The human mind really is amazing. We store all these memories, these moments where sight and sound and smell and touch and feel all mix into some perfect whole, to be forever burned in our brains, and any single one of those factors can immediately send us back. Earlier this week, we asked about the songs that send you back to an automotive memory — the tracks you’ll forever tie to cars in your head. Here’s what you said.
Blur2:
This may not be a specific memory of being in a car, but c’mon. You all know I’m a sucker for this video. I sent it to a friend of mine earlier today, before even reading through these comments.
Plus, this song and video still evoke memories. My parents owned BMW Films on physical media when I was a kid, and I absolutely loved Star from the first time I ever saw it. I think they got the discs with my dad’s old first-gen X5, so they were around deep into my childhood.
My college girlfriend’s college was 90 miles from my college and I did a LOT of driving back and forth between them in my 78 rabbit 4 speed. She swore she could make me call her or drive to see her by thinking about it really hard (thus the radar love) and yes it was bullshit and yes she is now my ex wife BUT I listened to this song a lot on those drives to see her. (late 1980's)
For some reason, “Radar Love” always puts me back in the driver’s seat on the road around my childhood mall, leading to my high school. I think I was in the Lexus in that memory, though maybe the Jeep, and for some reason it takes place at dusk.
Me and a buddy of mine were in college at the time South Park was still in it’s infancy and, at least to us, hilarious. In one of the episodes of Season 3, South Park was celebrating it’s “Bay of Pigs Memorial Dance” with a guest performance by Dio playing Holy Diver. We thought the bit was so funny I went and bought the album, and we wore that CD out on road trips. Dio has quite the vocal range, and there’s nothing like two dudes trying to belt it out in a 1989 Honda Civic hatchback with cigarette smoke bellowing out of the windows and proudly displaying “devil’s horns”. Some 25 years later we still blast it whenever we are in the car together, much to the dismay of our passengers. The Civic hatch, sadly, didn’t even make it to senior year, probably dropping it’s transmission due to age or protest at having to listen to the aural cacophony we subjected it to on a regular basis.
I love the music video to this track, because it’s almost entirely just Ronnie James Dio wandering. Yeah, he’s on some kind of fantasy set and wearing the full costume, but he’s not really doing much. He’s just kinda there.
This is a cool question. Kinda like how there are Smashing Pumpkins songs that transport me to my high school job. Many are going to misunderstand this one.
The most recent one is Big Night by the Anyway Gang. They’re a Canadian super group, and this just happens to be a great song with a great video. But when it comes on, it instantly takes me to my east coast road trip that happened the year it came out. Specifically, trying to avoid gravel-pit sized potholes near Montreal in my Miata on a b-e-a-utiful day with the top down.
Thank you! I thought it was a cool question too. I’m glad you appreciate it.
These two. Seemed like the end of my young life at the time during a bad breakup in junior year, drove around for a couple hours that night - playing these way too much. Every time they pop up in Pandora, immediately takes me back.
Only went to one reunion (our 20th) and saw her there. Dodged a bullet I think.
The other song that dustynnguyendood recommended was “In The Air Tonight,” also by Phil Collins. Both are great, but “I Don’t Care Anymore” earns the top spot simply by never coming on the radio for me in a way-too-early Lyft to JFK.
I got a Krako AM/FM/Cassette player for Christmas 1983, and I installed it in my 1973 Ventura in barely above freezing weather. This was my first attempt at doing anything electrical on my own, and I relied on the factory instructions and some semi-helpful tips from my cousin.
When I finally got the unit hooked up, I reconnected the battery, grabbed a random cassette from my collection and shoved it in the player.
Oh goddamit WTF is wrong? Oh, wait... maybe i should turn up the volume, maybe?
That’s when Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run started belting out at maximum volume, which probably woke up half the neighborhood that Sunday morning.
Still my favorite song from my favorite album.
I can picture the morning now. You awaken softly, to the faint chirping of birds, as the first streaks of light start to enter your window. But it’s early, too early to be up on a Sunday, and you nestle your head back into the pillow to get a few more Zs. You’re slowly falling back to sleep, drifting, the birds and light and feeling of pillow on your face getting more and more distant, and just when you’re about to fully go und—
Oh goddamnit.
The only time music has ever been tied to a car for me was when I had to use CDs because of no ipod/phone connection. The first one was a Porsche 928 which I grabbed the first CD I found and it ended up staying in the car for years, that was Pillar’s For the Love of the Game album.
When I got my Corvette much more recently I had three CDs that I could use until I installed an aux cable. Those were Queen and Aerosmith greatest hits, and The Darkness’ Permission to Land. I still can’t listen to I Believe in a Thing Called Love without thinking of launching it with the top down.
