Nobody Gonna Take My Car: Songs About Vehicles

[Zzzptm]

If the song is about a car, truck, boat, train, plane, rocket, starship, motorcycle... basically, any form of conveyance that liberates humanity from walking and/or running, let it be considered for this list.

I think I'll need to do 20 for the list, since my first two come off of Deep Purple's Machine Head.

Highway Star and Space Truckin'.

Consider those tied for my first place. 

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Not in any particular order... as I haven't selected my full list yet...

Pick No. 1

Rush - Red Barchetta

From the 1981 album Moving Pictures, this dystopian story tells the story of how cars are outlawed but our protagonist has access to his uncles old car which he illegally takes out. A near perfect song where Lifeson make pretty good car noises with his guitar (or so I am lead to believe!).

I was tempted to choose another Rush track... perhaps "Countdown" about the Space Shuttle or maybe "Driven". I discounted Cygnus X-1 as it mainly recounts the journey not the space craft!

[Zzzptm]

Red Barchetta is a song that has aged wonderfully, excellent choice.

[Vyn]

Bad Motor Scooter - Montrose

Man, that guy was such a massively "in" guitarist back then. He even managed to -almost- make Sammy Hagar sound like he meant it!

[Charger]

Well this starts well...ZZZ just took two of my potential picks off the table!


Okay for my first pick I'm gonna go with the race car of The Munsters and it was called DRAGULA

[Zzzptm]

Awww yeah this is a great start to the day! Montrose rocked, Hagar somehow didn't learn all he could have learned in that band... and that Rob Zombie track takes me back to Z-Rock in the 90s, good times!

I've got one that might come off of KDC's list: Hawkwind doing Silver Machine

From the comments:

A little bit history about this recording:
"Me and DikMik had been up for four days, right, on Dexedrine capsules, so we're pretty well bent" Lemmy explains. "But we had this gig at the Roundhouse - the one where we recorded Silver Machine - so we had a couple of Mandrax to calm down. Then it got a bit boring so we had two black bombers each.

"We get to the Roundhouse and somebody comes in with a lot of bombers and we take 10 each - a lot. Then someone comes up with some Mandrax and we were getting very twisted up by now so had at least three each to calm us down again. Then somebody came up with cocaine, fucking big bags of it, and we thought we'd have some of that. All this time in the dressing room there is constant smoking - we were all blasted out of our heads on dope. And people were producing acid and mescaline. We all had some of that.

"By the time we come to go on-stage me and DikMik are stiff as boards. I said, I can't move, DikMik, can you?  He went, 'No. It's great isn't it?'  I said, What are we going to do when we can't play? He said 'We'll think of something...' "

"The gig itself was incredible," Hawkwind manager Doug Smith shakes his head in disbelief more than 25 years later. "But that was the thing about Hawkwind. You never really knew how out of it they were because they were like that all the time.  It was insane!

***

This one's from NWOBHM, but re-recorded a few years ago with a rock-solid lineup. Yes, it's Saxon's "Motorcycle Man", awesome track and it still sounds like it's in great state of tune:

Good morning to one and all from Dallas, Texas!

[Vyn]

Good morning Z!

Freaking Hawkwind lol I think I got stoned just reading that description!

Krokus - Ready to Burn. Features Rob Halford in the chorus!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

@Zs

While Hawkwind's Silver Machine (with Lemmy on vocals) did cross my mind, I was pretty sure I was going to choose another one... exactly which one is yet to be decided!

Pick Number 2

The Damned - Motorcycle Man

So I spit on your Motorcycle Man by Saxon and I raise you a Motorcycle Man from The Damned! I was already considering this one even before I saw Zs post!

[Charger]

I'm gonna carry on with the motorcycle theme then!

My number 2 comes from WOLFSBANE and it's about leaving your woes behind and not caring about what other people say and just riding your motorcycle.

Wolfies had a few songs about the open road and such but this one I think is the best one!

[Zzzptm]

Krokus rocks, The Damned rocks, and Wolfsbane rocks! But now it's time to get back into a cage and put the keys *in my hand*...

Fu Manchu - "Hell on Wheels"

Amazing drumming from Brant Bjork on the whole damn album, really shines out here.

[Vyn]

From 1955 comes a little rockabilly number called Hot Rod Lincoln by Charley Ryan and the Livingston Brothers.

This tune has been covered multiple times, by all kinds of people - Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen probably being the most recognizable. But this is the o-riginal by the guy that wrote it.

Edited to add: I always liked this version because a) I heard it first when I was a little kid and b) the Lincoln in this version has a 12 cylinder engine, not a measley 8 cylinder that for unknown reasons is what everyone else changed it to. And 12 is more than 8 so it must be faster, right?

[Zzzptm]

^ Ah yes, the answer song to "Hot Rod Race", and I think the superior of the two. Commander Cody's version is epic, but even more epic is Bill Kirchen's solo version where he does like half an hour of the song, jammin' hard on the rockabilly guitar.

I did my radio show, back to post my second song. I think I'll not go to Black Sabbath's songs yet, as I took two big Deep Purple songs to start with. That being noted, I can only think of two vehicular Sabbath songs.

For my second one, I don't think I'll raid anyone's list with this motoring gem - "Black Devil Car" by Jamiroquai

It's got some heavy in it, but keeps the danceable funk the outfit's known for.

[Charger]

I did my radio show, back to post my second song. I think I'll not go to Black Sabbath's songs yet, as I took two big Deep Purple songs to start with. That being noted, I can only think of two vehicular Sabbath songs.

I can only think of one really...Trashed. And maybe Into The Void that has rockets...

[Zzzptm]

I did my radio show, back to post my second song. I think I'll not go to Black Sabbath's songs yet, as I took two big Deep Purple songs to start with. That being noted, I can only think of two vehicular Sabbath songs.

I can only think of one really...Trashed. And maybe Into The Void that has rockets...

As Yoda said... "No. There is another."

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I'm now trying to think of another BS transport song!!

Pick Number 3, and I've stuck with the bike theme. "This one's for the Angels in here."

Motorhead - Iron Horse (Born to Lose)