Rocking Out About Planes, Trains and Cars

Rock and roll is all about everything around us. What isn’t in front of our faces more than the transportation around us? Let’s take a look at rock songs that rocked out about them…

“409” was a classic Beach Boy’s song written by Mike Love, Brian Wilson, and Gary Usher in early 1962. Only the Los Angeles radio stations played it, and it peaked at #76 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

“Drive My Car” is the instantly recognizable Beatles song written by Paul McCartney and the B side to the hit single ‘Michelle’ from the album Rubber Soul. The song is really about Cilla Black (who recently passed way this year) and her boyfriend Bobby Willis (who she later married). Cilla was a dear friend of the Beatles and longtime pal of the manager Brian Epstein.

“Drive” by the Cars is an awesome song that still sounds great today.

“Wooden Ships” is the haunting ballad written by Crosby, Stills, and then Jefferson Airplane band member Paul Kantner. The problem was that due to legal issues Paul couldn’t be credited as a co-writer, so he never was although Jefferson Airplane released it later that year. Wooden Ships was written in the middle of the Vietnam War and the period of rising Cold War attitudes between the USA and Russia.

Honorable mentions go to The Beach Boys, “Sloop John B”, Jethro Tull and “Locomotive Breath”, “Rock and Roll Train” from AC/DC, “Crazy Train” from Ozzy Osbourne, and Aerosmith’s “Train Kept a Rollin”.


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