After Fleetwood Mac released Mirage in 1982, and were on hiatus for five years. Lindsey Buckingham was commissioned to write a song by film director Harold Ramis that became an iconic road trip classic.
When the Griswolds set off on a family vacation, leaving their small town in Illinois for California, they had the perfect soundtrack along the way. In National Lampoon’s Vacation, directed by Ramis with a screenplay by John Hughes, Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, and the kids, Audrey (Dana Barron) and Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall), set off on multiple misadventures en route to the Wally World theme park.
Playing over the opening postcard-shot credits of the film is Buckingham’s “Holiday Road.” Unlike the more cavernous songs Buckingham wrote for Fleetwood Mac, “Holiday Road” is filled with simple lyrics, with the chorus of “Holiday Road” playing on repeat.
I found out long ago
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
It’s a long way down the Holiday Road
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
Holiday Road
Holiday Road
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
Take a ride on a West Coast kick
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
Holiday Road
Holiday Road
Holiday Road
Holiday Road
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“It was so fun to have ‘Holiday Road’ come to life,” said Buckingham. “Harold [Ramis] came down to the studio and we played it for him. And obviously, he was just thrilled right away. So it was a nice interaction, and he was such a great guy that we all kind of clicked. That was just a fun thing to be involved with.”
Around the time he wrote what became an iconic theme song, Buckingham had already released his solo debut, Law and Order (1981), with the hit “Trouble,” and follow-up, Go Insane, in 1984, but it was “Holiday Road” that became his most well-known song outside of Fleetwood Mac.
“That often happens when you’re doing something where you perceive that the stakes are quite low, when you’re doing something that’s outside of your basic wheelhouse,” said Buckingham of the unexpected popularity of the song after the films took off.
“Dancing Across the USA” and the Legacy of “Holiday Road” (1985-2015)
Buckingham also bookended the National Lampoon’s Vacation soundtrack with a second song, the closing “Dancin’ Across the USA.”
“Harold Ramis called me up and asked me if I would write a beginning and a second song to go over the credits, which was ‘Dancin’ Across the USA,’ my attempt at recreating the Mills Brothers,” recalled Buckingham, who released a live version of the song on his 2008 album Live at the Bass Performance. Hall. “It’s one of those things, you almost want to say, ‘I don’t do that. It wasn’t part of my discipline. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but that was also freeing because he wanted me to try.”
“Holiday Road” was later used in the National Lampoon’s Vacation sequels, including National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985) and Vegas Vacation (1997). In 2015, the final installment, Vacation, which featured Ed Helms (as grown-up Rusty) and his wife, Christina Applegate setting off on another family vacation, featured a more country-bent version of “Holiday Road” by Zac Brown Band.
In Buckingham’s 1983 music video for “Holiday Road,” there is no reference to the film. Instead, Buckingham is dressed in a suit and tie in a drab, prison-like office space, answering phones and drinking Coca-Cola and unnaturally blue liquid from the water cooler before escaping into the woods.
Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images
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