Cars and music go way back together, all the way to 1930 when Paul and Joseph Galvin introduced their first Motorola (get it, motor – rola?) radio for cars. The company would eventually make its fortune selling car radios to police departments, thus creating the term ‘Radio Car’ leaving others to fill the consumer hunger for tunes on the road.
Some of those tunes heard in cars, were actually about cars, as the whole genre of hot rod sound exploded across America in the late fifties and early sixties. That wasn’t the only era for odes to automobiles. Even before that people had to get out and get under, get out and get under their automobiles. More recently, the Boss, Bruce Springsteen got us all wanting to find out what you do there in the back of your pink Cadillac.
What we’re interested in today are songs more like the Boss’ which are about a specific type of car. It may be a ’32 Deuce, or a Thunderbird in which Daddy’s girl has fun, fun, fun. What we want to know is which car or truck has enjoyed the greatest tribute in song?
Image: RapGenius
Hooniverse Asks: What Car or Truck has the Coolest Song Written About it?
By Robert Emslie
May 13, 2015
Jeff Glucker
Recorded in 1929, this has to be one of the earliest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chZ4lAzC-0g
Extolling the virtues of the Chevrolet Six and its ability to outrun the cops.
Son, yer gonna drive me to drinkin’ if ya don’t stop drivin’ that hot rod Lincoln.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyg224xLdlw
Was just reading up on the history of this song. Apparently the original version was a Model A with a Lincoln V-12 in it. Commander Cody changed it to a V-8.
This came on recently when I went for a drink with some friends in Austin. All of us being car guys, it was like it came on just for us.
[There was one room in her house that was always kept locked. It was…the garage!]
I don’t want your love
I don’t want your money
I just want the key to your Ferrari
Don’t want your bed
I don’t want your body
I want the key to your Ferrari
I’m gonna rip it – shine it – rev it – scoot it – skid it – jam it
Rev it – skip it – gun it
Up and down the 101
Don’t want your love
Don’t want your money, girl
I said all I want is the key to your Ferrari
[And then… I saw her. She was a bright red ’64 GTO with fins and gills like some giant piranha fish, some obscene phallic symbol on wheels. Little rivers of anticipation ran down my inseam as I kicked those five hundred Italian horses into life and left reality behind me. Fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour. Oh! My hand slipped inside the belt of my trousers as we passed eighty, ninety miles an hour. And as we hit the magic 100 my love exploded all over her bright pink leather interior. And at that moment, I thought of my mother.]
Don’t need no drugs
Don’t need no liquor
All I want is the key to your Ferrari
You ruby lips – pah!
Your perfect figure – uggh!
I just want the key to your Ferrari
I’m gonna rev it – jam it – scram it – rip it – tear it – bare it –
Ram it – repair it – scoot it
Up and down the 101
Don’t want your love
Don’t want your money, girl
I said all I want is the key to your Ferrari — Zaba-da-bow!
He’s gonna rev it – scoot it – skid it – rev it – skip it – gun it –
Brake it – zoom it – vacuum it
Up and down the 101
Don’t want your love
Don’t want your money, girl
I said all I want is the key to your Ferrari
I just want the key to your Ferrari!
[’Cause aliens ate my Buick]
Bitchin’ Camaro is a Lemons penalty.
Hands-down favorite, though the make/model is a bit vague.
Print article it was an MGB. Peart made it a Ferrari 166.
I’ll be seeing the boys next week at AAC in Dallas. They’ll play Red Barchetta.
Where’d you learn the Ferrari 166 factoid? I thought I’d researched that song to death trying to figure out which car was Peart’s inspiration, but obviously my google fu was not strong on that one.
They’ll be in KC in July. Never seen them live, but I’ll be working the night of the concert, so yet again, I’ll miss ’em.
I can’t recall exactly. Peart prolly said it once in an article and it became gospel. I looked up 166 on wiki and saw it again. There’s an article where Peart tried to give credit to the author but it wasn’t until the internet when he found out he was the inspiration for Red Barchetta. They became chums and ride together. Cool.
I’m taking the kid. This might be the last time they tour with this type of show. Or give it 10 years for the R50 tour…
It’s just as well. Tickets for the Sprint Center are insane, and as much as I love live music, I don’t enjoy most concert goers.
Thankfully, concerts are recorded.
I’ve got some time coming up where the wife and kids will be gone for a few days, so I’m thinking that I’ll be watching some of those on the home theater with a sixer.
I don’t go to movies. I hate people.
But Rush is worth seeing. I’m in the ClockWork Angels DVD from 2013.
At the Rush shows, I’m the dingdong screaming “2112!!” or “Anything from Moving Pictures!!”
The first rock concert I ever went to was Rush — Permanent Waves Tour, Kemper Arena, February 1980. I think we paid $12 each for lower-level seats.
$300… So we’ll in the cheaps screaming 2112!
Do ad jingles count? In that case…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLFFIUfMH5Q
It’s been stuck on my brain for years.
If that counts this counts:
Do I sometimes sing about Turismo Dusters in the shower? Possibly.
Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSftTKl1GXM With the help of some translation tools and a person that knew some Japanese I was able to track down more music by the composer. He went through this phase later where he wrote compositions to be played on children’s toys.
The best description of that video is that it “apparently takes place in a cocaine factory”
Immagino tu sia Italiano 🙂 Ce l’ho ancora in testa oggi a 20 anni di distanza
I’m actually not Italian. I found these clips by chance and I don’t even understand most of what they’re singing. 😀
Ahahah incredible!
