Wagon Wheel (Cover) by Patrick Music Live

For fans of folk and Americana music, the song “Wagon Wheel” is likely an all-time favorite.

Originally, legendary songwriter Bob Dylan wrote the chorus in 1973 and then Old Crow Medicine Show frontman Ketch Secor added verses 25 years later. Old Crow’s final version of the song went platinum in April 2013 and it has nearly 70 million views on YouTube today, alone.

Headin’ down south to the land of the pines / I’m thumbin’ my way into North Caroline / Starin’ up the road and pray to God I see headlights / I made it down the coast in seventeen hours / Pickin’ me a bouquet of dogwood flowers / And I’m a-hopin’ for Raleigh, I can see my baby tonight,” Secor sings to open the song.

The meaning of the song lyrics, which describes a journey by a hitchhiker going south along the United States east coast—from New England to Virginia—embody the nomadic artistic sensibility. The journeyman is hoping to see his love by the end of the long road.