Top Ten Car Tunes

What are your top ten favorite car tunes? An accurate top ten car tunes list would be based on sales or highest chart positions. A person's age likely reflects on their opinion of what constitutes a top car tune. My top ten car tunes list has nothing to do with quality of song. Read on.

10. Beep! Beep! The Little Nash Rambler by The Playmates is on my top ten car tunes list for sentimental value. The surprise ending is hardly a surprise anymore and the novelty of the song wore off many years past. Like getting stuck behind a semi going uphill in a no passing zone, the song starts way too slow for me. I like the end when the semi is speeding down the other side of the hill or the music goes into overdrive.

The song was hit for me in 1958 because our family station wagon was a Rambler. It is the first car tune I remember hearing.

To hear the song and see photos of old Ramblers visit You Tube. Here is a link to get you started.

9. If I never hear Wilson Pickett's 1966 hit Mustang Sally I would not care. Why put it on my top ten car tune list? I used to like it and it is still a favorite car tune song for many. Wilson Pickett was a high energy performer, but this is not his best dance song.

See a fast paced, through the years, Mustang slide show while listening to Pickett tell Sally he is going to slow that Mustang down, at You Tube.

8. In their heyday, the Beach Boys recorded several car tunes. I choose 1963's Little Deuce Coupe for this list because it is a nice, soft rock dance tune. Listening to it starts me tapping my feet.

Listen to the song while viewing images of little Deuce Coupes using this link.

7. Folk Music and Janis Joplin were not my favorites in 1971, yet her song Mercedes Benz makes my list of favorites because I still sing "Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all have Porches I must make amends". Not that I ever longed for a Mercedes; lyric just struck my fancy.

6. "When I flew by the Stingray, I waved bye, bye," is a lyric from 1963's Hey Little Cobra by The Rip Cords. Automobile racing is still a favorite past time for many, as are debates over which car is the best and the fastest.

This Cobra racecar video keeps pace with the tune.

5. What kind of lyric is "Wa-wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa"? I do not know, but the wa-wa's are why I like to listen to Ronnie & the Daytonas 1964 hit Little GTO. Did the song cause me to like the car or did the car cause me to like the song? I can not answer that one either.

This GTO slide show is slow starting.

4. Like Pickett, Prince wants her to slow down, except his vehicle is a Little Red Corvette. The car tune released in 1982 became an instant hit with me. My first impulse is to make it my number one car tune; decided it is not and is not even my favorite Prince tune.

Prince's song advice "you need to find a love that's gonna last" holds true when car shopping.

3. Bruce Springsteen has no problem with his lady driving fast as long as its in her Pink Cadillac. I say "pink stinks" and Cadillacs never attracted my eye. Do not need to like pink or prefer Caddies to enjoy this driving 1984 Springsteen car tune.

2. Rather than lyrics, it is the fast paced rockabilly music that draws me to Hot Rod Lincoln by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen.

Great slide show here.

The original version of Hot Rod Lincoln by Charlie Ryan was released in 1955 on 4 Star records. This You Tube video shows the original 45RPM record playing interspersed with photos of Charlie and hot rod Lincolns.

1. 1975's Low Rider by War not only starts me tapping my feet, it gets me up out of my seat. Not a song to sit and listen to; must get up and dance to the beat. Although Low Rider is an inner-city tune, when I close my eyes I picture cruising back woods roads away from congested highways. The distinctive sound of Low Rider has an island music flavor.

Lowrider vehicle slide show with lyrics can be seen here.

That is my top ten car tune list. Are any of your favorite car tunes on it?