THE TOP 40 DRIVING SONGS OF ALL TIME PART 3... (#29-25)
This has been a lot of fun and it has provoked a great deal of interest in our choices. The first two installments are available on our site (under editorials) for those of you who want to catch up in Tuneville. Here are our choices for numbers 29 through 25. We have found out from many of you that your choices may differ.
But who knows?
Your favorites may be in the top level of our choices. Or they just don’t make the grade in a rigid and unbending world of MSCC choices.
We can be at peace with either scenario.
Number 29 is a personal choice from the summer of ’79. It was a world brought to its knees by disco music, so ‘I Was Made For Lovin You’ by Kiss was a mild antidote to disco disease on the car radio. I was not a sworn member of the Kiss Army, but I kind of enjoyed this fast-paced guitar driven Kiss classic. Then we got real stupid and turned it into a hard-driving song. When the song came over the company truck radio, it was our sworn duty to drive the wheels off the truck in a highly reckless display of youth and very bad decisions. It was insane and a long time ago, but it sure sharpened up my driving skills that summer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM30iNH8TqA
Number 28 is ‘Hot Rod Hearts’ by Robbie Dupree. The song was a simple anthem to summer and young guys in hot pursuit of young women. The idea is very common to any kid who ever got his taste of four-wheeled freedom on a warm summer night. Cars and girls will always be a big part of the program of life for guys, and ‘Hot Rod Hearts’ said it all in about three minutes on the radio in the summer of 1980.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-iDhWKduqU
Number 27 is ‘867 5309 Jenny’ by Tommy Tutone. This song is an old school 60-ish jangly guitar beat-driven song from the early 80s. Pretty much everybody liked the song, except for the unfortunate guys that had the phone number and received a boatload of drunken calls looking for the adventurous Jenny. ‘867 5309 Jenny’ has a frantic pace to it and most listeners could understand the driving energy of the song when it came on the radio. Even if Jenny was just a fantasy girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBHJqtgo8RA
Number 26 is a classic truck driving song. 'Six Days On The Road’ by Dave Dudley belongs on every driving list. The song has a behind-the- wheel feel to it from a trucker’s point of view. The use of amphetamines to stay awake in the song was a reflection of an early 60s trucker philosophy that would not be uncommon in that era. Most truckers would not be too candid about that program in 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Number 25 could easily be in the top 5 on this list. ‘Over Me’ is a little known song by Segarani and Bishop. Never heard of them? Yes you have, if you have ever seen the ending of the iconic car movie “Vanishing Point” when Kowalski checks out in a fiery Challenger-meets Cats ball of flame. The song playing on Kowalski’s car radio is ‘Over Me’ when he slams into the bulldozers.This is arguably the best "drive hemi Challenger into heavy equipment" song ever made. “Vanishing Point” was a part of the anti-hero style movies from the early 70s, but it was later neutered into a late 90s remake that should never be viewed again- ever.
Watch the original movie and catch a powerful driving song in the not-so-happy ending.
Next up: # 24 to 20.
