Top 10 Songs About Cars

With the Grammys fast approaching, Cars.com took some time to determine the ultimate car songs of all time. These are ditties that name cars either in the title or in the tune itself. It might come as a surprise, but this was one of our most hotly debated Top 10s yet. Check it out here.

On a side note, we decided to ask our editorial staff what would be their Top 10 must-have songs if they were stuck in their car with nothing else to listen to. These “desert car” lists are below. Feel free to share your own list and/or ridicule our questionable taste in music in the comments below.

Patrick Olsen, managing editor

• Run Like Hell — Pink Floyd
• American Girl — Tom Petty
• Phantom Limb — The Shins
• Steady, As She Goes — Raconteurs
• Message of Love — Pretenders
• Life is a Highway — Tom Cochrane
• Island in the Sun — Weezer
• Trouble — Pink
• La Grange — ZZ Top
• Band on the Run — Paul McCartney

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Amanda Wegrzyn, Advice editor

• Mass Romantic — New Pornographers
• Last Goodbye — Jeff Buckley
• Stand Inside Your Love — Smashing Pumpkins
• Bring It on Home to Me — Sam Cooke
• So Begins Our Alabee — Of Montreal
• Valerie Loves Me — Material Issue
• Still Be Around — Uncle Tupelo
• Teenage Wristband — The Twilight Singers
• Suffering — Satchel
• Sweetness — Jimmy Eat World

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David Thomas, KickingTires editor

• Life Wasted — Pearl Jam
• Do You Like Me — Fugazi
• Dirty Leaves — The Bronx
• 10001110101 — Clutch
• Something Bigger, Something Brighter — Pretty Girls Make Graves
• Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone? — Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
• Power and Privilege — Enon
• What I Saw — John Frusciante
• Mojo — Peeping Tom
• Better Living Through Chemistry — Queens of the Stone Age

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Joe Bruzek, Ask.cars.com

• Bad Boy Boogie (live) — AC/DC
• Super-Charger Heaven — White Zombie
• Let It Out  — Ugly Duckling
• Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber, Pt. 2 — Wu-Tang Clan
• A Day At The Races — Jurassic 5
• My Favourite Waste of Time — Speech Defect
• Top Back — T.I.
• Hypnotize — Notorious B.I.G.
• The Dig — People Under the Stairs
• Go With the Flow — Queens of the Stone Age

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Mike Hanley, Cars.com reviewer

• North American Scum — LCD Soundsystem
• Bombtrack — Rage Against the Machine
• I Won't Back Down — Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• Click Click Boom — Saliva
• Big Machine — Goo Goo Dolls
• Somewhere Only We Know — Keane
• Bronzing the Garbage — The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
• To Defy The Laws of Tradition — Primus
• Face to Face — Paul Van Dyk
• On Your Side — Pete Yorn

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Kelsey Mays, Cars.com reviewer

• Be Yourself — Audioslave
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps — The Beatles
• Welcome to the Fold — Filter
• Come Alive — Foo Fighters
• The Warmth — Incubus
• Praise Chorus — Jimmy Eat World
• Kitty — Presidents of the USA
• Wake Up — Rage Against the Machine
• Plush — Stone Temple Pilots
• No One Else — Weezer

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Beth Palmer, copy editor

• Fool in the Rain — Led Zeppelin
• Livin’ On A Prayer — Bon Jovi
• Love and Memories — O.A.R.
• Stolen — Dashboard Confessional
• Ashes and Wine — A Fine Frenzy
• Power of Love — Huey Lewis and the News
• Nothing Else Matters — Metallica
• I Am A Rock (live) — Simon and Garfunkel
• Free Fallin’ — Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For —U2

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Ian Merritt, staff photographer

• Mistakes & Regrets — ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
• No More Fighting Cats, OK? — Des_Ark
• Coolidge — The Descendents
• Accident Prone — Jawbreaker
• Colony of Birchmen — Mastodon
• That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate — Mission of Burma
• Hold My Life — The Replacements
• Prayer to God — Shellac
• Precision Auto — Superchunk
• Gun — Uncle Tupelo

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Sarah Gersh, multimedia producer

• Shot Through The Heart — Bon Jovi
• Motown Philly — Boyz II Men
• Footloose — Kenny Loggins
• Beggin’ — Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
• Scream — Michael Jackson
• Defying Gravity — Wicked
• Yeah — Usher
• Piece Of Me — Britney Spears
• Here I Go Again On My Own — Whitesnake
• Christina Aguilera — Dirtty

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Lindsay Bjerregaard, multimedia producer

• Buddy Holly — Weezer
• Punk Rock Princess — Something Corporate
• Stacked Actors — Foo Fighters
• Beating Heart Baby — Head Automatica
• Sweetness — Jimmy Eat World
• Time Is Running Out — Muse
• Strange Condition — Pete Yorn
• Nightingale — Saves the Day
• You’re So Last Summer — Taking Back Sunday
• The Best of Me — The Starting Line

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Stephen Markley, assistant producer

• Atlantic City — Bruce Springsteen
• Promised Land — Bruce Springsteen
• Backstreets — Bruce Springsteen
• My City of Ruins — Bruce Springsteen
• Drive All Night — Bruce Springsteen
• Youngstown — Bruce Springsteen
• How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times as These? — Bruce Springsteen
• Spirit of the Night — Bruce Springsteen
• Rosalita — Bruce Springsteen
• Darkness on the Edge of Town — Bruce Springsteen

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Eamonn Brennan, assistant producer

• Running Down a Dream — Tom Petty
• Smokestack Lightning — Yardbirds
• Paranoid Android — Radiohead
• Bros — Panda Bear
• Get Innocuous! — LCD Soundsystem
• Stray Cat Blues — Rolling Stones
• Ball and Biscuit — The White Stripes
• Hey — The Pixies
• Like a Rolling Stone — Bob Dylan
• Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat — Bob Dylan

Comments

[Tony]

Geronimo´s Cadillac - Modern Talking
Stolen Car - Sting

[Fred]

Nothing beats Adam Sandler's "Piece of S**t Car".

[Mart]

It looks like poor Kelsey may have some RAGE issues, from his list. It must be a result of all the negative comments he caused in the Prius Mileage debacle!

[woogie]

Why exactly is the cover for Rush's live album Exit Stage left used here when none of their songs are mentioned in the article?

Which would be Red Barchetta, by the way.

[B]

Where oh where is Gary Newman?

[Dave T.]

The blog post is about the cars.com top ten car songs of all time which Red Barchetta is on. You have to read the post and follow the link or click on the pciture.

[panic]

Dave, it is good to see that Fugazi and Clutch are getting some love.

[Lil'Tom]

Please tell me that Sarah Gersh is either 12 years old or lost some kind of bet. No offense.

How can you have a top ten list of car songs without the theme from Smokey and the Bandit ("East Bound and Down" by Jerry Reed). I also agree with B about Gary Numan and "Cars"

Horrible list - just horrible.

[Dave T.]

Guys,
You are going here right?
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&story=topSongs&subject=more

I don't know what happened to Cars or if it had an actual car name in the song or not. I don't think it does.

These other lists were just something fun to do for the blog to tie into the main story.

[woogie]

Then they should use the cover from Moving Pictures the album the song originally came from.

[Lil'Tom]

"Cars" doesn't mention a specific type of car but neither does "Drive My Car." "Low Rider" only mentions "the low rider" and "I can't Drive 55" doesn't mention a car at all.

[Ben Levy]

I don't get how you guys could put together this list without Gary Numan. You also missed one of my favorite car songs: Ludacris - Two Miles an Hour

That one was so good it was picked up by Pontiac for a commercial.