Once upon a time, sometime ago –
back on the east coast, in New York City, to be exact –
a bunch of artists and painters
and sculptors and musicians
and poets and writers
and dancers and architects all started feeling real superior to their ego counterparts out on the West Coast, so they all got together
and decided they would show
those snotty surfer upstarts a thing or two about the Big Apple, and they hired themselves a truck.
It was a big, spanking-new,
white, shiny, chrome-plated,
cab-over Peterbilt
with mud flaps, stereo,
TV, AM & FM radio, leather seats,
and a Naugahyde sleeper –
all fresh with new American flag decals and "ART ARK" printed on the side of the door, with solid, 24-karat, gold-leaf type.
And they filled up this truck with the most significant piles and influential heaps of artwork to ever be assembled in modern times and sent it west to chide, cajole, humble,
and humiliate the Golden Bear; and this is the true story of that truck...
A Truckload of Art from New York City came a-rollin' down the road; ah, the driver was singing and the sunset was pretty, but the truck turned over and she rolled off the road.
Yeah, a Truckload of Art is burning near the highway; precious objects are scattered all over the ground, and it's a terrible sight if a person were to see it, but there weren't nobody around.
Yeah, the driver went sailing high in the sky, landing in the gold lap of the Lord, who smiled and then said: “Son, you're better off dead than haulin' a truckload full of hot avant-garde.”
Yeah, a Truckload of Art is burning near the highway; precious objects are scattered all over the ground, and it's a terrible sight if a person were to see it, but there weren't nobody around.
Yes, an important artwork was thrown burning to the ground, tragically landing in the weeds; and the smoke could be seen, ahhh, for miles all around; yeah, but nobody knows what it means.
Yes, a Truckload of Art is burning near the highway, and a tough job for the highway patrol; ahhh, they'll soon see the smoke and come runnin' to poke, then dig a deep ditch and throw the arts in a hole.
Yeah, a Truckload of Art is burning near the highway, and it's raging far out of control, and what the critics have cheered is now shattered and queered, and their noble reviews have been stewed on the road.
Yeah, a Truckload of Art is burning near the highway; precious objects are scattered all over the ground – oh, a terrible sight if a person were to see it, but there weren't nobody around.
– Terry Allen, “Truckload of Art,” from Lubbock (On Everything), 1979
