Music and cars have always gone hand in hand. Since the early dawn of rock, cars, a fundamental part of the American dream, go from the back of the stage to face the public in lyrics, songs and even groups, which adopt names as resonant as the Daytonas or, years later, simply The Cars.
Today we offer a selection of 20 songs that have something or a lot to do with the best-known motor world in history. Obviously, subjectivity runs rampant, and each reader will have their own list of 20, 30 or 50 songs. So let’s turn the key and begin this journey that will certainly be pleasant due to music.
Little Deuce Coupe – The Beach Boys (1963)
The Beach Boys are one of the reference groups of American music in general and of ?motor? in particular. We chose Little Deuce Coupe, a song taken from the fourth and self-titled album by the Californian group, but we could well have highlighted other gems from their discography such as I get around, In my car, In the parking lot, Little Honda, Still Cruisin, This car of mine o 409. It is clear that the car is a fundamental part of the beach ‘roll’ of the pre-hippy era of the North American youth of the first half of the sixties.
No Particular Place to Go – Chuck Berry (1964)
The great Chuck Berry, soul of the golden age of rock’n’roll (above even Elvis as far as purism is concerned). A typical song by the genius from San Luis, No particular place to go is from the same period as another of his hits, You never can tell, which, although it is not a ‘motoristic’ song, was included by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction (the one about dance by John Travolta and Uma Thurman), a mythical tape in which cars are very present.
G.T.O. Ronny & The Daytonas (1964)
We include in this list a rarity from a completely forgotten group like Ronny & The Daytonas (the name already promises). Born out of the storm caused by the appearance of the Beach Boys, Ronny and his Daytonas included country sounds in their beach rock. The catchy GTO was his first single and biggest hit, reaching number four on the mythical Billboard chart. He sold a million records. A typical one hit group, Ronny and the Daytonas broke up in 1966 with just two LPs recorded.
Drive my car – The Beatles (1965)
The boys from Liverpool could not be missing, although there are few references to the motor world in their discography. The most forceful is undoubtedly this song, written mainly by Paul McCartney, with light contributions from John Lennon, and which appeared on the band’s fifth LP, Rubber Soul. A clear example of the powerful simplicity of the Beatles in their early days, Drive my car is a true classic of sixties music.
Mustang Sally-Wilson Pickett (1966)
Although it was originally recorded by its author, Mack Rice, in 1965, the most successful version of this classic was the one made his own a year later by Wilson Pickett. Another classic among classics, Mustang Sally has been covered by a large number of groups and soloists, such as Eric Clapton or Bruce Springsteen, although the best known in recent times was the version we were able to enjoy in the movie The Commitments (Alan Parker, 1991).
American Pie – Don McLean (1971)
One of the mainstays of American music of the seventies, American Pie is certainly not a song referring to cars or the motor world, but it deserves a place on this list for its chorus, in which Don McLean sings ” Bye-bye Miss American Pie / Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry / And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye / Singin’ ‘This?ll be the day that I die / This?ll be the day that I die'”.
Take it easy – Eagles (1972)
Written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, leader of the Eagles, this song, their first single, is undoubtedly the group’s second biggest hit after the mythical Hotel California. Typical road movie song, the beginning is already promising, since we are informed that “we are traveling the road with seven women in our heads”.
Thunder Road – Bruce Springsteen (1975)
The Boss is another of the great artists who have had cars and asphalt as a reference in their discography. Thus, titles like Racing in the street, Cadillac Ranch, Pink Cadillac or Stolen car are part of the songbook of the ‘midget from New Jersey’. However, none captures the essence of the long deserted roads of the broken American dream better than Thunder Road, the jewel that opens the third album by the leader of the E Street Band, also with a very asphalt title, Born to run.
I’m in love with my car – Queen (1975)
No, don’t look for the unmistakable voice of Freddie Mercury on one of Queen’s most uncharacteristic songs. In this case, all the credits (authorship and voice) belong to Roger Taylor, the drummer of the British group, in a tribute to Johnathan Harris’ Triumph TR4, whom he declared to be “the love of my life”, one of the members of the Queen’s touring crew. And furthermore, the revs that can be heard at the end of the song are from Taylor’s own Alfa Romeo. That is called mixing arts.
Running on empty – Jackson Browne (1977)
Jackson Browne, a typical example of an American singer-songwriter from the seventies, was not satisfied with recording the Eagles’ Take it easy (of which he is a co-writer), but rather contributed his own personal grain of sand to the universe of car-inspired songs with this marvel, which we could also enjoy on the Forrest Gump soundtrack.
