In Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of the Open Road”, Whitman depicts his love for the open road and traveling and describes the implications brought upon by the road. Whitman’s poem also includes many thoughts based on Emerson’s ideas relating to movement and “the new”. The poem proves Walt Whitman strongly agrees with Salman Rushdie’s point of view and that he strongly agrees one is meant to travel and explore the open road. Walt Whitman illustrates the ideas of Rushdie and Emerson when he says, “the road is before us . . . Let the paper remain on the desk! . . . let the money remain unearn’d! . . . Let the school stand,” (15). Here, he is talking about the concept of the open road and telling people to basically drop everything and travel the open road. This illustrates the ideas of Emerson because it is based on the Emersonian idea of movement. This also exemplifies the ideas of Rushdie because Rushdie is a strong believer in migration and always being on the move and in this line, Walt Whitman is telling people to start moving and navigating on the open road. The concept of leaving everything behind and traveling relates to Rushdie’s ideas because he thinks people should be rooted in ideas instead of places. In this poem, Walt Whitman shows he has fallen in love with the open road by saying, “O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you” (Whitman 4). He also writes, “They go! they go! I know they go, but I know not where they go, But I know that they go toward the best - toward something great” (Whitman 13). By saying this, Whitman is saying that no one knows where the open road could lead, but only good can come from traveling it.
The "Taking on the Road Playlist" includes songs relating to Salman Rushdie and Scott Russell Sanders' original argument as well: