#DrivingMusic

Over the weekend I trekked out to my parent's house for Easter. It's an hour's drive, minimum, and the return trip took almost double that due to rain and, according to Apple Maps, an accident on the interstate.

I make the trip a fair amount, and I also visit friends or attend personal/professional appointment in the suburbs often. This, plus the airport runs for the travel this job requires, plus the occasional drive to Detroit for events, plus the fact that I can't adequately test a vehicle if it's just sitting in the garage -- this means I drive a lot.

Driving songs are an intensely personal thing and can be influenced as much by your taste in music as your preferred style of motoring. For some, nothing but the most frantic electronic dance music will suffice. Though others may find themselves requiring classic rock or hair metal to get into the groove – perhaps with a hint of vintage R&B for cruising. Whatever your particular brand of ear poison happens to be, there’s a good chance that your significant other won’t appreciate the noises coming out of the speakers as much as you do and may even resent the massive amount of attention you’ve given to your automobile generally.

Assuming you haven’t left that person already, and they have a decent sense of humor, there’s a song you absolutely must consider adding to your driving mix.

Back when I was doing the Los Angeles-San Francisco round-trip in various heaps, beaters, clunkers, and jalopies at least twice a month, I wore out several cassettes of Captain Beefheart’s masterpiece, Trout Mask Replica. No other album seemed quite so perfectly suited for that stretch of Interstate 5. Now Mr. Vliet is gone, forever.