I made you all a music mix to keep you company on your travels. I started out with 36 songs, and narrowed it down to 12. There are a few songs I wish I could share with you but can't, due to the fact that iTunes doesn't have them. "Day Tripper," by the Beatles, is the most notable omission.
Here's the breakdown of your mix:
1) Car Wheels on a Gravel Road-- Lucinda Williams
This is the song that made me a Lucinda Williams fan. In my mind, I can see the little girl in the song, hear the gravel under the wheels, feel the momentary freedom of getting away:
Child in the backseat about four or five years
Lookin out the window
Little bit of dirt mixed with tears
Car wheels on a gravel road
2) Ride--G. Love
I stumbled across this "slacker hip-hop" song while looking for something else. I don't remember what that something else was, but I like the easy-going, loping-along sound of this album.
3) Fisherman's Blues--The Waterboys
"With a light in my head/and you in my arms..."
4) City of New Orleans--Arlo Guthrie
Train songs make for good road-trip mixes.
5) I Know My Love--The Chieftains and the Corrs
This song is in a 6/8 meter, has two chords, and is a lot of fun to play. Like so many folk-songs, it offers bad relationship advice.
6) Jaan Pahechan Ho--Mohd. Rafi, Manoj Kumar, Nanda
This Bollywood classic first appeared in the movie "Gumnaam" and then later in "Ghostworld." It's got a beat. You can dance to it.
7) The Beat Goes On--Firewater
Updated lyrics from the Sonny and Cher original and a wicked bass line-- how can you go wrong?
8) I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free--Nina Simone
This is a song of yearning and longing. It's perfect for the road.
9) On the Road Again--Canned Heat
I'll bet you didn't know Kermit the Frog was the lead singer for Canned Heat. Listen closely. There he is!
10) The Truck Song-- Lyle Lovett
Turn down that highway
Turn up that dirt road
It's over three days
Since I left Houston
Old Black's my truck's name
She's held together
By B.F. Goodtire
And bailing wire...
11) I'm on My Way--Proclaimers
For some "500 Miles" is the definitive Proclaimers song. For me, it's this one. "I'm on my way from misery to happiness" says it all.
12) Drive--Joe 90
I first heard this song as at the end of the road-trip episode of "Six Feet Under." There are some good lyrics in this song, including the refrain, "Time doesn't know what it's time for us all to know." Amen.
4 comments:
Clearly you are more musically knowlegeable than I am but I know the Lucinda Williams track well and I saw The Proclaimers last year in concert in nearby Chesterfield - they played "I'm on My Way" and gave a very rousing old-fashioned kind of concert. When driving long distances in America I just loved to tune in to any country music channel - it made me feel as if I was in a film.... "The Road to Cleveland", "Streets of Savannah" and "Guadalupe Ca" are just three road trip films I have starred in as my wife and kids yelled... "Oh God! Do we have to listen to more country music?"
YP: We are so overdue for a jam session. You say you've got sausage fingers-- well, I've got short, stumpy fingers. I've got to do use my pinky when I do the blues-shuffle (in A so far) because my ring finger just can't reach the correct fret without excessive strain. Bah. I remember when you saw the Proclaimers, by the way. I was a bit wistful.
Girl, AWESOME mix! I must say that I am a fan of Nina Simone, and I ONCE worked with and then ALMOST slept with the grandson (or great-great grandson)of Arlo Guthrie. His name was Leon. He knew things that only that family would know. I WISH I knew where he was now. Happy road trip!
Oh man, I just wanna hang out with you. I LOVE "Fisherman's Blues" with a very passionate, long-standing love -- as in, that song makes me feel glad to be alive. And, you're right, what a great travelling song it'd be.
Other great choices there, too!
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