Truckload Of Art Lyrics - Terry Allen

Once upon a time, sometime ago 

Back on the East coast in New York City, to be exact 

A bunch of artists and painters and sculptors and musicians 

And poets and writers and dancers and architects 

All started feeling real superior to their ego counterparts 

Out on the West Coast 

So they all got together and decided 

They would show those snotty surfer upstarts 

A thing or two about the Big Apple 

And they hired themselves a truck 

It was a big, spanking new white-shiny chrome-plated cab-over 

Peterbilt with mud flaps, stereo, TV, AM and FM radio 

Leather seats and a Naugahyde sleeper 

All fresh with new American Flag decals and "ART ARK" 

Printed on the side of the door with solid twenty-four karat gold leaf type 

And they filled up this truck with the most significant piles 

And influential heaps of art work to ever be assembled in modern times 

And it sent it West 

To chide, cajole, humble and humiliate the Golden Bear 

And this is the true story of that truck 

Hail, a truckload of art from New York City 

Came rollin' down the road 

Oh, the driver was singing and the sunset was pretty 

But the truck turned over and she rolled off the road 

Yeah, the truckload of art, it's burning near the highway 

Precious objects are scattered all over the ground 

And it's a terrible sight if a person were to see it 

But there weren't nobody around 

Yeah, the driver went sailing high in the sky 

Landing in the gold lap of the Lord 

Who smiled and then said, "Son, you're better off dead 

Than haulin' a truckload full of hot avant-garde" 

Yeah, the truckload of art, it's burning near the highway 

Precious objects are scattered all over the ground 

And it's a terrible sight if a person were to see it 

But there weren't nobody around 

Yes, an important artwork was thrown burning to the ground 

Tragically landing in the weeds 

And the smoke could be seen, ah, for miles all around 

Yeah, but nobody knows what it means 

Yeah, the truckload of art, it's burning near the highway 

And a tough job for the highway patrol 

Ah, they'll soon see the smoke an' come runnin' to poke 

Then dig a deep ditch and throw the arts in a hole 

Yeah, the truckload of art, it's burning near the highway 

And it's raging far out of control 

And what the critics have cheered is now shattered and queered 

And their noble reviews have been stewed on the road 

Yeah, the truckload of art, it's burning near the highway 

Precious objects are scattered all over the ground 

A terrible sight if a person were to see it 

But there weren't nobody around