Artists
Musicians featured in this piece are:
Chris Rea – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards
Max Middleton – acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes, string arrangements
Robert Ahwai – guitars
Eoghan O’Neill – band member
Kevin Leach – band member
Martin Ditcham – band member
Carol Kenyon, Karen Boddington, Linda Taylor – additional vocals
Gavin Wright – orchestra leader
Written by Chris Rea. Produced by Chris Rea & Jon Kelly.
The opening of the song has a gospel-blues feel, and Chris Rea has said the record was written as a reaction to the world he saw around him, including his remark that people start to see news as pornography. He considered the follow-up, Auberge, as a fallback plan if The Road to Hell didn’t succeed, but the album became the biggest success of his career, and Rea later returned to the theme with the 1999 album The Road to Hell: Part 2.
Chris Rea – The Road To Hell Lyrics
Stood still on a highway
I saw a woman
By the side of the road
With a face that I knew like my own
Reflected in my window
Well she walked up to my quarterlight
And she bent down real slow
A fearful pressure paralysed me in my shadow
She said ‘son what are you doing here
My fear for you has turned me in my grave’
I said ‘mama I come to the valley of the rich
Myself to sell’
She said ‘son this is the road to hell’
On your journey cross the wilderness
From the desert to the well
You have strayed upon the motorway to hell
To listen to other songs from the Teleskop 16 program and the full program, click here.