Truckin’ [Or the Quest for the Perfect Road Trip Record]
daytime edition
I love long drives. I love spending a day on a drive, watching the landscape and the colored signs change around me as the hours pass by. I love it in the sunny springtime and the patchwork days of fall, but I like it on an eerie, brisk night too. Or in the rain. Or in the dead of winter, when the trees look more like sad skeletons, and the sky seems quiet and treacherous. But above all else, I love listening to music when I drive. It’s the part of the package I really live for.
The flipside? I despise driving in silence. So for solo drives, I spend my mornings downloading dozens of albums, preparing for any mood that might strike and any cellular outage that might disrupt my spontaneity. I’ve learned a lot through doing this. I’ve learned that music’s a lot like food and cravings can be fierce. I’ve learned that I can be cranky as hell when service cuts out in the middle of a favorite song. And I’ve learned that the most blissful, memorable moments often spring from scarcity: The wrong tune at the right time, the so “I guess it’s all we’ve got available”, the magical odd couples of circumstance and song.
For Beach Drives: Kaputt by Destroyer (2011, sophisti-pop)
My love for this one started before I could drive — I’d blast it, endlessly, through headphones when I was home alone the summer before senior year of high school. Sometimes, I’d stay where I was — Dancing in circles to capture those rare, teenage moments of not being seen, feeling fully like myself for a cherished few minutes. But on others, I’d go on walks to local parks and dream of traveling further, letting the music carry me to my next destination: imagined or otherwise. This is great road trip music, but it’s great bike ride music too. And, of course, it’s especially perfect for doing both of these things beachside.
There’s a moment, in most beach-bound drives, where the air shifts. If you’ve got your windows down, you’ll smell it — salty and brisk, the much-needed breeze that cuts through heavy summer air. Or you’ll hear the seagulls and start to catch glimpses of glistening ocean framing the endless, arcing road. This is the album for those moments: passing over a seaside bridge, feeling the air of a new place descend around you.
It’s tough to highlight just what does the trick so well. Perhaps it’s the lilting horns and woodwinds, drifting into focus as if from the lips of street performers. Or the lyrics, so vast and arcane that it’s easy to tune them out until you find one that really sticks. And when a word or a phrase finally does, it’s like magic. Like vivid, personal scripture. A sermon, feeding your heart what it needs, as your eyes scry the ocean for meaning.
For Windows-Down Springtime Drives: Vol. 4 by Black Sabbath (1972, heavy metal)
Am I just really easily suggestible by color? I’ve been turning this over in my head for a few minutes, trying to figure out just why this album spells sunshine to me — Is it just the orange-yellow print on the cover, Clare? Really?
In reality, this collection of songs just stirs up something very fundamental and spirited in me. It has, in its ranks, all of the most unabashedly fun Black Sabbath songs. “Wheels of Confusion.” “Supernaut.” Fucking “CHANGES”. It’s a record that demands a full-chested singalong of the most obnoxious variety. Absolutely I will be singing all the words and also all of the lead guitar parts. If you happen to be sitting in my passenger seat, sorry!
But this record is also sunny for its psychedelia, its relative speed, and its relentless energy. When you roll your windows down, and let this one leave the confines of your insular metal road-box, you feel cool in an untapped, ancient kind of way. Your sunglasses fit better. Your chest sits taller. Your left arm slowly migrates to rest outside your window. Motorcyclists are intimidated by you. You’re the total package. (For 43 minutes.)
For Pissed-Off Drives: Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen (1978, heartland rock)
So I went full Dad-Rock for this list — Can this really be avoided? Most of us go on our first road trips with family, kept aloft by Zip-locked snacks, coloring books, and classic rock CD’s. But Springsteen is the long-drive GOAT for a reason. His songs are both about and akin to the open road: sprawling, vast, and desperately reaching forward.
Most Springsteen songs seem to be about hope — The hope that we can be bigger, better, stronger than the chains that hold us back. Or the hope inspired by nostalgia, the memory of dormant dreams. The tracks on Darkness stick to their hopeful guns, but are dosed with enough spite to revive even past desires from the grave. This album is a seance. Get back up on your feet. Get back in the car. Take what you deserve. Quit your job. Sing your lungs out for the hell of it.
