I was grabbing lunch the other day in Lancaster, the nearest sizable town to where I’ve been scouting in the desert, when someone asked me if I’d driven down the road that plays the theme from the Lone Ranger. I wasn’t sure how to respond.
On the one hand, it’s a pretty odd question; on the other, this is Southern California, right? I headed over to the start of the road at Avenue G and 30th Street…
…and found the start pretty clearly marked in the left hand lane: the Musical Road…
…which would supposedly play a selection from the William Tell Overture as I drove over the specially designed rumble strips at a steady clip of 55 mph.
Here we go!
So. Um. Well, that was odd…Did the road need to be tuned?
The Musical Road was installed for a Honda Civic commercial in 2008. Originally opened on Avenue K, it was moved shortly after to its current location after neighbors complained about the noise. Perhaps the odd melody was a result of its relocation? Here’s the original commercial…
Nope – it’s been wrong from the start (how extremely strange to see everyone congratulating themselves at the end of the commercial when things clearly went completely wrong). Apparently, a major miscalculation led to all the notes being off – you can read a pretty brilliant breakdown of exactly why that is here. Weird that they didn’t fix it on the re-installation…
But hey, at the very least, there’s a road out there that sounds like a first time piano player attempting to plunk out the theme from the Lone Ranger. That’s something, right?
-SCOUT
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