Bunchland

Michael Rachap from Readeez treats us to a guest post

Music and cars: They go together like love and marriage, or marriage and kids, or kids and sleep deprivation, or…well, they go together.

I got my first car shortly after I turned 16. It was a third-hand 1970 Chevy Nova, and it frequently lived up to its name (“no va” = Spanish for “doesn’t go”). But it had a kickin’ stereo, which to me was all that really mattered. I’d pop in one of my home-brewed cassettes (“mixtapes,” I believe the kids now call them) and sit in front of my folks’ house, blissfully ruining my hearing.

Fast-forward to 2001, when as a sleep-deprived dad of a 2-year-old I discovered this:

At the time, I knew what most people knew about Woody Guthrie—that he wrote “This Land is Your Land” and a ton of other timeless folk songs. But learning that he also penned delightful kids’ songs (presumably for young Arlo) was a welcome surprise.

I sometimes bust out “The Car Song” for my toddler singalong at Eclectic Music, and I’ve also been known to perform Woody’s “Why Oh Why.” I’m still working to match this version of “Put Your Finger In The Air.”

There’s a nice collection of Woody’s kidstuff available at Amazon.

Of course, one can’t listen exclusively to music for children. Or I can’t, anyway. So here’s a grownup car tune from Wilco:

A great song from a great album, 1995′s A.M. You should own it.

Oh, and there’s a connection between Wilco and Woody apart from their love of automobiles: Woody’s daughter, Nora, enlisted Chicago-based Wilco and Brit Billy Bragg to finish and record some of her dad’s unreleased lyrics. The resulting Mermaid Avenue and its sequel went on to garner beaucoup kudos, and deservedly so.

So there you have it: two of the more than two million songs about cars. Fun, fun, fun!