Car Songs…Part 1

In my Fred Eaglesmith post on Saturday, two comments caught my attention. One was Keith telling me when he was a DJ they would play car songs at certain times. Then Obbverse mentioned… that would be a good post for someone…and indeed he was right.

When I was a teenager…a car wasn’t just a car…it was freedom. It was a key to an adult world we wanted eagerly to jump into. Ok…I’ll have songs with either the word “car” in them or with a model of a car in the title only. If not I would have 80 percent of Springsteen songs…not a bad thing at all but I will play by those rules.

Janis Joplin – Mercedes Benz

Let’s start with Janis Joplin. This is based on a song called C’mon, God, and buy me a Mercedes Benz by the Los Angeles beat poet Michael McClure. Joplin saw McClure perform it, and on August 8, 1970, she reworked it into her own song, which she performed about an hour later.

There are three credited songwriters on this track: Joplin, Michael McClure, and Bob Neuwirth. McClure says he never earned a cent from his poetry, but “Mercedes Benz” paid for his house in the Butters Canyon section of Oakland, California.

Janis Joplin never got a Mercedes Benz, but she did have a 1965 Porsche that was painted to become a piece of hippie art.

Wilco – Bull Black Nova

Many thanks to Obbverse for recommending this one. This song is a dark one…very dark. It’s somewhat cryptic and open to interpretation but one thing it does show… guilt, betrayal, and the consequences of one’s actions…and the narrator possibly killing his girlfriend. This song was released in 2009 on the album Wilco (The Album).  The song was written by Wilco… Glenn Kotchie, Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Mikael Jorgensen, Nels Cline, and Pat Sansone.

If I am the one, blood on the sofa
Blood in the sink, blood in the trunk
High at the wheel of a bull black Nova
And I’m sorry as a setting sun
This can’t be undone, can’t be outrun

Bruce Springsteen – Cadillac Ranch

I could probably do a post just on Cadillac songs.

This song is a great little rocker off of The River. This is one of many early Springsteen songs featuring cars. Some others were “Thunder Road,” “Backstreets,” and “Racing In The Street.” Bruce used the Cadillac image again in 1984 on “Pink Cadillac.”

Springsteen used Cadillac Ranch as a metaphor for the coming of death.

There is a real Cadillac Ranch.

In 1974 along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3’s fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt

T Rex – Jeepster

This song was on the 1972 album Electric Warrior. The music was supposedly based off of the Willie Dixon song You’ll Be Mine.

Jeepster was recorded live in the studio. The recording happened entirely organically and was not overdubbed. Marc Bolan, amid a performance, jumped up and down as he played his guitar, shaking the microphone stands. The sound of those stands was kept in the song. Producer Tony Visconti saw them as important features of the overall mood of the track and chose to include them.

K.C. Douglas-Mercury Blues

Mercury Blues was written by the Blues musicians K.C. Douglas and Robert Geddins in 1949. It was originally titled “Mercury Boogie.” The song was made famous 44 years later by Alan Jackson, whose 1993 cover peaked at #2 on the Billboard Country charts. The song has also been covered by Steve Miller, David Lindley, and Meat Loaf.

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

50 thoughts on “Car Songs…Part 1”

  2. What a fun series this is going to be! Right off the bat you go from one of my favorite car songs, Cadillac Ranch to giving me the great song by K.C. who I have not heard before. Truth is I didn’t know the Wilco or T-Rec tunes either!

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    1. Thanks…obbverse reccomended that one and I spent a lot of time yesterday listening to that one…I’d never heard it before….what a great written song.

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      2. That is exactly how I feel about Big Star….I knew more of Wilco with Yankee Foxtrot Hotel and their stuff with Billy Bragg.

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      1. T-Rex should be right up your alley Max. (Yes, pathetic pun, but puns do drive me- oh Gawd, sadly one follows the other😬) More Pop than power pop perhaps, but Bolan could find a simple chord and a boogie shuffle and make a hit out of it- at least for a few years. One of my bros faves was ‘Ride A White Swan.
        Another one who didn’t make it big in the States. Odd, he had the music and the Rock Star looks.

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      2. He would take an older song and turn it inside out…in a good way. I haven’t heard everything by them but what I have…I like a lot.
        Yea I don’t get how Bowie made it and not them.

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    1. Oh yea…a lot of them coming up. I appreciate you bringing that up yesterday. I did limit my self….with either Car in the title or a model of vehicle in the title.

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      2. There are a couple new artists with one too….off top of my head I think one is by Whiz Kalafa (of whatever the heck their name is) and Bebe Rexah had a song called Ferrari….never played it….or heard it

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    2. You beat me to it. My first thought when I saw the title. Next came “Terraplane Blues”, by Robert Johnson. “Little Red Corvette” by Prince. “GTO”, Ronny & the Daytonas. “Hey Little Cobra”, the Rip Chords. “Mustang Sally”, Wilson Pickett. Probably a lot more. That’s off the top of my head.

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  12. Well, there’s a -I was gonna say ‘truckload’ but I’ve dipped into the deep pun well too many times today, so ‘bucketloads’ of songs out there to do with cars. I think this series could run into double figures on the suggestions of just today. Anyway, another obscurish one is ‘Black Cadillac,’ Rosanne Cash, sorta about her dads last ride. Another well written song.

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    1. Hey if the pun fits…wear it….and it fits.
      Oh…speaking of Black Cadillac I have another version coming on Dave’s site you might like. I’ll check out the Cash one.

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      1. I look forward to Daves post.
        On a side note, I’ll say it again; social media can be such a sordid small minded place but these posts that keep people in far off random places in touch with other like-minded is the good side of it. Gawd knows there’s enough out there being complete total ass-posters.
        Hope your next weeks work doesn’t burn you out too much!

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      2. Social Media can be toxic…X and Facebook I usually stay away. I did post on X just to get people here but it doesn’t work.
        Yea here is really nice…no trolls for the most part.
        Yea I do miss this through the week!

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  20. Bob Dylan has a Theme Time radio hour themed with The Cadillac. Indeed, you could build a great post on that theme. Thanks for this post, got my kicks!

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