The passenger – Iggy Pop (1977)
And not everything will be cars, roads and pilots. We must also wink at the (sometimes) long-suffering passengers who travel in the passenger seat or in the rear seats. The passenger is one of Iggy Pop’s best-known songs, which was part of one of his best albums, Lust for life, and which had the honor of being released as a single… 21 years after it was composed, in 1998. The punk icon had the invaluable collaboration of David Bowie in the choruses, and it is also a very cinematographic song, as we could see in Up in the air, with George Clooney.
Paradise by the dashboard light – Meat Loaf (1977)
The partnership formed by the immense throat of Meat Loaf and the creative genius of Jim Steinman produced a good handful of the most epic songs in the history of rock of the seventies and eighties (with Bat out of hell at the fore). Paradise by the dashboard light is a typical Jim Steinman song, with three very defined beats, more than seven minutes long, and in which the theatrical and gimmicky Meat Loaf felt “in his flesh” in a dialectical duel with his microphone partner on many of these recordings, Ellen Foley. The typical song that causes fatigue live, not from boredom, but from physical fatigue, given the effort that “Cacho Carne” always does not spare on stage.
Greased Lightning – John Travolta (1978)
Grease, a musical that was born on Broadway in the early seventies, brought about a youth revolution at the end of the decade, when the film version starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John was released. High schools, boys, girls, lots of rock… and cars (boy knows a car, boy repairs a car, boy wins the canal race against the bad guys who won’t stop chewing gum). And the whole process of repairing the car in question, with more parts stolen than bought, is summarized in this number, one of the most famous in the film, and whose peculiar choreography was adopted by the majority of the world’s population in the purest Gangnam Style style. .
Highway to Hell – AC/DC (1979)
And it’s time to get tough. AC/DC have not only been the reference group of heavy music for forty years, but the Australians, without reinventing themselves, exploiting the same formula over and over again, have become almost a ‘breed apart’ within the universe of the rock In addition, Highway to Hell (which ‘tributes’ the endless hours of the group on the asphalt between concerts) was the siren song of Bon Scott, author of the song together with the brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, which a few months later was found dead inside a Renault 5 after a night out at a London joint. He had drowned in his own vomit (in true Jimi Hendrix style). The Scottish-born Australian singer went to die shortly before AC/DC’s tremendous worldwide success broke out.
Driving in my car – Madness (1982)
Madness gave a different touch, without losing quality, in the great generation of British pop of the eighties. Their songs, their lyrics, their rhythms and above all their staging were quite a show, and in fact they can be considered the musical version of their compatriots Monty Python. The car in question to which the song refers is a Morris Minor used by the group on their first tours, when they had not yet achieved stardom.
Gimme all your lovin’ – ZZ Top (1983)
Although the most famous song by the bearded ZZ Top does not have one hundred percent to do with the world of cars, Gimme all your lovin is the cover letter of the immense album Eliminator, which features the legendary 1933 Ford Coupé on its cover. Tuned with a Corvette engine, the icon of the Texan trio. The video clip is priceless, shot at a gas station in the middle of the desert, and with the Ford Coupé as the main protagonist.
Drive – The Cars (1984)
A group called “The Cars” with a song called Drive. What more do we want? Well let’s not fool ourselves, Drive is, for many connoisseurs, one of the best ballads in the history of music. Pure tacky-new wave paraphernalia of the most histrionic eighties, the song achieved worldwide fame for being one of the highlights at the Live Aid mega-concert that Bob Geldof (“I don’t like Mondays”) organized in London and Philadelphia in the summer of 1985. The video stars the top model of the time Paulina Porizkova together with Ric Ocasek, leader of the group… and her future husband.
Get outta my dreams, get into my car – Billy Ocean (1988)
Billy Ocean got one of his biggest hits with this song (along with his “When the going gets though, the though gets going”, soundtrack of The Jewel of the Nile, with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito), not in vain it was number one in the United States and number three on the British charts. Part of that success was undoubtedly due to the video clip (so in vogue in those years), in which a real image and animated characters were mixed (a true technical prodigy) in the pre-digital era.
I drove all night – Cyndi Lauper (1989)
Originally written for the great Roy Orbison, who also recorded it in 1987, I drove all night was a worldwide success on the lips of the peerless Cyndi Lauper (of Girls just want to have fun), and was Top 10 both both in the United Kingdom and in the United States, undoubtedly supported by a huge video clip in the purest Lauper style. Following the success of the song, Jeff Lyne, leader of the ELO, remixed the recorded version and never…
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