Get Your Kicks: The Song That Turned the Road Into a Dream
Bobby Troup was twenty-seven years old, freshly discharged from the Marines, sitting in a Buick convertible somewhere in Pennsylvania when his wife Cynthia said the words that would change American music: Get your kicks.
Cynthia had been throwing out title suggestions for a song about their cross-country drive to California. She tried Route 40 first, since that was the road they were on. Troup shot it down. He knew they were going to pick up Route 66 in Chicago, and that was the road that went all the way. Then Cynthia tried rhyming. Six, nix, picks, kicks. Get your kicks on Route 66. Troup loved it. He had half the song by the time they hit Chicago.
What he wrote in about forty minutes became an emotional template for every American road trip that would follow.
Bobby Troup’s Journey to Writing “Route 66”
Troup had already written a couple of songs that stuck. "Daddy" went to number one for Sammy Kaye in 1941. Frank Sinatra had recorded "Snootie Little Cutie." But the war had slowed his momentum and now he was driving west with his wife, determined to make something of himself.
He took his half-finished song about the road they were on, consulted the AAA map to get the town names right, and finished the rest when he got to Los Angeles. Cynthia later joked that she couldn't believe he'd left Albuquerque out.
How “Route 66” Created the Mythology of the American Road Trip
Before Troup’s song, the romance of the American highway did not really exist (the interstate highway system wouldn’t even become official for another decade and it actually wasn’t officially completed until the 1990s!). Troup created it, or at least formalized it, the way certain phrases become the thing they describe. Before "Route 66," the open road was not much more than paved two-way roads phasing out old auto trails. After it, the road had an address amongst the collective minds of America.
Nat King Cole and the Recording That Made History
According to legend, Troup walked into Capitol Records, asked to see Nat King Cole, and played him the song on the spot. The song was still unfinished, but Cole heard enough. He told Troup to go finish it and come back. In March 1946, Cole and his trio recorded it.
Capitol released it as a single on April 22nd. It hit number three on the Billboard Race Records chart and number eleven on the pop chart. Troup later called it "the luckiest thing that ever happened to me, besides Cynthia."
Why Nat King Cole’s Version Defined Route 66
One small detail that tends to get lost: Cole's recording also quietly settled a pronunciation debate. The road had always been called both ways. "Root" or "rout." Cole sang "root," and that was basically the end of that. Every cover that followed, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode, followed Cole's lead without thinking about it.
His voice, that particular quality of making whoever was listening feel like the song was meant specifically for them, suited the material so completely it seems almost inevitable. He didn't perform the song so much as inhabit it. The towns he listed, Flagstaff, Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino, became less about geography and more like a kind of incantation. Westward longing set to three chords and a walking bass line.
What Nat King Cole did with those forty minutes of road trip inspiration is its own kind of American story. Cole's voice, often described as warm, unhurried, with that particular quality of making the listener feel personally addressed, suited the material perfectly. The highway stops he listed (Flagstaff, Arizona; Winona; Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino) became more than geography. They spoke to a westward longing that has always been part of the American spirit.
"Won't you get hip to this timely tip / When you make that California trip." The rhyme is almost goofy. Somehow it holds.
The Secret Behind the Song’s Enduring Appeal
The structure is deceptively simple. Twelve-bar blues and lyrics that read like a AAA TripTik. Troup names thirty-five hundred miles of American geography without once mentioning what's waiting at the end of it. Los Angeles is never spoken of. The song is about the going, not the arriving. This is, of course, the central mythology of American mobility, that motion itself is the reward, and Troup summed it up in under three minutes.
Route 66 Was Already Fading When It Became Famous
It's interesting that Route 66, the actual road, was already in quiet decline by the time the song made it famous. Beginning in the 1950s, the postwar interstate highway system would bypass and erase it in sections.
Even in Troup’s time, the road the song immortalized was partly an invention. A two-lane highway through the Dust Bowl heartland that had carried a million ruined families westward during the Depression. John Steinbeck called it "the Mother Road" in 1939. Troup turned the Mother Road into a vacation. Given that the song came out in 1946, when the country badly needed optimism about what lay ahead, the timing was just about perfect.
"Won't you get hip to this timely tip / When you make that California trip." The rhyme is jaunty, almost goofy (and yet somehow it holds).
The Overlooked Contribution of Cynthia Troup
Cynthia never got a songwriting credit. The six-word hook that made the whole song work (and that Troup himself said he couldn't have written), never earned her credit or royalties. Their daughter Cynnie said years later that her mother probably should have been Bobby's manager. Cynthia took their Route 66 road map and made a scrapbook out of it, pasting sections of the song sheet alongside snapshots of highway signs and circling the towns from the lyrics. The family still has it.
The Legacy of Bobby Troup and “Route 66”
A forgettable television series from the 1960s borrowed the title and starred two young men driving across America. The show shot episodes all over the country, many of them nowhere near Route 66, but it didn't matter. By then the song had become less about the road and more about the message that physical exploration often brings with it personal exploration (how very Steinbeck-y).
Troup himself kept working in L.A. He wrote other songs, acted in TV and film, and married actress Julie London after his marriage to Cynthia ended. He lived into his eighties and, from the way it sounds, was pretty bemused about his legacy. It was actually a classic American success story: he spontaneously scribbled his masterpiece while in a big American car cruising down a long stretch of highway, sold the song in an afternoon, and spent the rest of his life watching a country plan, drive, and sing along to it.
Even today (the 80th anniversary of the song!) the three chords and a list of towns remain the sound of possibility. Every road trip playlist that opens with "Route 66" is a reminder that Troup’s original idea remains: you can change your life if you get on the right highway heading west. And that the road itself, with its diners and filling stations and roadside motels, is not the price you pay to get somewhere. It's the whole point.
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“Route 66” turned a road into a dream and a road trip into a uniquely American ritual. At Songbook Ink, we celebrate the songs behind places and the memories they continue to create decades later.
See our new stemless wine glass released in honor of the 80th anniversary of “Route 66”
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who wrote the song "Route 66"?
"Route 66" was written by Bobby Troup in 1946 during a cross-country road trip from Pennsylvania to California with his wife, Cynthia Troup. The song was inspired by their journey along the famous highway.
2. Who first recorded "Route 66"?
The first commercially successful recording of "Route 66" was made by Nat King Cole and his trio in March 1946. The song became a major hit and helped establish the mythology of America's most famous highway.
3. Why is Route 66 called the "Mother Road"?
Route 66 earned the nickname "Mother Road" after author John Steinbeck used the term in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. The highway became a symbol of opportunity, migration, and the American spirit of adventure.
4. Did Cynthia Troup contribute to the song "Route 66"?
Yes. According to family accounts, Cynthia Troup suggested the phrase "Get your kicks on Route 66," which became the song's unforgettable hook. Despite her contribution, she did not receive a songwriting credit.
5. Why does "Route 66" remain popular today?
"Route 66" continues to resonate because it celebrates the freedom of the open road, adventure, and the journey itself rather than the destination. Its simple blues structure, memorable lyrics, and association with the historic highway have made it an enduring American classic for nearly eight decades.