Talk:Seven Bridges Road

Woodley Rd is definitely Seven Bridges Road

Woodley Road south of Montgomery, AL was most certainly known locally as the Seven Bridges Road during and long after its construction in the late 1950's; my father worked on the road crew that built it, and has always referred to it as "the Seven Bridges Road." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.147.35 (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I've lived in Montgomery virtually all my life and have been a pro musician for 40 years. All the musicians and people in Montgomery know that Woodley Rd is known as the only Seven Bridges Road here and we knew that in 1980 when the song came out. Hank Jr is deluded in saying otherwise, and he only said what he did because he either didn't know the facts or wanted to change history and make Upper Wetunpka Rd be the title road because that's where Oakwood Cemetery is and fronts the plots where Hank Sr & Audrey are buried about 150' feet off Upper Wetumpka Rd --- in other words, he wants the song to be about him & his legacy, which is not the truth except in his own mind. There aren't anywhere close to 7 bridges on Upper Wetumpka Rd; there's only 1, and even Lower Wetumpka Rd only has 2, which borders the west side of the cemetery a good 1/3-mile from Hank Sr.'s grave. I know those roads as well as I know Woodley Rd as I owned a recording studio with 2 partners on Upper Wetumpka Rd in the late 80's & my sister lived just off Lower Wetumpka Rd for years. Hank Jr is as nuts on this topic as he is on many others.

Besides, Steve Young said in the song that the road led out of town "southward as you go" and had "moss in the trees", and in interviews said it had farms & turned into a dirt road eventually, and that isn't like the area anywhere near Oakwood Cemetery, which had no farms there period in the 1960's and haven't been for decades before Steve Young was in Montgomery, as all the houses on both Upper Wetumpka Rd & Lower Wetumpka Rd near Oakwood Cemetery (which is in the northern part of the town, no farms anywhere around) were built between 1890 & 1940 all the way to the end of Upper Wetumpka Rd at the lowly Chisholm subdivision & beyond, so there wasn't any farmland near there circa 1963, and if you go far enough out of town on Lower Wetumpka Rd, you'll reach the country eventually, but that road runs north & doesn't look anything like the imagery of the song; it's all flood plain from the Alabama River being nearby & no farms or mossy trees. Both of those roads have been paved since the 40's as well, but Woodley Rd was dirt at one point just below the 7th bridge until the 90's.

But going "southward as you go" on Woodley Rd, you'll see plenty of farms & pasture land, plus moss in the trees --- development didn't change this road at all because it moved eastward and bypassed this road completely, which baffled me at the time because it's beautiful land, but I realized later in life that there's a small & very poor black community/neighborhood off Woodley Rd called Macedonia just south of Virginia Loop Rd, and since developers didn't want to build near it, it cost too much to jump over and drag the sewer lines down that far at the time and a lot of the land was owned by (and still owned by) a land & cattle baron named John "Bubba" Trotman, so they went eastward, and then the rest of Woodley Rd and virtually all of south Montgomery went black and people stopped buying there period by the mid `80's, so development plans died there. However, in the 70's, somebody tried to jump way south of all this & turn a subdivision called Rolling Hills into a viable community, but even with its own private golf course, it just didn't make it and is virtually all alone down there on Trotman Rd about a mile east of Woodley Rd & the golf course goes in & out of bankruptcy with different owners. Trotman Rd runs east/west from Woodley Rd to Troy Hwy (US 231) and its intersection with Woodley Rd is appx 1/3-mile south of the 7th bridge, which stands all alone appx 2 miles south of the other 6 bridges.

Anyway, as you go southward on Woodley Rd (as the song says) from Montgomery & cross the Virginia Loop Rd/McInnis Rd intersection (if going south on Woodley Rd and hit that intersection, it's McInnis Rd if you go west/right & Virginia Loop Rd if you go east/left), you then go appx 1/2-mile and you'll pass over back-to-back bridges not once, but 3 times inside of appx a 1/2-mile or so, then you have to go appx 2 more miles to cross the 7th bridge all by itself south. I travel quite frequently to jobsites in this area that are west & south via on Woodley Rd using it as a connector between Trotman Rd and Snowdoun-Chambers Rd and I cross over the 7th bridge daily some weeks. Hank Jr is both wrong and an ass --- ask anybody in Nashville who knows him. PhilOSophocle (talk) 19:17, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:SevenBridgesRoad.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 08:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

The history section reads much like an essay. It should be re-written to be more encyclopedic. See WP:MOS and WP:Cleanup Resources for assistance in cleaning up the article. →ClarkCT^Talk @ 16:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Seven Bridges Road

The opening lines states that The Eagles version is the definitive version and recieves significant airplay.

In my doing some research on this song and it's various versions, several questions are raised, not least are:

1. What defines a definitive version a song: The songwriters approval, radio airplay (as implied by the opening remarks about airplay), listener approval, critcal reception, sales, an article writer's assertion?

All of these may be in-play to varying degrees, but without clarification as to what is and defines a definitive version and supporting clear evidence, a statement of opinion can be read as a statement of fact. Thus without defining the terms and criteria of the assertion, (which may turn out to be fact), writing that x song is the definitive version is potentially misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by James98926 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I would also question the use of the word "definitive". In 1973, Iain Matthews recorded the song for his album, "Valley Hi". It was this arraignment that was used by the Eagles. So one could describe it as the most popular, or the best known, but the word definitive is too murky. ccountz. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ccountz (talk • contribs) 03:31, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Agreed. I have changed the wording accordingly, to "perhaps the best known version" since we can quite safely infer that sales equates to number of people familiar with that cover version. By the same token, I have also mentioned Ricochet's cover version, since it has achieved the next highest levels on the charts, and done so much more recently, hence receiving relatively heavy airplay on country stations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.24.73.74 (talk) 06:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The Eagles version is absolutely the most popular version. Look at youtube. There's about 140k views for Matthews over the top two hit whilest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hufU6MIS2vw has 8.5 MM. The data are clear that the more popular version is, in fact, The Eagles. Ian Matthews doesn't belong in the opening paragraph since his version is neither the original nor the most popular. Also, see my comments about chart success, Eagles were on the charts 14 weeks peaking at 21 and Matthews didn't chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vargob (talk • contribs) 16:19, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Restoring pipelinks

I'm restoring the "bluegrass music|bluegrassy" and "Southern gospel|gospel" as pipelinks in the quote from Steve Young in the Eagles' version section. I'm aware MOS states "Items within quotations should not generally be linked": however this is not an absolute negative stance on links within quotations & in this specific instance I'd opine there's nothing specious in linking to the articles about the music styles Young cites. Also MOS does not advocate deletion of links in quotations without provision of another route to the information, stating: "Instead, consider placing the relevant links in the surrounding text or in the 'See also' section of the article". Therefore some provision for linking to "bluegrass music" and "Southern gospel" should be provided: the editor who dropped the links evidently did not give the requested consideration to alternatives & on my giving these alternatives consideration I conclude that placing links in the surrounding text or in a "See also" section would just make for an awkward read, & that in this specific instance links within a quotation are reasonable. --Cherrylimerickey (talk) 19:11, 18 May 2013 (UTC)