Driving beats: Music for summer road tripping

Driving back to Auckland from Wellington recently, I got to thinking about driving music and playlists and what my Top Ten list would be if I actually organised such a thing in advance. Turns out after much (so much!) deliberation, it would have loads of old stuff and be the kind one would belt out joyfully, although most likely not terribly tunefully. Hopefully one would also remember to tone it down before slowing to 50 on the main street of a very quiet town where people look funny at you if you are still at it and the window is right down.

This, then, would be my list:

1. Elton John's Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. Eleven minutes of bliss. The “One Night Only” live performance at Madison Square Garden is the best, I reckon.
2. Life on Mars, David Bowie.  One of my fav Bowie songs out of so many and great for the road because the lyrics are so weird, even for him.
3. Too much Led Zep to choose from but this is such a fabulous early one. Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You.  Joan Baez sang it first, but this... Robert Plant... Amazing... Sigh.
4. Puddle of Mudd, Blurry. A bit out of left field and a guilty pleasure now but it’s a terrifically loud, confused and angsty song.
5. Bad Romance, Lady Gaga. Perfect pop. One for the girls to crank up the volume to.
6. Calling On, Weta.  Another lyrically odd song, but possibly my all time fav Kiwi song. Great Desert Road stuff.
7. Alice Cooper's Poison. How good are kitschy lines like this. "I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison." Good vocab lesson for impressionable kids in the car, right there.
8. The Cowsills. The Rain, the Park and Other Things.  Cuteness. There has to be something light and fluffy to counteract all the angst and this is it.  Pure fun and happiness, even if the flower girl in the song might be just a dream.
9. I like you in Velvet, Malcolm McLaren. A bit obscure, late 80s, and actually a very creepy song with Malcolm singing (is it singing??) but I love this. Perfect for the last stretch of a trip, when you're almost there.
10. Bohemian Rhapsody. Just… Party on!
    

Want to listen right now? Here's a Spotify playlist for you: