I drive a lot at night. I don’t just mean driving to the store to get some thirty-weight ball bearings, I mean road-trip driving. I have a habit of leaving somewhere late at night to drive home instead of waiting until the morning. Driving at night is great because there is a ton less traffic, which of course means you can air-drum on the steering wheel without having to worry about looking like an idiot to complete strangers. As I was driving up the mountain Saturday evening I was thinking about the best driving songs, especially for late night driving. I qualified it so that songs that are explicitly about driving aren’t considered, because that’s too obvious. So that eliminates Bat Out of Hell, Truckin’, Friend of the Devil, and a song that truly would have been a darkhorse, Look What Happened by Less Than Jake.
So in no particular order, these are my favorite songs for late night driving, that aren’t obviously about driving.
Tom Waits – San Diego Serenade
A bit of a shocker here because it’s a soft song. And anyone who doesn’t have a cocaine addiction will tell you that loud and fast music is the way to stay awake when you’re driving. But it’s one of those songs to listen to when you’re driving home from a situation that is making you think. A song about perspective, loss, and not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone. Plus there is something about Waits’s voice on this song that make it better than most, I think it’s the fact that he is singing in a softer than normal fashion. Best lyric: I never saw the moonlight until it shone off your breast.
Meatloaf – I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)
BOOM he gets around the self imposed Meatloaf restriction by going with the less obvious choice from his catalog! Sure the music video has a motorcycle chase in it, but it was directed by Michael Bay, so no shit it has a motorcycle chase in it. This song is a great driving song because of the changes in tone and its length. Length is important in driving songs because, for me at least, I feel like less time has passed when I listen to one twenty-minute song than five four-minute songs. Put the song starts out slow, and you know the piano is about to come in. If you’re listening to this song on the road and don’t slow down at the start of the song so you can floor it when the piano comes in, you’re no friend of mine. Best lyric: And maybe I’m lonely,that’s all I’m qualified to be.
Han Solo looks like shit!
LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
A tough choice to use just one of their songs, as Someone Great or 45:33 could have both fit the bill. But All My Friends sticks out for me because it has such a frantic pace. The repeating drum and keyboard beats just keep it going, it’s very much a head-bobbing kind of song. Lyrically it brings the so-called heat as it’s a song about friendship and getting old. And let’s be honest, if you’re driving more than a hundred miles in the middle of the night there’s a good chance you’re coming back from something involving your friends. Also there’s a good chance you’ve just done, or are still in the process of doing, something really stupid. At the time it seems like a good idea, and after you get home and sleep until six at night and have time to look back on with a clear head, well, it’s still a good idea. Best lyric: I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision for another five years of lies.
Oasis – Don’t Look Back in Anger
I’m a big Oasis fan, even though they’re Man City supporters, I’m willing to look past it. I think it’s sad that being insufferable douchebags, and insufferable addicts, robbed us of some potentially great music. But anyway, this song is my favorite of the entire body of work. I didn’t remember hearing this as a single in the Wonderwall days, I don’t think I remember hearing it until college. But it’s a bid of an oddity, as it was the first single that Noel provided the vocals for; also in that it’s stolen from John Lennon.
I am the walrus
The “start a revolution from my bed” is a direct lift from Lennon, and the opening piano is straight from Imagine. I’m not complaining mind you, I just think it’s great that they pulled those things yet still made a song that sounds uniquely “Oasis.” The live versions are classic singalongs, and the crowd reaction whenever the piano kicks in is phenomenal each time. Again it’s a song about looking back at your life without regret, a theme which I think really fits with the late night motif. Look back on your life and put a ratio on nighttime regrets to daytime. 3:1 at least, right? Best lyric: you said the brains I have went to my head (stolen from Lennon).
Pink Floyd – One of These Days
The opening track from Meddle, which is easily Pink Floyd’s most underrated album, is rare in a few aspects. For one, Nick Mason, the drummer, provides the only vocals in the song. Two, it’s double tracked on bass with Waters through the left channel and Gilmour through the right. Also it’s rare in that the studio version isn’t as good as the live versions, because Gilmour’s bass needed new strings. The version from Live at Pompeii however is balls out stunning, and the version from Pulse is solid as well. But it’s a great driving song because it’s an instrumental piece that, after the initial thirty-second lull, just keeps building. That is, until the spoken threat is given, and the drums break back in with Richard Wright pounding the keyboard / synth / Hammond, depending on the version. Personally I think Mason’s flailing drum beats in the above video illustrate how face-meltingly rocking this shit just really is. Best lyric: n/a.
Ludwig van Beethoven – Ninth Symphony, 4th Movement
More commonly known as Ode to Joy. I wasn’t getting through this without a classical music piece, just wasn’t going to go down like that. I can’t count how many times I’ve jeopardized my safety on the road as I steer with my knees and mimic the conductor’s motions with my hands. My apologies to anyone standing close to the curb, you know who you are. But aside from the always fantastic symphonic work Beethoven was prone to churn out, this also has a fantastic vocal component. The chorus starts after the music slows down, and it is basically just an explosion of joy. Plus, whenever I listen to it I think of the above clip from Immortal Beloved, and then I think of Gary Oldman as Beethoven, and when I think of Gary Oldman, I’ve got my co-pilot.
Bring me Mozart.
Classical music can be a bitch late at night because a wide cut of it does not have the rousing bits that his symphonies do. As much as I enjoy a good Chopin Nocturne — you know, Frederic Fuckin’ Chopin — they aren’t the best pieces to stay awake with. Best lyric: Daughter of Elysium, we enter, drunk with fire, into your sanctuary.
