In the spring of 1969, the American music landscape was shifting under everyone’s feet. Folk had electrified. Country was inching toward rock. California was becoming not just a place, but a sound. And standing at a crossroads of all three was a young singer named Linda Ronstadt—talented, searching, and ready to take the long way around if that’s what it took to find herself.
“The Long Way Around,” tucked into her first fully solo studio album, Hand Sown … Home Grown, is not a chart-topping anthem. It never climbed the Hot 100. It never became the song casual listeners immediately associate with her name. But in many ways, it is one of the most revealing recordings of her entire career.
Because this is where the real story begins.
A Fragile, Pivotal Moment
Released in March 1969 by Capitol Records, Hand Sown … Home Grown marked the first time Ronstadt stood entirely on her own. No shared billing. No group identity. No safety net.
Before this, she had fronted the Stone Poneys, scoring a notable hit with “Different Drum.” But success inside a band can be a double-edged sword. You’re visible—but not fully defined. Known—but not yet understood.
Track six on side one, “The Long Way Around” was written by Kenny Edwards (born Ken Edwards), a key member of the Stone Poneys and someone deeply tied to her earlier musical chapter. That detail alone gives the song an emotional undercurrent. It’s not just a track on a record. It’s a bridge between who she was and who she was becoming.
The song was issued as a single in March 1969, backed with “The Dolphins.” It didn’t chart. Two years later, in January 1971, it resurfaced as part of a double A-side with “(She’s a) Very Lovely Woman,” which managed to reach No. 70 on the U.S. Hot 100. “The Long Way Around” itself, however, remained officially uncharted.
There’s something poetic about that.
This is not a song that shouts for attention. It lives more like a letter folded into a diary—private, reflective, patient.
Too Country for Rock, Too Rock for Country
To understand “The Long Way Around,” you have to understand the paradox Ronstadt was living.
Raised on traditional Mexican music and classic country, she carried the sounds of Hank Williams and the Grand Ole Opry in her bones. But by the late 1960s, she was immersed in the West Coast folk-rock movement—an ecosystem shaped by artists like Bob Dylan and the emerging California scene.
When she stepped into her solo career, she found herself caught between radio formats. Program directors told her she was “too country” for rock stations and “too rock” for country stations. It was a frustrating limbo—one that would have stalled a less determined artist.
Instead of forcing herself into a narrow lane, Ronstadt chose experimentation.
Working with producer Chip Douglas, she aimed to create something that felt authentic: Nashville-rooted songs filtered through a California sensibility. The result wasn’t polished country or straight rock. It was a hybrid—an early, unpolished blueprint for what would later be called country-rock.
And “The Long Way Around” sits right at the center of that experiment.
A Title That Tells the Truth
The title alone feels autobiographical.
“The Long Way Around” suggests detours. Hesitation. Emotional circling. It suggests a young artist unwilling to take shortcuts—unwilling to adopt an identity simply because it’s commercially convenient.
In 1969, Ronstadt was not yet the arena-filling powerhouse whose phrasing could electrify a stadium. She wasn’t yet the Grammy-winning icon who would dominate the 1970s. She was still playing clubs, still absorbing influences, still testing the boundaries of her own voice.
And that’s what makes this recording so quietly powerful.
Her vocal performance here doesn’t overwhelm you. It draws you in. There’s restraint. There’s thoughtfulness. There’s an almost fragile sincerity. You can hear someone learning—not technically, but emotionally—how to inhabit a lyric as herself rather than as a character.
The song’s country-rock framework—gentle guitars, open-air harmonies—evokes American roads stretching toward uncertain horizons. The “long way” isn’t just about romance. It’s about pride. It’s about vulnerability. It’s about the human habit of circling the block before knocking on a door we’re afraid might not open.
That metaphor feels especially fitting for Ronstadt at that moment. She was circling her own future, approaching it cautiously but deliberately.
An Album of Searching
Hand Sown … Home Grown is largely composed of covers—songs by Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, and Fred Neil among others. The choice of material reveals a singer still exploring influences, still aligning herself with writers she admired.
In that context, “The Long Way Around” stands out as something more personal. Because of Edwards’ connection to her past, the song becomes an intimate thread linking her Stone Poneys chapter to her solo ambition.
Critics at the time didn’t hail the album as revolutionary—but they recognized its promise. Reviewers noted that Ronstadt was stretching, experimenting, and inching toward a more defined artistic identity.
History would later confirm that instinct.
By the mid-1970s, Ronstadt would become one of the defining voices of her generation. Albums like Heart Like a Wheel and Simple Dreams would cement her status. But the seeds of that success are audible here—in the patience, the vulnerability, and the refusal to be boxed in.
The Sound of a Future Being Built
Listening to “The Long Way Around” today feels almost archaeological. You’re hearing the foundation before the skyscraper.
There’s dignity in the vulnerability. There’s strength in the restraint. And perhaps most importantly, there’s an absence of calculation. This is not a performance engineered for radio dominance. It’s a performance shaped by instinct.
Ronstadt would later master the art of delivering heartbreak with operatic force. But here, she practices something subtler: quiet truth.
And that truth resonates decades later.
Because “the long way around” is a universal experience. It’s the road we take when we’re not ready to confront something directly. It’s the career path that winds instead of sprints. It’s the artistic journey that rejects shortcuts in favor of authenticity.
Ronstadt’s early detour wasn’t a misstep. It was preparation.
Why It Still Matters
For fans of 1960s folk-rock and early country-rock—especially those who cherish the transitional years before the genre solidified—this track is essential listening. It captures the uncertainty and creative risk that defined the era.
But beyond genre history, “The Long Way Around” offers something more intimate: a glimpse of a young woman stepping into solitude and claiming it as her own.
The song didn’t chart. It didn’t make headlines. It didn’t roar into the cultural conversation.
Instead, it waited.
And perhaps that’s the most fitting legacy of all. Some songs are built for the charts. Others are built for reflection.
When you play “The Long Way Around” now, you don’t just hear an early Linda Ronstadt track. You hear a first draft of destiny. You hear a singer blessing her own detours—accepting that growth requires patience, that identity requires risk, and that sometimes the scenic route is the only honest way forward.
In hindsight, the title feels almost prophetic.
Linda Ronstadt did take the long way around—through doubt, genre confusion, industry skepticism, and personal evolution. And when she finally arrived as one of the defining voices of American music, every note sounded earned.
The road may have been winding.
But it led exactly where it was meant to go.