I love night driving. There’s something incredibly meditative about going high speeds, wind in your face, alone on the open road. That ephemeral American allure of being able to pick up and leave, drive far in the night and start the dawn with a completely new life on a completely new day. You grab your keys, walk to the car, turn on the engine, roll down the windows, turn on the radio, and go.
and go
and go
and go
You go straight and as fast as you can, with no direction but away. Then a light comes on, the gas light. You pull over at a gas station, the white brightness destroying the secrecy of darkness and pulling you back from the solitude of motion on the open road. As the tank fills up you stand on that monument of civilization overlooking the empty expanse of highway and forgotten farmland you wonder what is keeping you going? What is your petrol?
Well, the short answer for me would be the radio. Not just because I’m a writer for and host of a radio station, but because when driving and going the radio keeps me grounded. The base feeling of night driving is nothing…the cliche’d blank canvas, but the radio. Sound, music, ideas, connection, that’s the paint.
Radio is about creating bonds, and that makes it perfect for night drives. The juxtaposition of this amazing invention to bring people together along with an action of severing all connections builds into the American experience, and in a larger sense, a human experiences. It’s the same experience I have when I am in the studio.
But more to the point, what are some good night driving songs? I have short list here:
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