Follow or Ease on Down the Road?

I got a post of this picture on Facebook with the caption, "I wonder where the red brick road goes?" This made me remember that when I first saw The Wizard of Oz in color, this exact question entered my mind. I also wondered about the grey "lines" separating the yellow from the red.

As Dorothy started on her journey down the yellow brick road surrounded by the Munchkins, I kept my eyes on the red one until it was obscured by a fountain. Like the yellow one, it widened as she spiraled outward but then the red road was obscured by the fountain. Did it spiral into nothingness or did it lead to whatever was at the other end of Oz, the opposite of the Emerald City?

In the end, of course, Dorothy had no reason to go away from Munchkinland at all except to find a way home. She thought she needed the Wizard's power. As she began to follow the yellow brick road, she was also also on the first step toward losing her yearning for adventure. She chose the road that was pointed out for her and followed it religiously, despite obstacles and diversions because she wanted to leave the adventure and return home.

When I got a bit older, I read Frost's "Road Not Taken" for the first time and imagined the red road as the one "least traveled by." Most people, I suppose, are drawn to power and the Emerald City was the center of power in Oz. What might Dorothy have found if she'd chosen differently? More adventure or less? Would the Wicked Witch of the West have followed her anyway in search of those ruby slippers? I find an odd balance of unknowns here. Just as the Glenda did not know the power of the ruby slippers, Dorothy did not know the power of the Wizard.

We find out that the Wizard's power is dubious and limited. On the other hand, we never learn the power of the slippers except that it was just a device that made it possible for Dorothy to go home. Was the Wicked Witch looking for her own home, her own safe place? What happened to the slippers after Dorothy returned to Kansas? She wasn't wearing them when she woke up there.

I hadn't consciously remembered the two roads when I saw The Wiz a few years later but I must have been aware or noted sub-consciously that there was only one road for easing on down -- the expected yellow one. But that road much more realistic, like a real road that I might find myself traveling.


Follow the yellow brick road, follow, follow, follow, follow
Follow the yellow brick road.
Follow the yellow brick, follow the yellow brick
Follow the yellow brick road
You're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
We hear that he's a wiz of a wiz if ever a wiz there was
If ever or ever a wiz there was
The Wizard of Oz is one because
Because because because because because
Because of the wonderful things he does.
You're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

Yeah. Now I get it. Judy Garland was following very persistent directions, doing what she was told just because because because she carried hope that a faceless Wizard would give her answers and get her home. She leaves the colorful joy of the munchkins to follow follow follow, repeating catchy lyrics with music that makes you want to tap your feet.

Ease on down, ease on down the road
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road
Pick your left foot up when your right foot's down
Come on legs keep movin' don't you lose no ground
You just keep on keepin' on the road that you choose
Don't you give up walkin' 'cause you gave up shoes.
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road.

Diana Ross was taking it easy, carrying nothing that would burden her. In fact, the burden seems to be behind her in the broken bricks she's leaving behind. She is enjoined to keep going, keep moving, take it easy, but there's no sense of purpose, no hope that anything waits at the other end. She chooses the road at the same time something (like a puppet master?) compels her to keep easing on down with a beat you can dance to and lyrics that don't encourage contemplation.