Music and travel have always gone together.
But if you were to name 10 great travel-inspired tracks from the last 20 years, where would you start?
No, putting Enya on shuffle to transform 11 hours of ass-numbing economy class tedium into a "spiritual journey" doesn't count.
You would probably find it hard to start at all.
While performers like Jay-Z and Alicia Keys continue to crank out tunes that celebrate destinations like New York, barely anyone seems to be writing great songs about travel any more.
Once a life-changing event, leaving on a jet plane is now something everyone does, all the time. And it sucks.
High fuel prices and dull highways means epic car journeys are out of the question. And the only people still hopping freight trains inevitably wind up mangled in machinery.
So, with due apologies for excessive wallowing in classic guitar licks of years gone by, please fasten your seatbelts, familiarize yourself with the safety procedures and hold on to the barf bag, as we embark on a journey through the best travel tunes ever written.
But if you were to name 10 great travel-inspired tracks from the last 20 years, where would you start?
No, putting Enya on shuffle to transform 11 hours of ass-numbing economy class tedium into a "spiritual journey" doesn't count.
You would probably find it hard to start at all.
While performers like Jay-Z and Alicia Keys continue to crank out tunes that celebrate destinations like New York, barely anyone seems to be writing great songs about travel any more.
Once a life-changing event, leaving on a jet plane is now something everyone does, all the time. And it sucks.
High fuel prices and dull highways means epic car journeys are out of the question. And the only people still hopping freight trains inevitably wind up mangled in machinery.
So, with due apologies for excessive wallowing in classic guitar licks of years gone by, please fasten your seatbelts, familiarize yourself with the safety procedures and hold on to the barf bag, as we embark on a journey through the best travel tunes ever written.
Music and travel have always gone together.
But if you were to name 10 great travel-inspired tracks from the last 20 years, where would you start?
No, ... more
860
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(best ever)
18
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(all time)
1113.00
Created
03/26/11
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1
Steppenwolf
'Born to be Wild' (1968)
The ultimate open-road song. Steppenwolf’s full-throttled cover version would be a perfect check list for the rock ’n ’roll voyager, if having a check list wasn’t so un-rock ’n’ roll. “Get your motor running” -- check. “Head out on the highway” -- check. “Looking for adventure” -- check ... you get the idea. Mind you, it’s been so worn out over the years that the only people still listening to it are graying oldies whose checklist is more likely to include things like tummy pills, sensible shoes and a hernia truss.
2
Bruce Springsteen
'Born to Run' (1975)
On the face of it, a rollicking love song for a girl going by the unlikely name of Wendy, but in truth a desperate anthem about getting the hell out of nowheresville (in Springsteen’s case, Asbury, New Jersey), with the disaffected howl of “We gotta get out while we’re young, ‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.”
3
Willie Nelson
'On the Road Again' (1980)
Country legend Willie Nelson doesn’t mess around with Dylanesque whimsy in this straightforward classic that does exactly what it says on the cover. It’s called “On the Road Again” and it’s about being on the road again. Hopefully Nelson isn’t driving though. After recent arrests for marijuana and magic mushroom possession, it’s perhaps better if one of his friends takes the wheel.
4
Bob Dylan
'Tangled up in Blue' (1975)
In truth you could conjure up a whole album of restless whines from the king of modern folk rock. Tunes like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” inspired legions of disenfranchised youths to make tracks, even if no one really knew what Bob was on about. There’s more clarity to be had from “Rolling Stone,” even if he resorts to harping on about “clowns and jugglers” yet again. But nothing rivals the epic trans-U.S. poetry of “Tangled.”
5
Simon and Garfunkel
'Homeward Bound' (1966)
This great travel song celebrates the tedium of being stuck in a dead-end en route to somewhere slightly better, which as any passenger knows, is half the fun. Another contender from S&G is “America,” veering off the beaten track to name-check the dreary destinations of Pittsburgh, Saginaw and New Jersey. “Homeward Bound” is a candid admission that being on the road blows and you’ve had enough. Boo hoo hoo.
6
The Go-Go’s
'Vacation' (1982)
This splash of California sunshine unabashedly wallows in the giddy romance of a holiday fling without coming to terms with the fact that -- this being the 1980s -- he was just some sleazeball waiter who probably beds a different girl group every week. Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin gets extra travel points for her 1985 solo single “Rush Hour” and her cameo in “Bill and Ted’s Big Adventure.”
7
M.I.A.
'Paper Planes' (2008)
Before you start hurling heavy objects at your computer screen, hear us out. Yes, this might be a feeble attempt to keep this list current, but M.I.A.’s melodic mash-up of The Clash’s “Straight to Hell” and Wreckx-n-Effect’s “Rumpshaker” is about travel. Sure, M.I.A.’s incoherent polemics on global oppression create as many critics as fans, and all the edgy stuff about visas and hustling on “Paper Planes” is somewhat undone by the misfiring irony of the song’s cartoon violence -- but there’s no avoiding the fact it was a solid platinum hit.
8
Iggy Pop
'The Passenger' (1977)
Not to be confused with Elton John’s execrable 1984 song “Passengers,” or the 2003 album “Passenger” by Swedish nu metal band “Passenger,” Iggy’s restless punk anthem cleaves a ragged path through the dark heart of an unexplored urban landscape -- or at least it used to until it was appropriated (with lucrative results for Mr. Pop no doubt) to peddle cars, Guinness and cosmetics.
9
Gene Pitney
'24 Hours from Tulsa' (1963)
Clearly a song of its time, Gene Pitney’s hit is a tale of unexpectedly falling in love a day’s drive away from an existing relationship. It wouldn’t happen today because the song’s protagonist would have hopped onto a budget airline and made the journey in a couple of hours -- although he could perhaps have squeezed in a mile-high quickie with the woman in seat 43a who was giving him those looks ...
10
Peter, Paul and Mary
'Leaving on a Jet Plane' (1967)
This wistful John Denver ballad telling the story of an achy-hearted traveler’s sadness at leaving a loved one and not knowing “when I’ll be back again” is an anthem for long-distance love. In these days of volcanic eruptions, striking air traffic controllers and passengers wearing explosive underpants, it could simply be a mundane tirade against the uncertainties of commercial flying.
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