Richard Petty by Billy Strings
The Song That Made Me Question My Own Sanity
To say I had a moment of obsessively listening to this song might actually be an understatement.
At the end of 2024, I was training for the Dallas Marathon. I’m not a good runner, I’m not in great shape, and this isn’t my first time running the Dallas Marathon but it was the first time I thought, Maybe I can get my shit together enough to finally finish this thing in under six hours.
A non-runner is probably thinking two things right now:
Oh god, the last thing I wanted to hear about is some guy talking about running a marathon. These marathon people always find a way to bring it up.
Just finishing a marathon is an achievement. You should be proud.
Both statements are correct. But please, stick with me for a minute.
Training is always the same, exciting at first, then quickly turning into a grind. The hardest part for me isn’t the miles; it’s the time of day I have to run. I have a family, two jobs, and the daily operations of I’M A FAN to take care of. In an effort to balance it all, my training runs don’t usually start until after 8 p.m.
And when you run as slowly as I do, a 10 or 15-mile training session takes time. Two to three hours, to be exact. I worried that I’d get injured on some dark neighborhood street, and no one would find me until morning.
So, I found a solution: a local track that’s open to the public. At least there, a few people usually ran late into the night, and a police officer drove by every hour, making it feel safer.
The downside? It’s a track. A quarter-mile oval of monotonous hell.
Right around the time I was settling into the grind of training, Billy Strings released a new album. I’d always heard of Billy but never really explored his music.
Billy has gained notoriety as a true guitar picker, a bluegrass and country music virtuoso, and a great singer/songwriter. The release of Highway Prayers seemed like the perfect time to dive in.
The album as a whole is phenomenal and deserves its own full review. But today, I’m here to talk about one track in particular, the final song on the album: Richard Petty.
With some snark and an undeserved sense of judgment, I initially scoffed at the title.
When a country artist names a song after an American icon like Richard Petty, you expect a few things:
It’s going to be a terrible song filled with cliché buzzwords.
It’s going to pander to the lowest IQ in country music.
It will somehow be just formulaic enough to become incredibly popular.
I can’t tell you how much egg is on my face.
From the moment I first heard the song, I was captivated. It’s fitting, I guess, that a track from Highway Prayers could feel like a religious experience.
It’s a simple song. No instruments, just vocals and harmonies. A story of someone who, someday, is going to get their shit together, get past their troubles and change their ways.
"One of these days I’ll wake up steady and ready to go like Richard Petty…"
After hearing that line, the title made perfect sense. What I had once dismissed became an anthem for my training runs.
And this is where I started questioning my sanity.
I couldn’t stop listening to it. On the drive to the track, I had it on repeat. I memorized the lyrics and sang along as loudly as I could, over and over again, until I pulled into the parking lot. That’s a 10-minute drive, about five listens of Richard Petty.
Once I arrived, I was too embarrassed to keep singing out loud. I didn’t want anyone to hear me playing the same song on repeat, so I switched to earbuds.
I always started with a 15-minute warm-up, 7.5 listens of Richard Petty.
Then, a brisk five-minute walk around the track, 2.5 more listens.
At this point, I was ready to run. I aimed for a 12-minute/mile pace, but for some reason, I never took the song off repeat.
I ran five miles. That’s roughly 30 listens of Richard Petty.
Then I stretched for another 10 minutes, five more listens.
Then I drove home, five more listens.
I became obsessed. Each time the song restarted, I felt a new burst of energy and forgot that I was in a monotonous quarter mile oval of hell.
Running in circles on that track while listening to Richard Petty, I felt hypnotized. Or maybe possessed.
I had two more training runs before my long Sunday run. Another five miles (30 more Richard Petty plays). Then an eight-mile run (48 more plays). While also including my ritualistic plays during the drives, the warm-ups and the cool-downs.
And then came the big one. The longest run of my training plan: 20 miles.
Unlike the others, this one wasn’t at night. It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday, and I could have run anywhere. I live next to a gorgeous lake with a 10-mile loop. Two laps around it would’ve been challenging but it would’ve at least been more scenic.
Instead, I stuck with the ritual.
5 RP’s (Richard Petty’s) on the drive.
7.5 RP’s during the warm-up.
2.5 RP’s on the walk.
Then, the run.
It took me 4 hours, 22 minutes, and 33 seconds to finish. A pace of roughly 13 minutes per mile.
Or, as insane as it sounds… roughly 131.25 listens of Richard Petty.
I still didn’t turn it off. I kept the ritual. Post-run stretching, Richard Petty. Then I sang it out loud on the drive home.
Well, maybe not loud. I had just run 20 miles, after all. Probably just quietly under my breath.
It was a strange experience to be this entranced by a song. We’ve all had songs that hit us hard, ones we play more than others. But something about this was different.
Maybe it’s the earnest nature of Billy’s voice. The uplifting harmonies. Or maybe it was the perfect set of lyrics I needed to hear during the hardest week of my training.
It’s a song about someone tired of going through the motions.
It’s possible that it wasn’t about the run at all. That it was about my own insecurities.
Am I just going through the motions? Will I ever achieve the things I want, or will it always be some ambiguous distant goal that I’ll get to “one of these days”?
It’s possible that I used the run as an excuse to hear Billy’s words on repeat, trying to convince myself to be a better person, a better husband, a better father.
Maybe the song reminded me that there’s a lot of life left to live, and the only thing keeping me from forging a better path is, well… me.
Perhaps I haven’t fully admitted how much I worry that I’m not doing enough.
I don’t know what happened to me that week. It could’ve been a brief moment of insanity. It could’ve been a strange form of therapy.
Then again, maybe some songs transcend logic. Maybe some songs find you at the perfect time in your life and help you sort things out without you realizing.
Oddly enough, I still play Richard Petty now and then. I still sing along in the car.
But usually just once.
And then, you know, I listen to the rest of Highway Prayers… like a sane person should.
Oh yeah, I finished the marathon in 5 hours and 36 minutes. Thanks, Billy.
Travis Wright is the host of the I’M A FAN OF podcast. If you enjoy music and comedy, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out the You Tube Channel. Thanks!