“Keep pushing till it’s understood / and these badlands start treating us good”
The hope on this project is the hope that persists against all odds — the hope of the rookie, the outcast, the underdog. Listening puts you at the center of something big, clawing your way to the top of a mountain, fueled by nothing but rage and willpower. Sometimes, we’re driving to destinations we don’t want to reach: work, errands, the doctor’s appointment we’ve been anxious about… And sometimes we’re driving just to feel the road, when standing still has left us restless, angry, and hungry for more.
For Relaxed Drives: Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves (2018, country pop)
Some music comes with clear instructions. There’s Lana Del Rey’s song “Music to Watch Boys To”. There’s Songs About Fucking by Big Black. And there’s Kacey Musgraves’s breakthrough 2018 album, that tells you exactly when to put it on and why: It just sounds so perfect in the evening light.
The stories Kacey tells here are ones we’ve heard before, the kinds of timeworn tales that have always bolstered country music: New love, betrayal, and the well-known plight of feeling lonesome. But the details — both sonic and lyrical — are what really help this album stand out. The cheeky stoner-isms, poppy production flourishes, and acid-washed dreamscapes never fail to bring a smile to my face.
Sometimes, I happen to be relaxed when I’m driving. That’s always a nice surprise! But more often than not, I’m driving because I’m doing something, and I’m doing something that’s stressing me out. My mind’s in a thousand different places, and I’m lucky enough to still be anchored to the physical road, let alone my own train of thought. So seeking a relaxed drive has a little to do with cultivation: Choosing to breathe deep, play a favorite album, and let my thoughts drift by like roadside clouds. But it has a lot to do with coincidence: The perfect net of glistening sunlight, cast over the highway. A quick moment of clarity and gratitude in the eye of the storm.
At the close of this album, Kacey sings the words “It’ll all be alright” — Maybe you missed your favorite song this go-round, because your thoughts were racing. Why not give things another spin?
For Rainy Day Drives: Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan (1974, singer-songwriter)
“Come in, she said, I’ll give you / shelter from the storm”
This is a sad album — maybe one of the best ever made for a breakup or a cry — But I can’t help but feel warm and happy when I listen. There’s something so cozy and meditative about it, like a rainy day spent indoors. Things are dreary, sure, but that pitter patter on the roof sure does feel like the presence of an old friend.
Driving in the rain has its perils and its perks. It depends on how hard it’s raining, and how quickly you need to get where you need to go. Is there lightning? Is it flooding? Can you still catch glimpses of the sun? No two storms are alike, and rarely do we plan for the ways we get stuck in them. Usually, I meet them with a shrug and a sigh.
My current set of windshield wipers is super squeaky, so I like that this album sounds full enough to stand up to the competition. Dylan’s voice, as always, is stark and confident: a force to be reckoned with. And the instrumental arrangements are simple, but immediately welcoming — like stepping into a warm house to dry off and settle in. Sometimes, we need a little home on the road, and plans can’t be moved to make space for the weather.
I discovered these songs for myself when I was in high school, right as I was learning to drive for the first time. Previously, Bob Dylan had been my dad’s territory, and I didn’t really feel want to explore his discography for that reason. I had to keep the lines in my complicated relationships stark, to survive my day-to-day. I was scared to open what could very well be a Pandora’s box of regret and heartache.
But I gave things a try anyway, and ended up forming some of the most impactful musical bonds of my life so far. It was especially healing to build these relationships to songs on my own — on my own terms, and through my own interpretations of Dylan’s lyrics and perspective. And I still take them, often, on the road with me: learning more, with each listen, about unlikely comforts.
Thanks for reading! I’m making myself write positive things about the weather, to distract me from my allergies. I’m seeing Taylor Swift this weekend. Will I explode? Stay tuned!
Until next time: Go for a long walk. Bring some Claritin.
Clare