Prodigal Son: No Way to Get Along

Robert Wilkins put two men on the same road. In 1929, he recorded "That’s No Way to Get Along", a blues song about a wounded man trying to get away. Women have treated him badly. He wants to tell his mother, find a train, and leave his troubles behind. More than thirty years later, Wilkins used the same musical body for a very different journey. Now the traveller is the prodigal son from the Gospel of Luke: hungry, ashamed, and heading home after wasting his inheritance. The guitar still walks the same road, but the meaning has changed. The first song asks how to escape. The second asks how to return. This episode follows that transformation through Reverend Robert Wilkins, the Rolling Stones, Steel Pulse, U2, Reverend John Wilkins, Eric Clapton, Guy Davis, Ry Cooder, and others. Along the way, it asks why every generation understands the mistake of confusing distance with freedom, and why coming home is never the same as undoing what happened.