‘Freeway’

“What IS it about cars and speed? Doing speed and driving, weirdly, seem to go hand-in-hand.” Aimme Mann, the singer-songwriter, certainly wasn’t endorsing the practice of making the morning commute under the jittery influence of drugs when she said that recently; she was just explaining her observational new song, “Freeway,” which is a cinematic tale of life in the fast lane.

“My reference for the song was very specific; it was about a friend of mine who was doing a lot of speed and he would drive down to Orange County and he had these drug adventures,” said Mann, the 47-year-old Virginia native who has become a staple presence of the music scene in Los Angeles as a member of Largo’s cerebral circle of performing artists.

“Freeway” is on Mann’s seventh solo studio album, “@#%&*! Smilers,” which was released in June, and it starts off as a sad accusation:

You got a lot of money, but you can’t afford the Freeway

The road to Orange County leaves an awful lot of leeway

Where everyone’s a doctor or a specialist in retail

They’ll sell you all the speed you want if you can take the blackmail

Mann’s music often has a detached candor to it, and while she noted that Hunter S. Thompson and his “drugged-out road trips” crossed her mind while putting the song together, “Freeway” will remind some listeners of the L.A. musings on the soundtrack to the 1999 Paul Thomas Anderson film “Magnolia,” which earned her an Oscar nomination.

The airy song has a simple chord progression. It’s in 4-4 speed, Mann said, because she “wanted it to sound like driving.”

While drug addiction is the engine, the song is steered by money and sweaty pilgrimages.

“My friend would go on these long drug missions from town to town. He had moved to L.A. and gone into a treatment center here, but L.A. is not the place to detox -- too many temptations. And that money thing -- it’s hard to stay sober when you have a lot of money. Money itself becomes part of it, people don’t really talk about it. You’re high already when you’re punching the buttons on the ATM.”

You got a lot of money, but you cannot keep your bills paid

The sacrifice is worth it just to hang around the arcade

You found yourself a prophet, but you left him on the boardwalk

Another chocolate Easter bunny, hollowed out by your talk