Wide Open Road by The Triffids

‘Wide Open Road’ was the lead single from The Triffids' second studio album, Born Sandy Devotional.

The song explores some of the band’s key themes of distance and physical and emotional dislocation.

Songwriter David McComb said it evoked a particular stretch of the Eyre Highway in Western Australia where the band’s van came to grief with kangaroos on their regular travels across the Nullarbor, from their hometown in Perth to the East Coast.

‘Wide Open Road' reached No. 64 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. In May 2001 the Australasian Performing Right Association, as part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, named ‘Wide Open Road’ one of the top 30 Australian songs of all time.

Cover image: Publicity still of The Triffids. Photo by Mary Conlon.