12 Hours out of Mackinaw City

I was desultorily flipping through Instagram reels earlier this evening. It had been a long day filled with a fair amount of frustration and worry. I was tired and burned out and lacking any motivation to accomplish even the smallest useful thing. After probably 30 minutes of swiping up on my phone and watching 10 to 20-second videos that could barely be called entertainment, Bob Seger popped up on the screen. 

I follow a lot of accounts that post snippets of concerts, facts about music, and rock history, so my algorithm puts a lot of music in front of me. About 75% of the time, it’s Mazzy Star performing “Fade into You” for some reason, but this time around, it was the big, burly, bearded gentleman from Detroit. His raw and raspy voice was singing about the northern planes, and then he sang the line “12 hours out of Mackinaw City,” and I had a Ratatouille moment. 

If you’ve never seen Ratatouille, it’s one of the better Pixar films. It tells the story of a French chef who partners with a rat to create a ratatouille so good that when a feared food critic tastes it, he is instantly transported back to his childhood and a cherished moment from his youth. 

For me, hearing Bob Seger’s “Roll Me Away” for the first time slammed me back in time about eight months to a road trip I took earlier this year. Instead of walking on my treadmill on the lower floor of my house, I was in my car, roaring down the road in Northern Michigan while snow flurries swirled around me and Route Two danced along the shores of an angry great lake. Waves crashed into the ice that caked the shore, and I was blasting rock music and feeling alive. It was the day after one of the weirdest birthdays I’ve ever had, and I was in a good mood. 

It was a visceral moment. I could feel the cold air and the wind, I could taste the stroganoff pastie I’d had for lunch that day in Mackinac City at one of the few places open in early April after a major ice storm had passed through. The inviting loneliness of seasonal areas was everywhere as I had crossed into the Upper Peninsula, and I could feel the call of exploration all over again deep within me. 

All from a song I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard before in my life. The lyric ‘12 Hours out of Mackinaw City’ triggered the memory, but the song as a whole is what made it so visceral. The bright-sounding piano dances along with the guitar and drums, giving the song an emotional resonance that just sounds like the open road. If anyone ever asked me to describe what it feels like to take a road trip with no destination in mind, I would point them to that piano. Seger even says the song was inspired by a road trip, and brother, it shows. 

The rest of the words tell the story of a guy riding across the country on a motorcycle, trying to escape the life behind him and finding his soul and freedom out on the open road. Which wasn’t EXACTLY what I was doing that day on the highway, but it’s not that far off. I wish I’d known at the time that Bob Seger had written a theme song for my journey. I’d have put it on one of the mixes I’d made for the trip, both of which had a little bit of Bob already. 

This wasn’t the first time that Seger’s music had provided me with an emotional moment. While I never really dived into his catalogue, he’s had a few songs that have meant a lot to me. 

The iconic scene from “Risky Business” of Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear features the classic “Old Time Rock and Roll.” A probably-definitely-too-young me saw that movie and instantly fell in love with that song (and Rebecca De Mornay). It was one of the early songs, along with Mellencamp and Springsteen, that began a lifelong love of crunchy heartland rock and roll.

I don’t fully remember the circumstances where I first heard “Night Moves,” but I do remember it was in my early teenage years on a weekend where I was at my father’s house in Hawthorne, New York. My father was not a Seger guy that I recall, but someone played it, and the story of young teenage almost-romance hit me square in the teen angst. I’ve never owned a Seger album, but my brother (who, I believe, didn’t like the song at the time) put the song on a mix he made me, likely at my request, and I played the living shit out of that mix. I still think of that mix as one of the key albums of my life.

Other songs, such as “Like a Rock”, “Hollywood Nights,” and “Against the Wind,” were all around, but I don’t have as much of a connection to them. I love them all, particularly “Against The Wind” which, perhaps not-surprisingly, has featured prominently on a lot of various road mixes I’ve made over the years. To the point where a few years ago, on a podcast I did with my brother where we discussed our top 70s road songs, when I revealed my top song to be Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” he was audibly surprised that it wasn’t Seger’s classic about growing up. 

Probably the most emotional moment I’ve had was during a recent re-watch of “Freaks and Geeks.” I picked up that it was Bob Seger soundtracking one of the more romantic moments with “You’ll Accomp’ny Me.” I don’t know why it never clicked before, but this time I full-on bawled as I watched the scene and really listened to the music. It’s been a staple for me since. The song sounds so much like big teenage feelings and still resonates since I never really grew up. 

Maybe I never got deeply into Seger’s music when I was younger because I wasn’t ready. He’s singing about all these things that happened to us as we go through life. Happiness, sadness, changes, mistakes, loves gained, loves lost, and time inexorable march. How can anyone fully appreciate the aching nostalgia of “Against the Wind” or the desperate need of “Night Moves” without adding some mileage to your odometer? 

Like the song says, “My soul began to rise, and pretty soon, my heart was singing,” as I traveled that snowy highway. I guess I needed to have traveled that road before I was ready to “Roll Me Away.” 

Last year, my brother, my pal Mario, and I spent a couple of months listening to only third albums from whatever artists we wanted. As part of this, I listened to both Bob Seger’s third album (Back in ’72) and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band’s third (Against The Wind). After listening to them, I sent a message to our chat that I’m learning is more and more true by the day:

“Bob Seger’s got bangers.”