From songs devoted to a man’s love for mechanics, to tracks about fleeing a past lover’s horizon, our list of songs about cars and driving crosses the eras and covers it all, each piece anchored in a unique metaphor for finding freedom, independence and peace elsewhere.
Songs About Cars And Driving
1. Tracy Chapman – Fast Car
Tracy Chapman’s 1989 hit single, Fast Car, details the dream of escaping poverty through a metaphor for high-speed movement;
“You got a fast car, I got a plan to get us out of here… Won’t have to drive too far, just ‘cross the border and into the city, you and I can both get jobs and finally see what it means to be living.”
Crafted around a timeless acoustic riff, Fast Car captures the true feeling of freedom, escaping from the past into a fresh new world with the person you love, despite the misfortune that lingers in your path;
“Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk, city lights lay out before us, and your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder, and I had a feeling that I belonged, I had a feeling I could be someone.”
2. Madness – Driving In My Car
Madness’ 1982 hit, Driving In My Car, is worked around an array of quirky mechanic samples and sound effects amplifying their lyrical theme of loving a beaten down and breaking car.
This pop track captures a man’s sentimental inability to let go of a vehicle that’s well past it’s time, carrying comedic flairs in every line;
“I bought it in Primrose Hill from a bloke from Brazil, it was made in fifty-nine in a factory by the Tyne, I drive in it for my job, the governor calls me a slob, but I don’t really care, give me some gas and the open air.”
Driving In My Car is an anthem for any driver that doesn’t need extravagance to feel content; “I drive up to Muswell Hill, I’ve even been to Selsey Bill, I drove along the A45, I had her up to 58… I like driving in my car, I’m satisfied I’ve got this far.”
3. Harry Styles – Keep Drving
Harry Styles’ 2022 album track, Keep Driving, conjures the ambience of a midsummer road-trip with a lover, matched with young, wild-hearted dreams of escape.
Listing an abundance of aesthetic scenes surrounding driving, companionship and adventure, this track’s sunbeamed soundscape stylistically wavers upon the line, “A small concern with how the engine sounds,” before resuming its upbeat nature after the question, “Should we just keep driving?” – artfully reflecting the way long drives can dissolve all sense of turmoil, as you leave your troubles behind in the dust.
4. Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
Snow Patrol’s 2006 indie rock hit, Chasing Cars, metaphorises a dog’s pastime of chasing cars for fruitless but comforting escapism from the truth of love.
Illustrating a couple who can’t admit their inner emotions to each other, this track masterfully details hope kept for a future they can’t yet face; “Show me a garden that’s bursting into life … I need your grace to remind me to find my own.”
Chasing Cars is a piece for anyone soaking into the person they need the most, whilst hiding this truth from them; “All that I am, all that I ever was, is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see … If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
5. Roxette – Sleeping In My Car
Roxette’s vintage glam rock/pop track, Sleeping In My Car, is anchored in lust and fleeting relationships, switching the usual men’s metaphor of picking up dates in a car with a refreshing female perspective.
Sleeping In My Car is doused in innuendo and sultry parallels between riding and car-sleeping, fashioning a song for any woman spurred by a sense of adventure; “So come out tonight, I’ll take you for a ride, this steamy ol’ wagon, the radio is getting wild, baby, we’re moving so fast.”
6. Clean Bandit & Topic ft. Wes Nelson – Drive
This three-way pop collab between Clean Bandit, Topic and Wes Nelson compares the wild rush of driving to the feeling of falling in love; “When you find a love that’s right, you can drive all night, do what makes you feel alive, you can drive all night … ‘Cause the road’s calling.”
With string sections threaded throughout its soft, club ambience, Drive not only relates to those driving long-distance to meet their lover, but also to those outrunning past misery in order to rekindle romance with an ex again;
“You got me running away from our history, and through the darkness, I can see you and me.”
7. The Cars – Drive
The Cars’ 1984 single, Drive, embeds its title lyric as a metaphor for evading your inner loneliness in the wake of a break up; “Who’s gonna hold you down when you shake? Who’s gonna come around when you break? You can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong, who’s gonna drive you home tonight?”
Centred in a heavy, dream-stained atmosphere glimmering with synths, bongos and that classic ‘80s wash of reverb, Drive is a song shaped for those fighting their demons without taking the time to accept them first.
8. Gary Numan – Cars
Gary Numan’s pioneering new wave single, Cars, is an eccentric take on the topic of driving, highlighting the solitude of a car’s space, alongside the idea of having a personal bubble, “Here in my car I feel safest of all, I can lock all my doors, it’s the only way to live, in cars.”
Numan’s groundbreaking debut single is “built around analogue synthesisers, with no guitar,” which was almost unheard of at the time of this track’s 1979 release; a signature art style which Numan dubbed, ‘Machine Music.’
9. Everyone You Know – The Drive
This hip-hop/pop track by Everyone You Know comes from the perspective of low-time criminal youths fleeing the law. Founded in hoodrat recklessness and contempt for society, The Drive is a track for anyone using their car to gain female attention as well as the police’s;
“Giving boys that we don’t like lip, in a 4 seater car but we’ve squeezed in 6, Eric’s in the backseat rolling a spliff, if we get pulled over then we’re all getting nicked but, the blue lights just drove straight past us, turn up the tunes and move the car faster… none of us will ever learn.”