun to see the performers in action, but “I’ve Been Everywhere” is a tongue-twisting travelogue, and clean audio matters. Since the available live clips vary wildly in quality, I’m using the clearest audio versions I could find for a fairer comparison.

1. “I’ve Been Everywhere” — Lucky Starr (1962)

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Every great journey has to begin somewhere, and this one begins in Australia. Geoff Mack wrote “I’ve Been Everywhere” in 1959, inspired by the many place names he’d encountered while travelling. Lucky Starr was first to bring it to life on record in 1962, introducing listeners to a whirlwind tour of Australian geography.

I was thinking of giving Lucky Starr a perfect 98 before he’d even finished the first verse, simply for pronouncing all those complicated Australian place names so effortlessly. Well, complicated for this Pom writer, and I suspect a fair few of my Yankee friends might struggle too if they tried the original at their local karaoke bar!

Thankfully for my karaoke ambitions, Australia isn’t the only place with its own version of this well-travelled song.

Did You Know: The song has been rewritten for numerous countries and regions, including Australia, North America, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Finland, Germany, Ireland and even the U.S. state of Texas. The tune stays the same, but the geography changes.

2. “I’ve Been Everywhere” — Hank Snow (1962)

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Hank Snow, a Canadian country singer, was offered the song by Geoff Mack’s publisher and thought it would be great if it was adapted for a North American audience with familiar local place names instead of Australia’s more complicated ones. So Geoff Mack looked at a North American atlas and rewrote the journey.

For the astute listener, world traveller or geography savant, he also included a tour of South America: Brazil (Salvador and Diamantina), Colombia (Barranquilla), Chile (Tocopilla), Bolivia (Padilla) and all of Argentina (Argentina). You do wonder if there simply weren’t enough rhyming place names in the Northern Hemisphere?

3. “I’ve Been Everywhere” — Rolf Harris (1963)

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Before we get into why this cover version is here…

Rolf Harris was once one of Britain’s best-known entertainers, but his reputation was destroyed after convictions for sexual assaults in 2014. One conviction was later quashed on appeal and further allegations were not retried, but other convictions remained in place. He died in 2023 having lost the honours, career and public affection he’d once enjoyed.

A friend and fellow writer on Medium, who’s also a multi-published author, has said at least once that it’s possible to separate an artist’s work from the person’s life choices and actions. I tend to agree, with a few exceptions. I don’t care how good an artist Herr Hitler might have been! (Thankfully, by all accounts he was pretty terrible). For me, this falls into a greyer area. Including this recording isn’t about condoning Rolf Harris or rewriting history. It’s about acknowledging that this version played an important part in the journey of this remarkable song.

There’s another reason I couldn’t simply leave it out. Sun Arise, Rolf Harris’s second studio album, was released in 1963, my birth year, and five or six years later became the very first record I ever owned.

“I’ve Been Everywhere” was one of seven songs on the album that I loved and played over and over and over again.

Long before I, or much of the rest of the world, knew anything about the man, I knew every word of the song, even if I couldn’t sing along with it, and those of many others on the album. Life has a way of changing how we see people, but it can’t change the memories we made before we knew the whole story.

If you’re still here, thanks for hearing me out. Now let’s finish with what is perhaps the best version of the song…

4. “I’ve Been Everywhere” — Johnny Cash (1996)

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I have to admit, this one surprised me. I’d always thought Johnny Cash recorded this sometime around 1970, perhaps because I’d seen a video of him singing it with Lynn Anderson on his variety show, The Johnny Cash Show, which ran from 1969 to 1971. But his own studio version wasn’t released until 1996, when it became one of the standout tracks on his album Unchained. If “Jolene” will forever be associated with Dolly Parton, it’s pretty impressive that Johnny Cash’s version of “I’ve Been Everywhere” has arguably become the definitive recording, 34 years after the song first topped the charts in Sydney, Australia.

Serendipity really is a wonderful thing.

Without Buddy Gott’s challenge, I might never have read Kay Flanagan’s story. Without Kay’s story, I might never have thought to revisit the iconic “I’ve Been Everywhere.” That’s the joy of reading on Medium. One story leads to another and then you’re writing one of your own.

Thanks for joining me on this road-trip to everywhere. Now it’s over to you. Cast your votes below, then, if you’re in the mood for another musical journey, I’ve left links to the two stories that inspired this one.

R-A-R Time

Which version would get your vote? Feel free to score all four recordings, or if you’d rather not rate Rolf Harris’s version, I completely understand. New to Rate-A-Record? The banner below explains the 35 to 98 scoring system.

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Looking for More Musical Destinations?

Buddy Gott kicked off this challenge by inviting writers to celebrate real and imaginary places in song. His story casts the net wide, so whether your favourite destination is a city, a mountain or somewhere that only exists in lyrics, it’s the perfect place to begin your own musical journey.

[embed]Join The Music Places Challenge! Share your favorite real or fictional places in musicmedium.com

Looking for More Road Trip Songs?

If today’s story has you hankering for some kicks on Route 66 or cruising with the top down on dark desert highways, Kay Flanagan takes a more focused route, sharing twelve wonderful songs inspired by roads, streets and the journeys between them. It’s a delightful playlist for your next drive. Especially if you like to pretend you’re Freddie or Paul, or Sinéad or Angus behind the wheel, singin’ like you just don’t care…

[embed]12 Songs About Roads For Your Next Road Trip From a driver who belts them outmedium.com

Oh yes, my story I nearly forgot…

[embed]The Night Borderline Saints Almost Sold Out My Local Pub Building an imaginary Irish supergroup from both sides of Ireland’s border.medium.com