Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let fifty cents"
Roger Miller started writing that song in the summer of 1965
probaby during a Midwest TV tour in June. Some people refer to it
as the hobo song.
As he told the story, he was on the road somewhere outside
Chicago when he saw a sign that read "Trailers for Sale or Rent."
He wrote the first verse, but got no further. On the same road
trip, he saw a hobo in a gift shop in Boise, Idaho and that was the
idea for the rest of the song. The scribbling of "King of the Road"
now hangs in a shadow-box at the Roger Miller Museum in Erick,
Oklahoma. "King of the Road" took him six weeks to write, as
compared to "Dang Me" that took less than five minutes.
Released early in 1965, "King of the Road" featured Buddy Killen
and Thumbs Carlisle did the finger snaps The song was #1 on the
Country chart in March and stayed there for five weeks. It got to
#4 on the Pop chart, and in May 1965, the single was certified Gold
for sales of a million copies.