It’s been a solemn week around the old Bennion Compound. My uncle Layne, my mom’s brother, died early Monday morning following a lengthy hospital stay. I intend to write more about him when I get the chance, but for now, I’d like to offer what I think — what I hope — is an appropriate musical tribute.

I have to confess, I really didn’t know Layne very well. He led a wild, troubled life that wasn’t very conducive to close family ties. But I know he liked motorcycles — in his younger days, he actually rode with a notorious Utah biker gang called the Sundowners — and I also know he liked classic rock music. In fact, one of my strongest memories of him is the huge record collection he used to own, several hundred vinyl LPs spanning an incredible range of artists and styles. (I’ve written before about this collection, about how fascinating, titillating, and sometimes downright scary the album covers were to my sheltered young self.) I seem to recall that there were a number of Bob Seger records in that collection, scattered in among the southern rock and heavy metal, but if I’m somehow misremembering that, there should have been. Seger’s music, with its often melancholy tales of blue-collar guys just trying to figure out how to make it in a cold, thankless world, would have made a fitting soundtrack for my ne’er-do-well uncle’s life. Or so I imagine, anyway.

One of my favorite Seger tunes, “Roll Me Away,” seems particularly fitting. Its themes of restlessness and searching for some kind of redemption out there on the open road struck a chord with me years ago. And I suspect it might have done the same for my uncle Layne, if perhaps for different reasons. Regardless, I’d like to post it in his honor. I couldn’t find an official video for it — videos aren’t really Bob Seger’s thing, it appears — but I thought this fan-made clip was pretty good, and in any event, it’s really the song itself that matters here.

Wherever you are now, Layne, I hope you’re rolling along with warm wind in your hair and miles of open road stretching out in front of you. Keep riding, keep searching, and maybe, as the song says, next time we’ll all get it right…