Saturday, February 17, 2007

transportation songs: carry on

Are you a band or singer looking to better incorporate transportation planning into your songs? I bet we all are to some extent. Here's one easy suggestion: add directions to your lyrics! Take for example, the song Carry On by Common Rider which features directions to get from Berkeley to the place where my brother got married in addition to other locations along route 1 south of SF.

There ain't no dream like the one that's real
Ashby to Eighty
Eighty to the Bridge
Bridge down to One
Route One carry on
We ate the night up and we shot the big coast
'cause the shoreline makes a heart open like a rose

3 comments:

Andrew said...

marc,

this may prodive a useful guide to transportation songs:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/roadsong.htm#823

my favorite is cake's 'comanche.'

"If you want to have cities,
You've got to build roads."

-Andrew

Sara said...

It's a very good list, but in the interest of songs about trains as well, I must put in Liz Phair's "Baby Got Going," which includes such masterful lyrics as:

She gets mad when it goes too slow, so I'm beggin' you man
Keep a shovelin' that coal and let's roll!
Dinah, blow your horn!

You can Google the other lyrics.

marc said...

Cake is indeed one of the 'great bands' in terms of transportation songs. I'm going to have a full post specifically on Cake later on, highlighting their lifetime achievement for addressing transportation planning issues in song. Such songs include: wheels, long line of cars, carbon monoxide, alpha beta parking lot. I'm not familiar with comanche but that adds to the list.