Like any favoured car series, the Ford Mustangs is an expression of freedom, independence, luxurious enchantment and youthful exploration.
As an American creation, Mustang’s metaphorical symbolisms are layered even further, embodying ideals of wild, sunkissed opportunity, ambition, carefree potential and enviable status amongst drivers young and old.
We’ve collected some stand out pop and rock songs about Mustangs from the contemporary music era, each exhibiting their own unique twist on the all-American car, ranging from tracks about escaping a sour relationship, to songs devoted to the behicle itself.
Songs About Mustangs
1. Charlotte Pike – My Ole Mustang
Charlotte Pike’s nostalgic country pop single, My Ole Mustang, reminisces on a long-passed summer spent cruising the wild American landscape in a car as beloved as your partner .
Charlotte Pike entwines a stereotypical Southern man’s instinctive love for fully-fledged freedom, speed and adventure with a story of youthful escape, his lyrics about a woman almost translating perfectly over to the unbreakable love for your car;
“Me and my baby outrunning blue lights, I miss her so much, man, those were the days, in my ole Mustang.”
Pike textures his message of falling in love with allusions to personal progression, gaining life experiences and battling the lurking threat of disaster found amongst even the most breathtaking cars;
“She and I were born to run, we were young and wild, and we were learning to drive, we were falling in love, a tendency to get stuck in the mud.”
2. Lana Del Rey – White Mustang
Lana Del Rey’s 2017 dream-pop single, White Mustang, is washed with the ethereal despair of ‘falling in love’ before realising how shallowly your emotions truly run.
Rey’s Mustang metaphor uniquely depicts being enchanted by a person’s creativity and aesthetic, only to discover your bond isn’t all that it seemed; “Everybody said you’re a killer, but I couldn’t stop the way I was feeling the day your record dropped, the day I saw your white Mustang, your white Mustang.”
In her trademark fashion, Rey moulds her lyrics with mesmerising poetry, romanticising the bleaker moments of love with the passion of a honeymoon phase;
“I’ve been acting like armageddon ’cause you held me in your arms just a little too tight, that’s what I thought, summer’s meant for loving and leaving.”
3. Miley Cyrus – Mustang
This unreleased Miley Cyrus track, entitled Mustang, should have appeared on her iconic 2013 album Bangerz, but was cut for some easily diagnosable reasons.
This track hosts an array of questionable and undeveloped elements, including some strange, dead-end choices in its lyrics and melody, giving the impression of an unfinished demo which was simply abandoned somewhere after the first uninspired lyrical draft.
Produced by Pharell Williams, Mustang details the attraction to a boy who drives a classic Mustang, his car sparking interest and trance-like intrigue that otherwise might not have been felt;
“In your classic Mustang, make your driveway look like a picture frame, plus you got that nice leather with no stains, smell like daaang, will you take me for a spin?”
4. Alpha P – Mustang
Alpha P’s hip-hop / pop track, Mustang, interestingly layers its radio-style rap upon an emerging acoustic harmony, padded with trap inspired beats and uplifting melodies interspersing its rhythm-heavy ambience.
Alpha P works his song around the optimistic hope for a life swathed in luxury, his title turned into a metaphor for chasing and achieving your prolific ambitions; “Pray my first car be a mustang, I got rolly cars, ain’t a superstar, I’m a superstar, I got money now.”
5. Zella Day ft. Baby E – Mustang Kids
Zella Day & Baby E’s bluesy pop collab, Mustang Kids, captures the all-American ambience of the US car series to exhibit a message of reckless youth and untamed adventure.
This track recreates the disenchanted, late-teens / early-twenties mindset, the duo’s narrator detailing an attempted escape from hometown poverty which crashes, driving them ever-deeper into their careless, risk-taking behaviours;
“Small-town gang got nothing to do, we got guns, got drugs, got the sun and the moon, we got big-city plans but it always rains, and the sheriff is a crook and knows me by name.”
Day & Baby E embellish their lyrics with the innate freedom of being young and carefree, diverting the narrator’s tainted perception to finding peace from each unceasing burden plastering their life story;
“Mustang kids are out, rolling over hills and the roundabouts, black top, tambourine, playing for the girls in the back seats.”
6. The Commitments – Mustang Sally
This retro blues rock hit by The Commitments is a gritty take on beauty and high-speed relationships. Mustang Sally is composed like a lyrical intervention sprung upon a woman too adventurous and high-maintenance for her own good.
The Commitments’ underlying theme of classic rock meets classic car gives an ever-outlandish twist to their narrator’s endeavour to put the brakes on his woman;
“Mustang Sally, guess you better slow that Mustang down, you’ve been running all over town, I guess you gotta put your flat feet on the ground… All you wanna do is ride around Sally.”
7. Ashley Wall – Mustang
Ashley Wall’s shamefully obscure country pop/rock release, Mustang, is an undiscovered anthem about leaving your heartbreak behind you and embracing a new life of freedom on the open roads.
Threading her lyrics with an abundance of driving metaphors, Wall’s up-tempo track refuses to succumb to the painful onslaught brought by messy endings, her narrator instead cutting clean from the past and driving far from the misery she endures;
“I’m flying in my Mustang, cutting corners left and right, now you’re in my rear-view mirror… Dust kicking up, tire screeching sound, so much better than having you around.”
While fashioning a soundtrack for new singles and those fleeing their problematic past, one of Wall’s most stunning moments is spurred by the ever-ongoing battle between drivers and pedestrians, a subtle metaphor which rightfully puts the heartbroken narrator above and ahead of their manipulative ex;
“You thought this break up would slow me down, but it’s given me enough gas to get the hell out of this small town, don’t you come running back.”