These Are Your Favorite Songs About Driving

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

A few months back, I asked you guys for the best songs about cars and driving.

You answered.

So many of you answered that I can't list them all, but I picked a few highlights.

For example, commenter Wolfwagen went with "Radar Love" by Golden Earring.

Predictable, perhaps, but so were most of the entries. And that's fine! The question focused on songs about driving, so of course it was going to be predictable and familiar.

For example, "I Can't Drive 55" by Sammy Hagar popped up from Lynchenstein and THX1136 contributed The Beatles' "Baby You Can Drive My Car".

"Red Barchetta" by Rush made multiple appearances, of course. As did a song near and dear to my heart as a Chicagoan -- "Lake Shore Drive" from Aliotta, Haynes, and Jeremiah. I can see the Drive from where I sit. The Offspring's "Bad Habit" got multiple noms, too.

Other songs that made at least one appearance include "Convoy", "Panama" from Van Halen, The Doors' "L.A. Woman", and "Hot Rod Lincoln".

But wait, there's more! Songs such as "Ramblin' Man", "Space Truckin", and "Highway Star" all were recommended.

"Copperhead Road" by Steve Earle, a personal favorite of mine, got on the list, as did "Cars" (of course) and "On the Road Again."

Perhaps befitting the 2024 Grammys, "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman made the list, too.

Perhaps the most obscure one was "Papa Loved Mama" by Garth Brooks. That's a great tune in which I long misheard the lyric "he never hit the brakes and he was shifting gears" as "he never hit the brake while he was shifting gears." That latter bit wouldn't make sense if you were driving a semi into a building. At least I know the correct wording now.

There were so many songs nominated that the best way to see them all is to simply click on the original piece.

[Image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Jeff Jeff on Jul 12, 2024
    Stevie Ray Vaughn Flood Down In Texas and almost any song from him.
  • Tassos Tassos on Jul 12, 2024
    I listen to Andrew Tate podcasts. Also, the voices in my head provide plenty of entertainment. Biden dollars
  • Carson D Cars are being converted into a luxury good today. Animal protein will be a luxury good very soon. Life will be a luxury good not long after.
  • Dwford Even though prices are cheaper for many vehicles when you adjust for inflation, wages have been stagnant for decades so everything feels like it costs more
  • Jeff The more expensive trucks and suvs are not selling as well so there is some price resistance. As for the Mirage and the Versa I don't think it is as much that people don't want cheap vehicles as much as they want smaller cheap crossovers and trucks. The Maverick, Santa Cruz, Equinox, and Trax are selling well. I do agree that not letting in less expensive cars from China or other Asian countries lessens competition and keeps prices higher. I am not advocating for importing Chinese vehicles but competition from Chinese vehicles would put pressure on manufacturers not to raise prices as much as they have been. If I were buying a 2025 Maverick I would pay about 4k more for it than what I paid for my 2022 Maverick. Stellantis is having problems moving the rest of their remaining muscle cars and the used prices of them are starting to fall. There is resistance to the price and the cost of insurance has risen considerably. Its not so much that people don't want them as it is they cannot afford them. The same is true for Ram trucks and Jeeps they are priced beyond what most of their potential buyers can afford.
  • EBFlex Imagine taking something as successful as the Charger and Challenger and doing everything possible to make them a complete disaster. That's the EV curse. A starting price of $60K? Before Bidenomics, you could get a 485HP Scat Pack for just over $40K. Lesson is, build what people want, not what the government tells you to build.
  • ToolGuy "Cheap" cars are useless and represent false economy and the whole world is worse off for them. ¶ Relatively "basic" cars could be good and durable and helpful, but "basic" doesn't get press and "basic" doesn't feed my ego as a mechanically-clueless 'stay-in-my-lane' new car buyer. ¶ Three things will help, maybe: Breakthrough manufacturing techniques which radically reduce production cost (you tell me where and when that will happen). Dropping about $3K of unnecessary distribution cost by rationalizing the sales channel (you tell me...). Revisiting the current overlapping layers of regulatory requirements (ex. rollover software PLUS the huge A-pillar PLUS all the anti-ejection airbags, they were each a good idea in isolation but no one is looking at the redundancy now).
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