It’s right there in the lyrics:

Out on the road today
I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said
“Don’t look back, you can never look back”

I shouldn’t, that’s true.

But I sure as hell can.

Which is juxtaposition of an homage to the Grateful Dead slapped on the window of a Cadillac, because whoever’s behind the wheel can’t let go of a time when times were simpler.

Not easy, perhaps, schlepping around the country following a band, but simple.

They tell me that the windshield’s bigger than the rearview for a reason, and I’ve been clinging to that of late.

White knuckling the idea that if I just keep looking down the road, something will appear to divert me from the wreckage I can still see smoldering in my wake.

The choices I made looming ever larger in what was first a ripple lapping at my consciousness, but now has assumed proportions best dealt with by running like hell.

It’s not the look back that that’s the problem, it’s when I grow transfixed by the specter of whatever’s about to catch up with me.

Or I get lost in the hypnotic allure of swirling debris of decisions that could have been better, or at least better informed, if I could have been bothered to understand the assignment.

So I can pull over, let it consume me, or keep driving, looking ahead.

No promises of better decisions, or happier outcomes, because I’m sure it all ends poorly.

Except, what the windshield keeps whispering, and won’t shut up about it, is:

What if it doesn’t? Wouldn’t that be cool?

Yeah. Yeah, that would be pretty cool.