I want you to know how on-brand it is to not only have Queen and Aerosmith albums in your Corvette, but to have them be the Greatest Hits albums. I can picture the cargo shorts and tall, white socks from here.
My first new car was a 2007 Honda Civic. The day I picked it up - 10 km on the odometer - this song came on as I was driving home. Pretty perfect. And yeah - every time I heard it, it’s absolutely makes me remember that specific car. I also won’t deny that trying to time your shifts to the song was fun.
(44) The Beach Boys - Little Honda - YouTube
The song itself isn’t really about a Honda car, but it’s still a mode of transportation. Plus, Honda Cubs are fun! And I hear you meet the nicest people on them.
Not what people typically think of as a “road song”, but in 1992ish I was sensing trouble with the girlfriend and I needed to escape for a weekend. I’d never been to Moab and had a friend living there so I hopped in the car and drove straight through from Kansas City with two cassette tapes: Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints and Soul Cages by Sting. I was pretty much in an early morning fog when driving through the canyon on 128 into Moab and the song All This Time came on, and just resonated. I never did get sick of either album, but never played them back to back to back (...) again, but every time this one song comes on it takes me back...
The great thing about sense memory is that your pick doesn’t need to be a road song. It just needs to be a song that transports you, personally, to the road. Anything else is gravy.
Christopher Titus has a bit about he and a couple of his teenage buddies are on a road trip listening to the Beastie Boys “No Sleep to Brooklyn.”
I had heard the song before, but not being a BB fan didn’t really pay attention to it.
Then, one day, a buddy and I are driving to Nashville in his father’s LH Chrysler New Yorker. We where just about to cross the GA/TN line when the 10 CD changer in the trunk started playing BB’s Licence to Ill.
So yeah, two middle-30s guys driving up I-24 in a red Chrysler sedan singing “No Sleep to Brooklyn.” Must have been quite a sight.
Your mid-thirties escapade may actually be more in keeping with the theme of the music video than any teen listeners. Unfortunately, the comments on this music video have all been overrun by people who seem to have discovered the song from a Marvel movie, which makes me feel like the oldest person alive.
Dick Dale’s “Misirlou”:
In the spring of 1994 I bought my first car, a 1989 Toyota Supra. Pulp Fiction came out that year, and I was blown away by the music from it. So I had that soundtrack with me everywhere, and it always felt like when I needed the power from that Supra, whenever I was primed to pass somebody or get someplace quick, this song was playing. I’ll always associate it (and to a lesser degree the whole Pulp Fiction soundtrack) to that car.
The album cover in this YouTube video claims Dick Dale to be the King of the Surf Guitar. I can’t combat that title at all, given how enduringly iconic this opening riff is. You did good, Dick.
I took European Delivery of my last car, a 2014 BMW 328i. I went to Germany with one of my good friends and I remember listening to “Play it Again” by Luke Bryan (the “Crash my Party” album had just come out in August and everyone was listening to it - really, any song off that album reminds me of that trip and the car). One other more unfortunate one - “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins was on the demo tape for my mother’s ‘91 Grand Caravan. Great song, terrible car, and I always think of how bad it was whenever I hear it.
Is “Danger Zone” really more unfortunate than Luke Bryan? I know which of the two I’d rather listen to.
This is easy. The Wallflowers’ “One Headlight.” Driving my hand-me-down light blue 1989 Toyota Camry with the possessed radio. Specifically, driving with a friend to his house to do trig homework after high school. Not sure why, but I think of that particular day every single time I hear that song.
Marc, you’re burying the lede here. What made the radio so possessed? Did it only play “One Headlight,” or was there something more to it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Not my proudest moment musically, but Bangarang by Skrillex will forever remind me of my Evo X. It made me do bad things in that car.
Bunky, I need you to know how much of a specific Type Of Guy this is. The Skrillex-listening Evo X owner is a persona so distinct in my mind, so inextricable from its time.
For a more modern take, have you listened to Skrillex’s track with 100 gecs? “Torture Me” still has some of that familiar Skrillex character, but it’s a really neat update to the sound you remember — as well as being a fun mix with Dylan Brady and Laura Les.
My MR2 and Daft Punk’s Give Life Back to Music. Sure, I owned the MR2 for many years before they released Random Access Memories but for whatever reason this song stuck with Mr. Two and cool evening drives.
An MR2, a cool summer evening, and Daft Punk sounds like the ideal combination. I may go for Discovery over Random Access Memories, but it’s hard to go wrong with those French robots.