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The Ten Best Car Songs of All Time
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Somehow we can’t imagine Julius Caesar listing to “Giddyup, Giddyup, Four Horse Chariot” played on a lyre. And music about a fuel cell car? What, sing about its dual (water vapor) exhaust pipes? Sing about how it whispers silently down the road? Nor does hypermiling make for particularly exciting music.
But there was a sweet crease in time when car culture and rock music meshed like a speed-shifted Muncie four-speed. It may not have been particularly elegant, but it sure was fun.
Fueled by high test leaded, the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were preceded by Chuck Berry and Charlie Ryan, and followed by a host of others, some better than others and some worse, and some just in the right place at the right time.
But which were the best of the car songs of all time? That’s a question we asked ourselves, and here’s our Ten Best Car Songs of All Time:
#9: Little GTO: Ronnie and the Daytonas According to one story, John "Bucky" Wilkin got more out of high school physics than many of his classmates, writing the lyrics to Little GTO. Having a mother in the Nashville music scene opened a few doors for Wilken. With a contract, a band and, hey, who’s Ronnie, anyway? Ronny and the Daytonas was/were a group of studio musicians hired by Pontiac ad agency exec to record a song about the 1964 Pontiac Tempest with the GTO option, Pontiac’s full-sized V-8 in a mid-size chassis, to help create a little market buzz. Doubtless the car would have sold anyway, but so did the song, reaching #4 on the charts, and creating a need for a real band to perform it in public. A Ronnie and the Daytonas album was released but the band, unlike the car, was a one hit wonder. Still, a heck of a hit, whatever the story.
#8: Hey Little Cobra: Rip Chords Credit for performing Hey Little Cobra is one of those “success has many fathers” things. If you’re interested, read a biography about the group here. It was one of those songs, however, that arrived at the right time with the right sound and the right words. The Shelby Cobra was making its production and competition debuts in 1963, going toe-to-toe with Ferrari in international competition almost from the start. Chevrolet drops out from direct involvement in racing and club racers driving Corvettes find themselves facing a one ton disadvantage against the Cobra. The Cobra caught the car world’s attention, and Hey Little Cobra arrived in early 1964, right on time: “The Stringrays and Jags were so far behind I took my Cobra out of gear and then I coasted the line.
#7: Maybelline: Chuck Berry Chuck Berry is a true original, and an inspiration for the Beach Boys (too literally, as Surfin’ USA borrowed a little too much from Sweet Little 16), so perhaps it’s no surprise that Maybelline, one of his best known songs, is a car song. Sure, it’s all about a girl named Maybelline, but it’s also a car chase:
As I was motivatin' over the hill
I saw Mabellene in a Coup de Ville
A Cadillac arollin' on the open road
Nothin' will outrun my V8 Ford
The Cadillac doin' about ninety-five
She's bumper to bumper, rollin' side by side
I saw Mabellene in a Coup de Ville
A Cadillac arollin' on the open road
Nothin' will outrun my V8 Ford
The Cadillac doin' about ninety-five
She's bumper to bumper, rollin' side by side
The song is short on technical details, other than the observation that his “Ford got hot and wouldn't do no more,” at least until it rained. “The rainwater blowin' all under my hood. I know that I was doin' my motor good.” Yeah, low tech performance technique, but it’s a car song.
#6: Dead Man’s Curve: Jan and Dean
I was cruisin' in my Stingray late one night
When an XKE pulled up on the right
And rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag
And challenged me then and there to a drag.
When an XKE pulled up on the right
And rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag
And challenged me then and there to a drag.
The oddly prophetic lyrics of one of Jan and Dean’s best known car songs foreshadowed an accident that nearly took the life of Jan Berry who, while driving at high speed in his Corvette, hit a gardener’s truck. Berry, then 25 and in medical school, was left with permanent brain damage and paralyzed on his right side. It was not, as is sometimes believed, at the actual corner referenced in the song, though there is such a place.
Still, the car guy in Jan Berry, who co-wrote the song with Roger Christian, knew that a Corvette would out accelerate the English sports car—“all the Jag could see was my six taillights”—but the Jaguar could be faster on top end. And of course, Jan had owned several Corvettes.
The irony is that while Christian had wanted the race to end in a tie, it was Dean who insisted on the terrible crash.
