It took me a ridiculously long time to learn how to drive. Hand-eye coordination isn’t really my thing, and neither is heavy machinery, and neither is navigating the pounding snowstorms that hit the Idaho town where I grew up. But I love it. And like most people who fall in love with something they have no talent for, I made up in enthusiasm what I lacked in skill. For once, southeastern Idaho was good for something: It’s the perfect place to hit the road. Long stretches of nothing but barley fields, wheat fields, potato fields. This wasn’t just driving, this was wind in my hair, radio on maximum volume, pedal to the metal driving. It is literally mathematically impossible to worry about anything when I’m doing this.There’s a song for people like me. It’s the driver’s hymn, for everyone who grew up in a crappy suburb where there’s nothing to do but drive for the sake of driving. It’s “Roadrunner” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers and, for my money, it’s the greatest song on the planet.It’s pretty simple. Just two chords and a keyboard solo, and all Jonathan does is talk-sing about how he is driving and how it feels good. He turns the radio on, then he goes faster, and he turns the radio up, and he keeps driving. That’s it. But there’s so much unadulterated bliss in this song: “I’m in love with Massachusetts/I’m in love with the radio on/It helps me from being alone late at night/It helps me from being lonely late at night/I don’t feel so bad now in the car/Don’t feel so alone/Got the radio on.”The first time I heard this, it was like hypnosis. I couldn’t help but run to the car to put this on repeat and drive and drive and drive. Jonathan GETS it! The highway could be my boyfriend, he said, and as long as you turn up your music loud enough, all your troubles will go away.So I’ve got this song on a pedestal. Some people get it, some people don’t. Apparently Joan Jett used to cover it in her live shows, changing the lyrics to fit the city she was playing. Music critic Laura Barton called it the most magical song in existence. I said something like that to an old boyfriend, and he confessed later that he didn’t like it. That should have been my first warning sign.My current boy and I bonded over our Modern Lovers love. He even lives in Boston, and the last time I visited he took me on a Richman pilgrimage. We saw the Fenway, Government Center and the room at the Museum of Fine Arts where they keep the Cezanne. He sent me a picture of a real live Stop and Shop once, and it made my whole damn day.And, you know, that’s nice and all. But the glory of “Roadrunner” is it doesn’t matter which road you’re on. As long as you’ve got the windows down and the cold air in your face and, of course, the radio on, you’ll be all right.