Bob Seger rules. I’ve been a fan since I was a kid, have seen him live, and applauded when Chevrolet decided to use his song for their ad campaigns. And anyone that ever saw Tom Cruise lip sync to “Old Time Rock and Roll” can’t help but sing it themselves. But today’s BangShift Daily Tune Up is a different Seger song. “Turn The Page” is about being on the road, and the dark side of being a rock star on the road. It’s a classic, and when Metallica covered it for their Garage Inc. album in 1998, it went to number 1 and stayed their for 11 weeks. The longest of any Metallica song. Goes to show, Seger is the man.

And the story behind writing this song is way cool. According to Wikipedia, ‘”Turn the Page” is about the emotional and social ups and downs of a rock musician’s life on the road. Seger wrote it in 1972 while touring with Teegarden & Van Winkle. Drummer David Teegarden (of Teegarden & Van Winkle and later the Silver Bullet Band) recalls:

We had been playing somewhere in the Midwest, or the northern reaches, on our way to North or South Dakota. [Guitarist] Mike Bruce was with us. We’d been traveling all night from the Detroit area to make this gig, driving in this blinding snowstorm. It was probably 3 in the morning. Mike decided it was time to get gas. He was slowing down to exit the interstate and spied a truck stop. We all had very long hair back then – it was the hippie era – but Skip, Mike and Bob had all stuffed their hair up in their hats. You had to be careful out on the road like that, because you’d get ostracized. When I walked in, there was this gauntlet of truckers making comments – “Is that a girl or man?” I was seething; those guys were laughing their asses off, a big funny joke. That next night, after we played our gig – I think it was Mitchell, S.D. – Seger says, “Hey, I’ve been working on this song for a bit, I’ve got this new line for it. He played it on acoustic guitar, and there was that line: “Oh, the same old cliches / ‘Is that a woman or a man?’ ” It was “Turn the Page.”[1]’ ^ Brian McCollum (March 14, 2004). “A definitive oral history of Seger’s early years”. Detroit Free Press.

Bob Seger’s Original Version

Metallica’s Version