Going slower miles an hour: putting songs about driving in reverse

Is there anything cornier in music than "best songs about driving"? Probably not. Go online and there are dozens of lists of these car-friendly compositions (the Travelling Wilburys, Sammy Hagar, Ariana Grande and Snow Patrol, anyone?). I presume these "theme" songs are considered especially appropriate for in-car listening. So you can groove to a song about driving while driving. By rights there ought to be a category of songs about listening to songs about driving while driving (probably there is), but Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner comes quite close. "I got the AM (radio on) / Got the car, got the AM (radio on)". Yeah, he's listening to the "modern sounds" of the radio while driving around at night in Massachusetts. Sound and vision (and speed). Driving songs might be corny but Roadrunner's the proto-punk classic it's still (fairly) cool to like. In fact the other day I saw this copy in a Shepherd's Bush charity shop for the not-exactly-cheap price of a tenner:

Hmm, thanks but no thanks. When all's said and done though, Richman's mini-masterpiece is still a good song not because it's a good song about driving, but because it's a good song about emotion ("I don't feel so bad now in the car / Don't feel so alone, got the radio on"). Loneliness and positivity experienced behind the wheel. Chris Petit obviously taps into some of this with his spooked-out post-Richman road movie (anti-road movie?) Radio On, and there's a similar thing going on in some of Aki Kaurismäki’s films, where various characters are shown driving through the grey streets of Helsinki as (for example) the Renegades' Cadillac comes on. It works because of the particular quality to a typical Kaurismäki film, with the heavily ironic downbeat loserdom of Kaurismäki's world colliding with the un-ironic American dream of big flashy cars, open highways and (so-called) freedom. Yeah, keep your motor running. But putting all that aside (songs about driving cars heard while someone is driving a car), what, surely, really counts is hearing good music while driving. The combined experience of movement, shifting views and powerful sound, not some dumb song about driving. An added bonus is hearing good music played loudly while driving. None of your tinny sounds just about audible above the noise of the engine. Suffice it to say, then, that Roadrunner is a good song because er, it's a good song, and its Velvet Underground-derived motorik (ahem) rhythm is probably a bigger reason for this than the lyrics, good as they are. When I was about 16, still dreaming of getting my first car, a group of us used to sit in a friend's souped-up Triumph Dolomite Sprint as he went blasting down local country lanes listening over and over again to (gulp) Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird. Simpler times or what? Anyway, as a celebration of the open road and pedal-to-the-metal scorchers, check out this (highly random) playlist. It's cobbled together from a few things bought secondhand in the past couple of weeks - CDs, tapes and records I purchased in preference to that £10 Jonathan Richman 7". It's totally automobile-free except - ahem - there's a song by the group Slowcoaches and an instrumental about a bus. Racey! No, there are zero songs about the dubious pleasures of driving but I still think this playlist would sound good while cruising down Route 128 in Massachusetts late at night. Yeah man, listen to these tunes which put songs about driving in reverse ...

1: Headman, Super

2: The Trashmen, Surfin’ bird

3: Slowcoaches, Surface observations

4: The Lone Swordsmen, Formica fuego 

5: New Coke, He got stabbed in the throat 

6: Haircut One Hundred, Love’s got me in triangles

7: Positive Noise, Treachery

8: Los Guanchos, Sombra del nublo

9: Acid Baby Jesus, Tomboy

10: Erroll Garner, Summertime

11: Feature, Wisdom teeth

12: Roosevelt Sykes, All my money gone blues

13: Beat Happening, Christmas

14: Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Broadway rhythm

15: Reem Kelani, Sprinting gazelle

16: Bad Manners, Night bus to Dalston

17: MC5, Looking at you

18: Subsonics, Haywire

19: Big Maceo, Worried life blues no2

20: Link Wray, Rumble