#5: Little Old Lady from Pasadena: Jan and Dean The full story’s too long to recount here, but the Reader’s Digest version is that one of Jan Berry’s med school classmates, Don Altfeld (to give full credit) sees—or thinks he sees—a Granny in a hot '32 Ford coupe wailing down the Colorado Boulevard. The next day in Bacteriology class, he scribbles "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” and potential lyrics around his notes. He relates the story to Jan who, well, the rest is history, and you can read about it in detail at gogrannygo.com. “Parked in her rickety old garage is a brand new shiny red Super Stock Dodge…”
#4: Hot Rod Lincoln: Forget Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. Charlie Ryan was the original, writing the song and then releasing it in 1957. It was covered by Johnny Bond in 1960 as well and actually did better on the charts. Either way, this song about a race between a hotrod Lincoln and a Cadillac was actually inspired by Charlie’s 1941 V-12-powered Lincoln Zephyr that was cut down and fitted with a Model A body. Bond’s version of the song had the engine reduced to a V-8, most probably because by 1060 most people had forgotten that Lincoln made a twelve-cylinder engine. That Charlie knew cars was evident in the lyrics:
It's got a Lincoln motor and it's really souped up.
That Model A body makes it look like a pup.
It's got eight cylinders, uses them all.
It's got overdrive, just won't stall.
With a 4-barrel carb and a dual exhaust.
With 4.11 gears you can really get lost.
It's got safety tubes, but I ain't scared.
The brakes are good, tires fair.
Charlie Ryan’s version is on YouTube here. Below is Johnny Bond's rendition.
#3: Little Deuce Coupe: Beach Boys A “deuce coupe” gets it name from the model year 1932, the debut year of the Ford Model B, an updated version of the Model A, and available with either a four-cylinder engine or Ford’s legendary flathead V-8, the first V-8 available at an affordable price. The side-valve V-8 was rudimentary but the Fords were light and a favorite ride for the revenooers. Deuces became a rodder’s favorite, with just about any engine wedged between the radiator and firewall, even the original flathead V-8, ported and relieved and stroked and bored, naturally. How else to do a hunnerd and forty in the top end floored?
The little deuce coupe, the one on the Little Deuce Coupe album and the cover of Hot Rod, was built by Clarence "Chili" Catallo who bought an old Ford for $75 and turned it into an icon. Click here for the whole story. Another well known deuce? That yellow hot rod driven by the character John Milner in American Graffiti.
#2: 409: Beach Boys It’s somehow appropriate that the Beach Boys, the poster boys of the SoCal culture of the early ‘60s, would have one of the best car songs ever, “409”, as the B-side of “Surfin’ Safari,” released by Capitol Records in June, 1962, as their first single. Surf music and car songs were a natural fit, and for a car to sing about in 1962, the Chevrolet Impala with the 409 cubic inch V-8 was hard to beat. Particularly a "four-speed dual-quad positraction 409.” Worked for the song, too.
Below, the Beach Boys’ 409 like you’ve never heard before.
#1: Shut Down:Beach Boys Shut Down describes an occurance that took place in less time than it takes to sing about it, a drag race between a '62 Super Stock Dodge powered by a 413 cubic inch Max Wedge V-8 and a 327 cubic inch fuellie Corvette of similar vintage. One would wish that the song documented some particular event, but it's simply the creation of Beach Boys song writer Brian Wilson and Roger Christian, who also worked on a lot of Jan and Dean songs. The face off between "two cool shorts" (nice cars) in an, ahem, unsanctioned drag race would likely have gone to the Dodge, but it's not really important either way. Few lyricists can work lines like "To get the traction, I'm ridin' the clutch. My pressure plate is buring, my machine's too much" into a song. But how much more can a car song ask but to end like this:
Pedal's to the floor, hear his dual quads drink,
But the 413's lead is startin' to shrink.
He's hot with Ram Induction but it's understood,
I've got a fuel injected engine sittin' under my hood.
Shut it off, shut it off, buddy, 'cause I shut you down.
Shut it off, shut it off, buddy, 'cause I shut you down.
It's the clear-eyed single-focus concentration on two cars in competition, with no other consideration, just pure celebration of the automobile is what makes Shut Down the Best Car Song of All Time.
We promised the Ten Best Car Songs of All Time but we’ve only given nine. We’re saving Number Ten for you. The links below will help you remember the songs, then vote in our poll by scrolling even farther down.
No Particular Place To Go: Chuck Berry "Cuddlin' more and drivin' slow, with no particular place to go: Watch.
Tell Laura I love her: Ray Peterson "He saw a sign for a stock car race, a thousand dollar prize it said..." Watch.
Anaheim Asuza Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review and Timing Association: Jan and Dean They tool around town in their big Grand Prixs, sitting in their bucket seats shootin' the breeze. Watch.
Drag City: Jan and Dean "Get my honey, grab some money, split to Drag City..." Watch.
Fun, Fun, Fun: Beach Boys “...The girls can't stand her 'cause walks, looks and drives like an ace, now..” Watch.
Spirit of America: Beach Boys “The Bonneville Salt Flats have seen some strange things, but the strangest thing ever was a jet without wings…” Watch.
I Get Around: Beach Boys “We always take my car ‘cause it gets beat, and it’s missed yet with the girls we meet…” Watch.
Custom Machine: Beach Boys “I’ll let you look but don’t touch my custom machine.” Watch
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