Parchment Farm

... ah, yes, Joe Strummer. Wrote a song for Johnny Cash & sent it to him, sometime in the 1980s or the 1990s, I don't know exactly when. Johnny didn't record The Road to Rock 'n' Roll, but when the two finally met, not so very long before their several deaths, he told Joe that the song had always bothered him & that throughout the intervening period he'd been trying to figure out what it meant. Meanwhile Joe did record it, with his band the Mescaleros, on their 1999 album Rock Art & the X Ray Style. It's got some lines that intrigued me too:

On the road to rock 'n' roll
Everybody carries a good luck charm
Said to spook the highway wind
Blowing off old Parchman Farm

... Parchman Farm, often written Parchment Farm (& why not), is another name for the Mississippi State Penitentiary, located near Parchman, Mississippi, where a number of famous old bluesmen were jailed and which turns up in some classic songs, including Bukka White's Parchman Farm Blues ... is this what spooked Johnny?

Wish I knew how to link to music here but, instead, the full text of the lyrics is here.

Now I'm gonna take the mirror in my soul & turn it to the sky ...