Time for Leaving: Songs About Restlessness

This week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’re listening to songs about restlessness—or, as the scholar Frederick R. Karl calls it, spatiality. I managed to do this whole episode without talking…

Michial Farmer

August 18, 2025

This week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’re listening to songs about restlessness—or, as the scholar Frederick R. Karl calls it, spatiality. I managed to do this whole episode without talking about Bruce Springsteen, whose songs about wanting to get out of New Jersey could easily fill a whole hour. Send me your song recommendations at symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!

0:00
Waylon Jennings, “I’m a Ramblin’ Man” (The Ramblin’ Man, 1974)
3:34
The Allman Brothers Band, “Ramblin’ Man” (Brothers and Sisters, 1973)
10:42
Frederick R. Karl, American Fictions 1940-1980
16:14
Hank Williams, “Ramblin’ Man” (single, 1953)
21:42
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
24:23
Tom Petty, “Time to Move On” (Wildflowers, 1994)
28:53
Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car” (Tracy Chapman, 1988)
35:29
Kate and Anna McGarrigle, “My Town” (Kate and Anna McGarrigle, 1975)
38:24
Dizzy, “Roman Candles” (The Sun and Her Scorch, 2020)
43:40
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America
45:32
Townes Van Zandt, “Snowin’ on Raton” (At My Window, 1987)
49:18
Sly and the Family Stone, “If You Want Me to Stay” (Fresh, 1973)
55:29
Stephen Sondheim, “Prologue: So Happy” (Into the Woods OBCR, 1987)

Michial Farmer

Michial Farmer is a poet, essayist, and history teacher. He is the author of Imagination and Idealism in John Updike’s Fiction (Camden House, 2017) and the translator of Gabriel Marcel’s Thirst (Cluny, 2021). He lives in Atlanta.