Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – If anything deserves a song, it’s the 100th anniversary of the Mother Road.

Visit Springfield director “Scott Dahl asked me to write a song, so I just sat down and started thinking of a way to start with it, where it go, and I thought, Route 66 runs right through the middle of it all,” said local musician Tom Irwin (pictured). “The word middle didn’t work, so I just started chopping things out, then I had to figure out things that rhymed with the word all, to make a couplet at the end.”

It doesn’t have to rhyme.

“My favorite rhyme that doesn’t rhyme,” Irwin said, is “If you like food, that’s good, because there are stops everywhere; Maid-Rite loose burger and Chef (Michael) Higgins’ classy Malda-nair’s — always called it Malda-nair’s, so he got a kick out of that.”

Irwin said he finished up the song and recorded it Friday.