{"id":577,"date":"2021-05-10T04:13:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T04:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/?p=577"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:36:58","slug":"king-of-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/king-of-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"King of the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 24pt;\">Cahoots:\u00a0 Marabeth Hobgood (modulate)<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16pt;\">Roger Miller &#8211; Key of G (mod to A)<\/span><br \/>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='69ea79b6340ae6007472851' value='69ea79b6340ae6007472851'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-69ea79b6340ae6007472851' value='Show More'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-69ea79b6340ae6007472851' value='Show Less'><button id='bg-showmore-action-69ea79b6340ae6007472851' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-orange-button  '   style=\" color:#4a4949;\">Show More<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-69ea79b6340ae6007472851' ><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 16pt\">Roger Miller explains that he wrote this song over a 6-week span, beginning on a 1964 Midwest TV tour. He wrote the first verse when he saw a &#8220;Trailers for Sale or Rent&#8221; sign on the road outside Chicago. A few weeks later, he bought a statuette of a hobo in Boise, Idaho airport gift shop and stared at it until he had completed the song.<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><span style=\"font-size: 16pt\">Miller has given at least one other explanation for how he came up with the song, however. When he was the co-host on the Mike Douglas Show August 11, 1969, he revealed that the idea for &#8220;King Of The Road&#8221; came when he was driving in Indiana and saw a sign offering trailers for sale or rent, and it stuck in his mind. Said Miller, &#8220;I was doing a show in a place you have probably never heard of called Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and I saw a statue of a hobo in a cigar shop were I was staying. I purchased it and took it to my room and wrote the song.&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><span style=\"font-size: 16pt\">So we know there was a sign and a hobo statue, but where they came from is unclear. Miller would sometimes introduce the song by saying, &#8220;Here&#8217;s a song I wrote on a rainy night in Boise, Idaho&#8221; which is much more identifiable for American listeners (especially in Nashville) than Kitchener, Ontario. Miller&#8217;s widow says that she&#8217;s not sure, and the Kitchener story could very well be true.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>1 \/ 4 \/ 5 song with modulation<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: terminal, monaco, monospace;\">REMIND BILL ABOUT ACAPELLA ENDING<\/span><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900; color: #ff0000;\"><strong>[MAIN CHORUS]\u00a0 [G] Trailers for [C] sale or rent. [D] Rooms to left [G] fifty cents.<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900; color: #ff0000;\"><strong>\u00a0 [G] No phone no [C] pool no pets [D]\u00a0 I ain&#8217;t got no cigarettes. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Ah, but [G] two hours of [C] pushing broom, buys an [D] eight by twelve [G] four-bit room.\u00a0 I&#8217;m a [G] man of [C] means by no means &#8211; [D] King of the [G] Road<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong>[G] Third boxcar [C] midnight train [D] destination [G] Bangor Maine. <\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong>[G] Old worn out [C] suit and shoes [D]\u00a0 I don&#8217;t pay no union dues. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; <\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong>I smoke [G] old stogies [C] I have found [D] short but not too [G] big around. I&#8217;m a [G] man of [C] means by no means &#8211; [D] King of the [G] Road.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong>MODULATE TO A D E<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong>I know [A] every engineer on [D] every train &#8211; [E] All of the children and [A] all of their names And [A] every hand-out in [D] every town, and [E] every lock that ain&#8217;t locked when no one&#8217;s around.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900; color: #ff0000; font-size: 16pt;\"><strong>REPEAT CHORUS &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; I sing, [A] Trailers for [D] sale or rent. [E] Rooms to left [A] fifty cents. [A] No phone no [D] pool no pets &#8211; [E] I ain&#8217;t got no cigarettes. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Ah, but, [A] two hours of [D] pushin&#8217; broom buys an [E] eight by twelve [A] four-bit room.\u00a0 I&#8217;m a [A] man of [D] means by no means &#8211; [E] King of the [A] Road.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: terminal, monaco, monospace;\">TAP BUTTON TO SCROLL DOWN &#8211; SING ACAPELLA<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16pt;\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/chords\/tenor\/tenor-e.jpg\" width=\"98\" height=\"167\" align=\"left\" \/>ACAPELLA OR WITH BASS RUN SOLO:\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #808080;\">\u00a0(Play E7 on Tenor Uke)<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">[A] Trailers for [D] sale or rent. [E] Rooms to left [A] fifty cents.\u00a0 [A] No phone no [D] pool no pets &#8211; [E] I ain&#8217;t got no cigarettes.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 16pt;\">Ah, but,<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 16pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 24pt;\">[OTHER MUSIC COMES IN]<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">[A] two hours of [D] pushin&#8217; broom buys an [E] eight by twelve [A] four-bit room.\u00a0 I&#8217;m a [A] man of [D] means by no means &#8211; [E] King of the [A] Road.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 16pt; font-family: trebuchet ms, geneva, sans-serif; font-weight: 900;\">I&#8217;m a [A] man of [D] means by no means &#8211; [E] King of the [A] Road.<\/span><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cahoots:\u00a0 Marabeth Hobgood (modulate) Roger Miller &#8211; Key of G (mod to A) 1 \/ 4 \/ 5 song with modulation REMIND BILL ABOUT ACAPELLA ENDING [MAIN CHORUS]\u00a0 [G] Trailers for [C] sale or rent. [D] Rooms to left [G] fifty cents.\u00a0 [G] No phone no [C] pool no pets &hellip; <span class=\"more-button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/king-of-the-road\/\" class=\"more-link\">CLICK TO VIEW SONG<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">King of the Road<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,120,133,126,265,13,56,116,117,123,115,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-chords","category-perflive","category-baritone-bill","category-bass-guitar-night","category-best-songs","category-x-bill-chase","category-country-western","category-live-baritone","category-live-piano","category-live-songlist-tenor","category-live-tenor","category-power-outage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27473,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/27473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertandrews.net\/songs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}