Driving Songs

     Yes, I'm still alive. I've been on vacation and we took a family road trip to the Hudson River Valley in New York state and Valley Forge, PA. The scenery was beautiful. It was miles and miles of long and winding roads through mountains and forests (and toll booths). The history was interesting. In addition to Valley Forge, we visited West Point and the site of the Battle of Ridgefield, CT, where my wife's ancestors fought during the American Revolution. The only drag was eating on the road, while trying to adhere to the Wheat Belly Diet, and traveling with a 6 and 8 year-old. Fortunately for my sanity, I brought a couple dozen CD's for the drive. When we travel, I'm responsible for picking the music. This is a task that I take seriously. I have to pick CD's that I like that aren't too strange for my wife's taste. Luckily, we do have quite a bit of overlap in musical taste, so it's not a huge problem. So I picked bands like Duran Duran, ELO, the Smithereens, U2, Led Zeppelin, the Go-Go's, the Cars, Better Than Ezra and Toad The Wet Sprocket. Much to my amazement, when I slipped in The Bends by Radiohead my wife loved it. Perhaps I need to push her musical boundaries more often. We also had the DVD of Paul McCartney and Wings Rock Show, which my kids had just given me for Father's Day. Between the CD's, the DVD and the radio, the two songs I heard the most on our trip were "Live And Let Die" and "Mr. Blue Sky".
     Anyhow, the topic of this post is driving songs. There's nothing like a summer day driving with the windows down blasting the radio. One of the subliminal inspirations for this blog is Neil Peart's book, "Traveling Music" (2004). It chronicles a road trip he took in his BMW sports car listening to music and reflecting on his life. Among the artists he listened to were Sinatra, Miles Davis, Radiohead, Patsy Cline and Madonna. It struck a chord with me, because it reminded me of the road trip I took to Mackinac Island when I was so moved by The Flaming Lips "Do You Realize?" If you're interested in that story, read my post entitled "How Wayne Coyne Changed My Life".  If you do a Google search for "best driving songs" you get about 71 million results. The obvious best driving songs would include "Born To Run", "Radar Love" and "I Get Around". For the purposes of this post, I'll stick to songs from the CD's I just took on my vacation. Maybe some day I'll do an actual top 10 driving songs list and add to the 71 million other lists. Oh by the way, my next post will be number 100 and I'm still trying to come up with something special to commemorate this milestone. Stay Tuned. Peace.

* Mr. Blue Sky- ELO
* Runnin' Down A Dream- Tom Petty
* Let's Go- The Cars
* Behind The Wall Of Sleep- The Smithereens
* Rolling- Better Than Ezra
* Vacation- The Go-Go's
* Band On The Run- Wings
* Beautiful Day- U2
* Got My Mind Set On You- George Harrison
* Your Love- The Outfield
* Lady Picture Show- Stone Temple Pilots
* Jet- Wings
* What I Like About You- The Romantics
* 867-5309- Tommy Tutone
* Red Barchetta- Rush
* Breakout- Foo Fighters
* Learn To Fly- Foo Fighters
* Sincerely, Me- Better Than Ezra
* Won't Back Down- Tom Petty
* Last Train To Clarksville- The Monkees
* Catch The Sun- Doves