Classified - C.W. McCall

Classified - C.W. McCall

2:39

Wolf Creek Pass, 1975

Written by C.W. McCall and Chip Davis

McCall is best remembered for "Convoy;" this talking-country novelty track shows the same deadpan humor and storyteller's twang. It's about a guy answering a newspaper ad for a '57 Chevy pickup, only to discover a jerry-rigged heap of scrap metal held together by hope and baling wire. The seller proudly rattles off its features — a bent shaft, a leaking rear end, a missing key ("use a nail as a starter,"), plus an ominous "whirrin' sound" — but other than that, it's "cherry."  Naturally, the narrator buys it for twenty-eight bucks.  Sonically, it's classic mid-'70s country kitsch: a shuffling beat, a little guitar chug, and McCall's dry, half-spoken delivery driving the joke home. It lands in the same comic lane as Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time," a lightweight but cheerful tall tale about a junker.