Road Hogs on the Horizon: American Car Songs

And so I suppose the ‘truths’ of contemporary America are many. Depends on where your seat is in the bleachers as to which side is winning. And which team deserves to be slaughtered.

If truth be told, for the past 8 days I’ve not been interested in the least in divining the current State of the Union. The health and ‘state’ of other entities, closer to home and heart have been on my mind.  So as I await to board a plane for that interminable journey back to Australia about all I can say I’ve learned (or rediscovered) about America is:

·      the food is real sugary

·      the TV networks couldn’t survive without the pharmaceutical industry

·      Black Friday is much scarier than Halloween and

·      Americans still love cars. Big ones, new ones, pickups or compacts, it doesn’t matter.

So until next visit, farewell America.  And here are 29 of my favorite car songs by American singers that can be downloaded and played in your car stereo.

Toot toot!

            Track Listing:

01 Real Cool Car (Joe Fournier)

02 Big Cars (Heather Myles)

03 Two-Tone Car (an auto-body experience) [Chuck E Weiss]

04 Blue Car (Greg Brown)

05 Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (Lucinda Williams)

06 The Car-Car Song (Odetta)

07 Gimme the Car (Violent Femmes)

08 Wreck On The Highway (Bruce Springsteen)

09 Automobile (John Prine)

10 Driving Wheel (T Bone Burnett)

11 V-8 Ford Blues (Mose Allison)

12 Guitars, Cadillacs (Dwight Yoakam)

13 Swing Low Sweet Cadillac (Dizzy Gillespie)

14 Pontiac Blues (Sonny Boy Williamson)

15 Rocket 88 (Jackie Berenston and His Delta Cats)

16 Road Hawg (Joe Ely)

17 Drive Like I Never Been Hurt (Ry Cooder)

18 Route 66 (Nat King Cole)

19 One Headlight (The Wallflowers)

20 Black Cadillac (Lightnin' Hopkins)

21 One Piece at a Time (Michelle Shocked)

22 The Ballad of Thunder Road (Robert Mitchum)

23 Long Black Limosine (Elvis Presley)

24 Last Of The V8s (Slaid Cleaves)

25 Racing in the Street (Bruce Springsteen)

26 Four Chrome Wheels (Trooper Jim Foster)

27 Slick Crown Vic (John Hammond)

28 Freedom Machine (Junior Brown)

29 Wheels (Emmy Lou Harris)

Listen here.