An arrangement of the evergreen top hit song from 1964 ''King of the Road'', set for classical Brass Quintet.

"King of the Road" is a song written by country singer Roger Miller, who first recorded it in November 1964. The lyrics tell of the day-to-day life of a hobo who, despite being poor (a "man of means by no means"), revels in his freedom, describing himself humorously and cynically as the "king of the road". It was Miller's fifth single for Smash Records.


The popular crossover record hit No. 1 on the US Country chart, No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the Easy Listening surveys. It was also No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, and in Norway. Miller recalled that the song was inspired when he was driving and saw a sign on the side of a barn that read, "Trailers for sale or rent".[6] This would become the opening line of the song.

The song has been covered by many other artists, including George Jones, Dean Martin, Val Doonican, Jack Jones, James Booker, The Fabulous Echoes, Boney M., R.E.M., Johnny Paycheck, Glen Campbell, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Boxcar Willie, Randy Travis, Rangers, James Kilbane, John Stevens, the Statler Brothers, Rufus Wainwright and Teddy Thompson, Giant Sand, Peligro, The Proclaimers, Ray Conniff Singers, The Reverend Horton Heat, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Jim White. James "The King" Brown (an Elvis impersonator) performed the song for a 2001 Audi commercial on German TV.[7] Of R.E.M.'s version, a shambolic, drunken, offhand rendering, guitarist Peter Buck would later comment, "If there was any justice in the world, Roger Miller should be able to sue for what we did to this song."

"King of the Road" was performed live by Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam and Dolly Parton during Miller's posthumous induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame at the 1995 CMA Awards ceremony.

The song is featured in Wim Wenders' 1976 film Im Lauf der Zeit (In the Course of Time; English title Kings of the Road). It is also played at the beginning of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Brokeback Mountain, Into the Wild (2007), Traveller (1997), and Swingers (1996). Miller performs it in the concert film The Big T.N.T. Show. The recording by The Proclaimers is included in the film The Crossing (1990). Near the end of their official music video, the pair are shown reading a newspaper whose headline is "Roger Miller, King of Plugs".

Miller's recording appears in an episode of the Super Dave TV show, where Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein) sings along while sitting at a piano mounted on top of his tour bus. The bus eventually goes into a low tunnel, slamming into the piano and Osborne and pushing them off the bus and onto the ground.

A send-up version by English entertainer Billy Howard was a British chart hit in 1976.

A German take by the band Wise Guys exists, the parody referring to speeding on the Autobahn.

?The holly and the ivy/When they are both full grown/Of all the trees that are in the wood/The holly bears the crown.? So go the opening words to this cheerful, upbeat Christmas song. The lyrics appeared as broadsides in early nineteenth century Birmingham, England. The melody was first published in Cecil J. Sharp?s 1911 English Folk-Carols; on page 63 of the collection?s ?Notes on the Carols? section, Sharp wrote that he heard the tune sung by "Mrs. Mary Clayton, at Chipping Camden." (An alternative version linked the words to a melody identified as "old French carol.") This version is a fast-moving and fun treatment of the Sharp/Clayton melody. It includes, among other things, a call-and-response variation, a running tuba solo, an alternative ?verse? tune and a countermelody section featuring ?Deck the Halls.? There are two key changes, trumpets play a couple of B-above-the-staff notes, and the time signature changes from � to 4/4 near the end. Completed in 2016, this arrangement runs about 3 minutes, 20 seconds. Contact the arranger, Les Smith, at lessmith@ufl.edu. If you like this one, don?t miss Les? arrangements of ?Silver Bells,? ?Jingle Bells,? ?Jolly Old St. Nicholas,? ?Up On The Housetop,? ?Deck the Halls? and many other Christmas songs and carols. Enter "Sweetwater Brass Press" (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus search box.