Steamroller Blues

"Steamroller Blues", often labelled just "Steamroller", is a song written by James Taylor, that first appeared on his 1970 breakthrough album "Sweet Baby James". The song title comes from the first line: "I'm a steamroller baby, 'bout to roll all over you...". A satire on the blues rock fashion of the time, it was a multi-sectioned walking tune full of mock serious phrases such as "I'm a napalm bomb for you, baby" and "I'm a churnin' urn of burnin' funk." As such it exposed a humorous side of Taylor that was sometimes obscured by his more intensely personal work, and thus became one of Taylor's best-known songs.

"Steamroller" was included on Taylor's diamond-selling "Greatest Hits" 1976 compilation in a live version recorded in August 1975 at the Universal Amphitheatre on Los Angeles; a different performance from 1992 was included on his 1993 album "(LIVE)". Indeed "Steamroller" was and is a James Taylor concert fixture, appearing in virtually every set list of his over the decades, often elongated with assorted on-stage parodistic antics, such as Taylor jumping up and down frantically, or his band's electric guitarist working in an interpolation of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker".

During the 1970s Elvis Presley added "Steamroller Blues" to his concert repertoire, it being a good fit for his latter-era on-stage persona; it was also featured in his live televised January 1973 Aloha from Hawaii program. It was included on the "" live album released the following month, and then in March 1973 this live "Steamroller Blues" was released as a single. It did reasonably well, reaching number 17 on the U.S. pop singles chart. It was still being performed on Presley concert tours up until his 1977 death, and was included on the 2007 compilation "The Essential Elvis Presley".

A cover was recorded by country music singer Billy Dean on his 1994 album "Fire in the Dark".

Isaac Hayes performed the song on an episode of "The A-Team".