"Hit the Road Jack" is a breakup delivered as an eviction notice. Ray Charles recorded it in 1961 as a duet between a woman who has had enough and a man who cannot believe she means it. The call-and-response structure turns the argument into a song, the back-and-forth mimicking the exhaustion of a relationship that has been over longer than either party will admit. The woman states her case. The man pleads. She repeats herself. He keeps coming back. The pattern is the relationship.

B.B. King covered it in 1965 and let the guitar argue the man's case. Charles played both sides, the woman and the man in dialogue. King let his guitar plead where the voice failed. The eviction still stands. The man still protests. The only difference is whether he uses words or Lucille to state his case.