Truckers Atlas by Modest Mouse

Album: Lonesome Crowded West (1997)

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Songfacts®:

This is about a guy who snorts lines of crystal meth on a road atlas: "I do lines and I crossed roads, I crossed the lines of all the great state roads." He says he's "going" to whichever state the atlas is opened to: "I'm going to Colorado, to unload my head... I'm going to Arizona, sex on the rocks all warm and red and we bled." >>>
Suggestion credit:
Rob - Eugene, OR

Comments: 5

Kerri from Chicago, IlHow could Brock have been a truck driver? As the other poster mentions, Modest Mouse was formed in 1993 and if he was old or not, i've never heard of him taking time out from the band to be a truck driver!!

Also while we can certainly read the drugs into an MoMo song, there's a theme of disillusionment to this album--one place looks like the other, all places are the same and the consumer culture is taking over. we see this thematically in other songs as well--the idea that the landscape is disappearing and we along with it.
Mrb from Seattle, OrIsaac Brock was not a truck driver. Sorry

Considering that Modest Mouse was formed in 1993 when Brock was 18, and the song was released in 1997 (likely recorded in 1996, but I don't really know) puts Brock at age 21 maximum at the time the song was recorded; before he would be eligible to be a commercial driver of any kind, let alone a long-haul trucker.
Mike from Willoughby, OhHa, I just got it that he sells his atlas for crack money.
The entire second half of the song is just the same few measures of quiet guitar and steady drumming repeating; this is referring to how on the road or with life in general, after being excited by seeing so many different places, they all end up running together and seeming the same. Or he could be coming out of his high.
John from Thorofare, NjHunter is correct, Issac Brock used to be a truck driver before he created modest mouse. Most of his older songs are about past lived memories i.e. when he was a truck driver he did cocaine to stay awake.
Hunter from Va Beach, Va Its about a truck driver that has to stay awake and goin for hours and days at the time. He snorts COCAINE which he brakes up with a blade on his atlas instead of a mirror."I fell good, But I dont feel" is a refrence to being numbed from coke."I do lines and i crossedroads, i crossed the lines of all the great state roads" just means he's done lines an almost all the pages, over almost all the roads.

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