Roadtrip Music

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Music that brings you back memories of roadtrips

My dad seems to take a weird pride in me sharing his music tastes: most hits from the 80s & 90s...  stuff you'd usually listen on the radio, but the oldies more like the goldies, you get what I mean? 

He used to be the one driving me around as a kid, especially for the holidays, and I remember asking him for the meaning of every single traffic sign as a kid  They fascinated me. They still do. There's something about the way they convey information while achieving instant recognizability that makes my brain happy.

I'll leave you with some choice hits:

(Chris Isaak - Wicked Game)

THE roadtrip song of choice for me, the one that perfect embodies that half-asleep daze of going through an empty road under a hot day, watching the clouds lazily float by as your car devours kilometer after kilometer... 

(Roxette - Joyride)

For me, this song conveys like the excitement of an upcoming adventure, the one of a roadtrip, a song full of possibilities and hopes.

(USA For Africa - We Are the World)

I can't not include this one, my dad would be sad. Everytime it shows up on the radio he loves to tell me about how this was a collaborative effort to raise funds for charity, and about the documentary made about this event and all the shenanigans that happened, and pointing out the different singing stars...

Honorable mentions!

(Sixpence None the Richer - Kiss Me)

(Mike Oldfield ft. Maggie Reilly - Moonlight Shadow)
(I was always weirded out since people would say this is a Mike Oldfield song first and foremost - I was always like "why does he have a woman voice?" Wish Maggie here got a little more recognition  )

(Toploader - Dancing in the Moonlight)
(This one in particular reminds me of watching city lights from afar...  )

[close]

So yeah, now I'd like to know what do you think is perfect music to listen while driving/travelling Which are your choice songs, and why? Wanna share any memories, as well?

[Melooon]

Road trips have changed a lot in my life! They only started building the first big motor-ways here in the last 15 years, so before that we used to have to drive through dozens of small towns connected by little windy roads (with HUGE traffic jams) 

A lot of the time we would just listen to the radio and you could kinda tell where you were based on how the reception would fade (it always felt like an adventure when our local station would turn into fuzz), then you'd have to settle for the weird radio stations you'd pick up along the way, we had a preferred station for each part of the country! My parents got an iPod in 2002 and it could last a whole 6 hours per charge with an iTrip radio transmitter attached. That made diving-music much more eclectic.

In keeping with the 80s theme though, we always had a tape of Sparkle in the Rain by Simple Minds in the car as a backup and it got played a lot - it stuck around in my dads car after their breakup but I remember it turning to blue smoke in the stereo when we got in a crash once (don't worry no one was hurt but the car) ~ I still really associate it with life around 2000.

Waterfront by Simple Minds

My last memories of the small roads fade out around 2006 but they are really connected with the songs that my mum was playing back then:

Hotel Song by Regina Spektor

After the big roadways were built everything got more futuristic  The new roads sort of cut through the countryside on a ramp so it feels like you're flying - I don't drive, but the last few trips I've been on my with mum, she's started a tradition of listening to 90s trance music and pretending to be in a space ship