Wagon Wheel

No Depression

While the song Wagon Wheel has become a modern singalong, it has deep roots.

First, the term. A wagon wheel literally refers, of course, to the large, wooden wheels of a wagon. The phrase is found in Shakespeare by the 1590s. It lends its name to an optical illusion called the wagon-wheel effect, where spokes or propellers look like they are moving slowly, are standing still, or are rotating in the opposite direction.

Second, the music. Old Crow Medicine Show isn’t original in naming a song Wagon Wheel. “Wagon Wheels” was the title song for the 1934 Western movie of the same name.

Now, fast forward to 1970s. Bob Dylan scrapped a song he wrote working on his soundtrack for the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The draft, unofficially titled “Rock Me Mama,” nevertheless became a bootleg hit with his fans.

Some teenage admirers of Dylan at the time grew up and formed the band Old Crow Medicine Show. They took it upon themselves to finish “Rock Me Mama” and make it their own—splitting the royalties, of course. I mean, it’s Bob Dylan after all.

Old Crow released the song in 2004 as “Wagon Wheel,” telling the story of a man traveling the road from New England down to North Carolina to meet his lover. Old Crow frontman wrote verses based on Dylan’s original melody and chorus, which uses wagon wheel as a sexual metaphor: “So rock me mama like a wagon wheel / Rock me mama any way you feel.”

The song had its own wagon-wheel effect. It was a smash hit across the airwaves, bonfires, and late-night bars, gaining yet more popularity after English musician Nathan Carter covered it in 2012 (the Irish ate this version up) followed by a 2013 version by Darius Rucker.