Fifty Years On the Road

I'm really big on anniversaries, and this week marks the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, which was written in April 1951, but not published until September 1957. Here's Jack reading from On The Road on the Steve Allen show a few years later.


The idea of Jack Kerouac doing a "book tour" for On The Road seems a little strange. Last year I saw the actual scroll he used to type the manuscript at the S.F. Public Library. It was like looking at an original draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Like most people, I went through an "On The Road phase" during my early 20s after I graduated from college and moved to the SF Bay Area. Around that time (mid-1987, 20 years ago) there were a few songs out that mentioned JK by name. "The House That Jack Kerouac Built" by the Go-Betweens, "Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs, and "Beatnik Beatch" by Beatnik Beatch (Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning's pre-Jellyfish band) with the refrain "hit the road Jack Kerouac, Beatnik beach".

It's been twenty years, but I still think Beatnik Beatch may be the stupidest band name in history! This is where I'd link to mp3s, but the only one of these songs I own digitally is the Go-Betweens, and I'm having trouble connecting with divshare, so I uploaded it to my former hostspace on esnips. The other two are links to youtube videos.

The Go-Betweens - The House That Jack Kerouac Built (mp3)
10,000 Maniacs - Hey Jack Kerouac (video)
Beatnik Beatch - Beatnik Beatch (video)