Don'cha just love hyperbole? This is the greatest driving song ever written - at the moment. That's like saying "I wanna be with you 'till the end of time - tonight." (No really, baby - I do!) Imagine what it was like getting Led Zepplin's first album and putting the needle down for the first time. "Good Times Bad Times" comes on. If you're a blues lover you'd say Holy Schmack! - or words to that effect. Chances are, if you're old like me, you had an 8-track player in the Camaro, (or in my case, the '73 Malibu with the hood that would pop open and nearly fly off while doing 65 over the Throgs Neck Bridge), and this song would be playing... Well, it's funny - I was in Grammar School in '69 when this album came out. All through High School in the 1970's I knew about Led Zep, I knew a few of their songs, and I loved the blues. I listened to a lot of Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, and what-all. But Led Zepplin was the favorite band of those cool, popular kids who used to torment me constantly.
OK - All together now 1...2...3... "AWWWWWWWWwwwwwwww..."
So I despised Led Zepplin during 8-track days, just because.
Well, I got married in '85. My wife was plugged into the culture; I wasn't. I was plugged into Gormenghast, I think, at the time. So, she and I would drive around, doing whatever, and listening to AOR (Album Oriented Rock) radio. On my own I never listened to AOR; I played tapes - cassettes by that time. So, certain songs would come on - songs I should know - Zepplin, Joe Walsh, whatever - and I would ask her, "OK, who's this?" and she'd tell me.
It wasn't 'till the beginning of this millennia that I purchased my first Led Zep CD. It took that long for my prejudice, coupled with habit, to fall away and allow me to appreciate this music. See how our lives are directed and formed by other people, how other people unintentionally control us?
But I was in loooooooove in '01. The girl liked Led Zepplin...
Suddenly I was liking Led Zepplin too. But she and I drove up to a big white house on a hilltop one evening in a stolen car. She had her baby daughter with her, and a teenaged girl - friend of her son's - and I know the story's been told here about how the girls went inside the empty house and took pictures of everything, and how I pulled the car down to the end of the circular driveway and blasted the music so we could dance in the headlight beams after the sun went down. It was David Gates and Bread singing "Everything I Own." Wow - that's a killer of a candid admission.
But, on the way home "How Many More Times" was the song playing in that flashy Audi (glorified VW for dummies) with the holy shit handles and the Bose sound system and what-all. We got a flat tire. And they were low profile. As a matter of fact, I think there was no more than a half inch of rubber between rim and road as it was. I tried to change it. I could not get those daffy lug bolts loose with all my weight and strength. We ended up getting home some other way.
What's your "Best" Ever Driving Song? What song makes your foot heavy on the gas pedal, or makes you want to drive forever into Paradise? I'm just assuming everybody has one.
