I've decided to create my playlist based on what Dean Moriarty from the book On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Dean is one of the main characters, who in the nicest terms of the word is a Bum. I don't know how many of you have read it, but read it. It changed my life, just as it has changed everyone else's who's read it, and it will change yours.

Dean is a theif, an intelectual, upheld as holy by his beatnik freinds. As Kerouac put it, he is “simply a youth tremendously excited with life."

What kind of a song can describe such a character? I've got 8 here that i think do a pretty good job

• "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springstien
  
  

Dean is the epitome of a youth in America in the 1950's. He was born on the streets, in America - "I'm ten years down the road/Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go." Dean's been on the streets all his life, and he has no home other than the occasional friend's house.

• "Blowin' In the Wind" by Bob Dylan
  
  

Dylan has always had a way of personifying the American way of life in his songs, and this one hits especially close to Dean's way of life. He isn't but a teenager, but he has had such a hard life, and is expected to be a grown up by everyone he meets, yet has no one to help him grow up -- "How many roads must a man walk down/Before you call him a man?"

• "Going to California" by Led Zeppelin

The lyrics of this song are kind of convoluted, but the beatnik feel, the nature imagery relate very well to Dean. Dean spends most of his time traveling back and forth between California, messing around with girls, and that's pretty much what this song is about. Dean spent most of his time doing drugs or drinking, with the "woman of the week" -- "Spent my days with a woman unkind, Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine."

• "Mental Instra" by Keller Williams
  
  

This song is an instrumental and illustrates both dean's love for life, and Dan's point about a song not necissarily needing lyrics. Dean gets so excited at one point in the book, just because the sax player is getting so into the music. In this song, every single person playing gets so into the song, i couldn't help but think of Dean.

• "Walkaways" by Counting Crows
  
  

This song is about not being able to stay in one place, but wanting to one day, and Dean definately can't stay in one place, he's constantly "on the road" so to speak -- "And someday/Im gonna stay/But not today"

• "Halfway Home" by Jason Mraz

Dean has never had a real home, and therefore has always been halfway home,

I used to think that i could just sleep and then I'd dream
And everything it would just come to me
Until I woke one day without anything to eat
Lying on the opposite side of the street

he's always had to fend for himself, living a life of not caring, and even after he realizes he is going to have to work to make it in life


• "Country Road" by James Taylor
  
  

Dean has spent most of his life walking down country roads, and his "feet know where they want to go".

• "Dream Life of Rand McNally" by Jason Mraz

This song is about Mraz's trip around the world stopping everywhere and staying nowhere, and i don't think there is a better way to describe Dean's way of life.

I settled down in san diego and smoked a joint with java joe

And with a grin he took me in, I spilled coffee on my chin

and i played my show there and met my bitches and hoes there

and with my holy host they kindly let me shake my tail there

but one more thing before we go, there's never been any place quite like this home

for once in a life time maybe, i'd be foolish not to stay

oh i got to get away mr. nally what can i say mr. nally.. run run run run run away mr. nally

this verse kind of epitomizes dean's life of running around, mooching off of people, hanging out with the girls, but as good as it was, not being able to stay in one place. Mraz shows this by talking to Rand Mcnally (a maker of maps) about not being able to stay in one place as good as it is for just one night.. it wouldn't stay, and he eventually would have to keep on moving, physically, and mentally.. just like Dean.