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Just as “Going Down on Love” was not (entirely) about cunnilingus, “Old Dirt Road” is not about anal sex. Well, maybe it’s in there somewhere; written by Lennon and Harry Nilsson during the Pussy Cats sessions, “ODR” does not have any particular message of burning importance to share. Said John:
[It was done] just to write a song. You know, “Seein’ as we’re stuck in this bottle of vodka together, we might as well try and do something.”
Nilsson described the writing process like this:
When [John] was writing “Old Dirt Road” he’d started the tune, and he was up past the first verse, I guess, and some “suit people” came in, and he said, “Harry, what’s a good Americanism?” And why this came about [I don’t know], it came into my mind, but “It was like trying to shovel smoke with a pitchfork in the wind.” And he said, “Oh great, great, fantastic! You’re burning, man, go for it!” And he talked to the suits over the piano, and we wrote another verse, and I’d check in with him every few minutes like a secretary, go back to the piano, and he’d be going, “Yeah, yeah, you’re on fire now.”
Though it was written in Los Angeles, “ODR” was recorded in New York, whence Lennon had fled after the LA madness became too much. The defining part of the recording is the crying guitar played by Jesse Ed Davis, the renowned Native American session man who is prominently featured in the documentary Rumble (now behind a paywall, sad to say).
Nilsson cut a version of his own for his 1980 album Flash Harry:
Frankly “Old Dirt Road” is not one of the high points of either man’s career. I’ve listened to it three times today and even now, as I look at the words of the title, what’s actually going through my head is “Old Brown Shoe.” Chalk one up for Beatle George.