If you’re Italian and born in the 80’s you’ll know it by heart 🙂 Never imagined it’s appreciated abroad!
I’m probably alone with this over here. All I can do is to spread the word. XD
On the classical side of things… John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” is pretty good. His commentary on the title included “You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn’t?” It all works out in the end though… after a couple of minutes of chaos (including wondering how the musicians are keeping up) it starts to all come together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LoUm_r7It8
It’s about a car, maybe, probably?
A revving Lamborghini making a cameo is pretty super-80s though, so that’s neat
It was supposedly about David Lee Roth’s car, but he’d named that car after a race car he’d once seen named “Panama Express.”
Well, being a Mopar fan, I’ll throw my vote to a song about a “brand new, shiny red, super-stock Dodge
http://www.oldiesradio.cz/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Jan_Dean_Little_Old_Lady_from_Pasadena..jpg
All Mopar fans should look up songs by The Demonics, a drag-punk band from SF in the ’90s with songs like “Mopar or No Car”, “Jesus Chrysler Super Stock” and “383 Super Bee”
Thank you for this, simply awesome.
Absolute bad ass, thank you sir! Man’s Ruin had the primo bands back then.
On the country side of things, we have Brad Paisley, whose Telecaster must surely be smoking at the end of every song.
It may not be the best on this list, but it is the only one on the list that is about a matchbox car.
Presidents of the United States of America – Mach 5
The firecracker blow
An urge overload
The wild plastic fire
Smoke from the tire
Layin’ a little patch
Without a single scratch
Between the hammer and the rock I
Can see bright blue mach 5
It’s my mach 5
Oh
Oh my goodness
It’s the most beautiful little thing I’ve ever seen in my life
It’s blue on the outside and all creamy on the interior
Yeah
I can’t bring myself to smash it
So I take it for a ride on a sunny summer Sunday afternoon
I’m riding with the top down
Riding with the top down
Riding with the top down
Hell I blew the top right of my car
Canyonero!
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts
I’m a big fan of Mr. Cash and his unique Cadillac mow-chine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM
1950 Shoebox Ford is the star of this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL0w-aOkF_k
Awesome choice, I can’t wait to see them again. In that same vein:
Scrolled down to post this. Thanks for saving me the trouble.
I spotted Jimbo on the street outside of the venue the last time I saw them. Got to talk to him for a little bit, dude was cool as hell.
Sweet! I got to see them in ’95 as an opening act, it was my first exposure to them. Hell of a show.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQH-L78clJw&w=420&h=315%5D
One of my faves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_OLk3MUm4
I need three deuces…
I gotta go with the Rocket 88.
I might be crazy but En gammal Amazon tops even Alabama’s Dixieland Delight, and that’s some high praise.
It’s just got to be this: Four Wheel Drive by C.W. McCall (of Convoy fame)
Even earlier than the Chevrolet Six, from 1909
Barracuda!!!! Not actually about the car, but all I think about through the whole song is A-Body Barracudas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0OX_8YvFxA
The Rave-Ups / Jimmer Podrasky wrote a song about and AMC Gremlin in 1980, before it was hip to be ironic about Gremlins. (Best lyric, “She’s So Fine My One Oh Nine”)
Nothing beats Iggy Pop singing the praises of a bad ass Mustang.
Or Dragula or about every other song he’s written…
Roadrunner might not be as popular as some of the others listed, but punk rock was never about popularity.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CD8QFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmusic%2F2007%2Fjul%2F20%2Fpopandrock5&rct=j&q=roadrunner%20song&ei=zI1TVaqVFo3YoATmmIGYCg&usg=AFQjCNEpKhUEUN2h5RUnRBCUOuAO88wxAA&sig2=nv5iv3stT0g3V7z-6xYnmg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpm2lnVbiBU
^^^^
https://i.imgflip.com/lgbox.jpg
Grande Albertone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5yt0gXLkh0 Having trouble loading this page at this point, hope El Camino is not up yet.
Hehe…
What’s funny I browsed a jeep forum looking for the link… I found a thread on songs about jeeps. This wasn’t in the list. Posers.
great cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YSnhc4acAA
Definitely Shut Down by the Beach Boys about a 63 Stingray. The last line is “I’ve got a fuel injected engine sitting under my hood.” Only a true car guy could come up with this.
Carl Schrieber of The Duvalls seems like a pretty hardcore car guy, too.
Nanci Griffith.. Ford Econoline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OBSo3G8LCg
or… just because….
Neil Young — “I’m the Ocean”
“I’m not present I’m a drug
that makes you dream
I’m an Aerostar
I’m a Cutlass Supreme
In the wrong lane
Trying to turn
against the flow
I’m the ocean
I’m the giant undertow”
Beep Beep – The Little Nash Rambler
What about Sausalito Summernight by Diesel? It’s basically about taking a road trip in a hooptie Rambler.
Love that song. Good memories.
4 speed dual quad positraction 409!
Oh yeah it’s the first that came in my mind!
The Beach Boys!
Recent song. Yes, the “main car” is actually a Winnebago, but getting it running and going to Talladega for the races sounds like something a true Hoon would do.
going to put this one here but its going in ‘last call’ too cos its such an awesome song (and album) that everyone needs to see it
Google Kamakiriad.
Fagen’s second solo effort well steeped in Dan.
That album came out in a time where I was banging on the MG in college. The whole album chronicles his futuristic trip in his “steam powered 10.” Hit me hard. In my top 3 albums.