I love road trips so much, but is there anything worse than the friend who brings along a wack-ass mixtape for the ride? With Labor Day weekend coming up and my own personal road trip in the works, I sat down to put together a playlist of the 15 Greatest Road Trip Songs of All Time.
First, a few ground rules:
1. No slow songs. Road trip music is about setting the pace. No one wants to hear a soft rock/jazz fusion ballad. The rhythm should build up momentum.
2. Pick the subject matter carefully. Acceptable themes include: the hobo lifestyle, the tramp lifestyle, the vagabond lifestyle, and all of the various cities you’ve been to.
3. The song must have a guitar in it. I have no idea why this is, but it’s true. If you try to play some Flock of Seagulls during a roadtrip, the keytar will actually make your car crash.
Here are the 15 greatest road trip songs of all time, as scientifically chosen by me.
15. Otis Redding – Let Me Come on Home
It’s sacrilege to put Otis Redding last on any list, but we had to put someone here. This song features a great little piano-boogie rhythm driving the song forward.
Notable road trip lyric:
Oh, baby—I wanna come home
Oh, baby—you’re one thousand miles away
14. Incredible Bongo Band – Apache
The song that launched a thousand break-dancing careers. This track has been sampled by hip-hop producers about a billionty times. That beat is just rugged.
13. The Band – Endless Highway
One of the most underrated bands of all time, The Band’s songs always just feel so American thanks to Levon Helm’s singing and drumming (RIP, Levon, you were a true American rock legend). There’s a happiness and optimism about this song that I love.
Notable road trip lyric:
I sing by night, wander by day
I’m on the road and it looks like I’m here to stay
12. Link Wray – Fire and Brimstone
Link Wray is another name you don’t hear much anymore, but he was a true legend of early rock (and a huge influence on rockabilly, just look at him). Here he gets down and delivers an absolutely blistering bit of boogie that sounds like it bubbled up out of a Louisiana swamp.
Notable road trip lyric:
I saw a sign in the sky
“I have come to set you free”
There’s a light, shinin’ bright
Shinin’ down, down on me
11. Johnny Adams – Georgia Morning Dew
A great road trip tune should always have a sense of place. Here Johnny Adams sings about his native Georgia with so much soul that you can feel the cool morning dew on your skin.
10. Billy Preston – Will It Go Round in Circles
Preston is a true R&B rock god who is almost criminally forgotten today. I think the secret to his success is that he’s from Houston… there’s something about Texas that enables them to write great road trip music.
9. Freddie King – Living on the Highway
Freddie King is yet another goddamn Texas blues legend and you’ll show him some respect!
Notable road trip lyric:
When I first heard that Wolfman’s howl
He sneaked me through the door,
there was whisky on the floor
And the fuzz they were on the prowl
It seems so long ago
I’m living on the Highway now
8. Deep Purple – Speed King
Deep Purple was an English band that took electric Chicago blues and pumped it full of bath salts heavy metal. What you have is insanity like “Speed King.” I have absolutely no idea what this song is about but singer Ian Gillan says they’re “gonna rock and roll down to New Orleans.” Invoking the Big Easy is always good in a road trip song.
Notable road trip lyric:
Hard headed woman and a soft hearted man
They been causing trouble since it all began
Take a little rice take a little beans
Gonna rock and roll down to New Orleans
7. The Coasters – Down in Mexico
Tarantino memorably put this one in his fantastic road trip-gone-wrong flick “Death Proof.”
Notable road trip lyric:
So if you’re south of the border
I mean down in Mexico
And you wanna get straight
Man, don’t hesitate
Just look up a cat named Joe
6. Jimi Hendrix – Highway Chile
The great road trip songs often feature the wandering tramp character and Hendrix’s “Highway Chile” is a good example.
Notable road trip lyric:
His old guitar slung across his back
His dusty boots is his cadillac
Flamin’ hair just a blowin’ in the wind
Ain’t seen a bed in so long it’s a sin
5. Wilson Pickett – Mustang Sally
This one is so associated with road trips that I nearly left it off the list for being too obvious. But I couldn’t do that. “Mustang Sally” is maybe the perfectly iconic road trip song. Just hearing it makes me want to go for a ride in a ’65 Mustang.
Notable road trip lyric:
I bought you a brand new mustang ’bout nineteen sixty five
Now you come around signifying a woman, you don’t wanna let me ride.
Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down.
You been running all over the town now.
Oh! I guess I’ll have to put your flat feet on the ground.
4. Eric Burdon and the Animals – C.C. Rider
Notable road trip lyric:
c.c. rider, c.c. rider
Keep on a riding, keep on a riding
Here it comes, baby, look out
3. Mott the Hoople – All the Way From Memphis
Mott has always been associated with David Bowie, and Bowie’s music is decidedly not road trip music (there are no sequined androgenous space explorers in a Texas roadhouse), but this jam sounds like pure Americana.
Notable road trip lyric:
Yeah it’s a mighty long way down rock’n’roll
From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood Bowl
‘N you climb up the mountains ‘n you fall down the holes
All the way from Memphis
2. John Randolph Marr – Hello L.A., Bye Bye Birmingham
Anytime you mention any southern city in the title of a song, you’re off to a good start. I’m ready to hit the road THIS FUCKING SECOND.
Notable road trip lyric:
I’m riding on the Greyhound bus across the Tennessee borderline
Eatin’ that po’boy sandwich and drinking from a quarter of wine
But I got to get off at the next stop
Ticket’s only good til Little Rock
I’m goin’ out to Hollywood feelin’ good yes I am
1. Freddie King – Living in the Palace of the King
This is the ne plus ultra of road songs. Here the Texas Cannonball pines for his homeand and plays his guitar with so much ferocity you’ll feel like you’re driving across West Texas in a ’76 Cadillac Eldorado with the top down.
Notable road trip lyric:
Been around the world,
I heard many things,
nothing could make me feel satisfied,
but this blues I sing.
I’m goin’ back to Dallas,
livin’ in the palace of the king.
