This question of the day has been elusive. I have had it climb into and out of my brain several times over the last couple weeks as I have been driving and listening to the radio. Basically, I’m asking you to recall one of the moments in your life as a gearhead that (I’m guessing) is seared into your brain. I want to know what the first song you listened to was after you got your license and went off on your first (legal) drive on your own. Mine? Soundgarden’s Burden In My Hand. Every time I hear that song I remember rolling the key over in my Monte Carlo, cranking the volume up to 11, looking at the fear on my mom’s face, and hurtling up the road with a newfound sense of freedom that is pretty much beyond words.
Since I know the BangShift readership spans many different age groups, we should have some pretty widespread answers to this question. I don’t think I am the weirdo that remembers that moment and relives it every time I hear the song because I have a feeling most of you out there in readerland do it as well. So…what’s YOUR song? I don’t mean the one that you and your girl dance to, I mean the one that you and your love affair with cars became official to. We’ve all got one….
HERE’S THE FIRST TUNE I ROCKED OUT TO IN THE CAR AFTER GETTING MY LICENSE AND LAYING RUBBER UP THE STREET AFTER DROPPING MY MOM OFF!
I don’t remember the first song as the car I drove after I first got my license had a really trashy radio, but I do remember one time my brother and I were driving around the Stone Mountain parking lot in the family minivan with the windows down blasting Rammstein just to see how many people would look at us funny.
On a related note, the squeeling tire effects in “Der Meister” can cause momentary panic while driving if the only speakers in your car are in the back.
I can’t remember what the first song was on Glen Campbell’s Galveston 8 track! But I do remember when I got my second 8 track tape, “McCartney”, still one of the best albums.
Not sure if it was the first song, but I can vividly remember bombing along the gravel back roads (because my parents didn’t want me driving on the highway yet) on my way to school in their ’85 Caprice, blasting AC/DC Back in Black on the cassette deck. It was an amazing feeling.
Your So Vain Carly Simon…8 track
I don’t remember for certain but I would guess it was a Doors song since I had that cassette.
The year was 1975. 1961 Ford Falcon, 4 door, 3 on the tree no less.
8 track. Ted Nugent first solo album after parting ways with the
Amboy Dukes, and it was real smokey inside the Falcoon!!!
( Hint it wasn\’t engine smoke) YIKES!!!
Afternoon Delight by the supergroup Starland Vocal Band.
I’m pretty sure it was I’ll supply the love by Toto. My ’73 Gran Torino only had an AM radio at the time so the only decent station was 93KHJ in L.A. I remember that drive like it was yesterday. I drove from our house in Newport to my friends house in Dana Point down Pacific Coast Highway on a Saturday morning.
September 1986
Slayer – Hell Awaits
On Cassette…
Funk 49, James Gang. On 8 track of coarse. 1960 Country Sedan none the less.
The song “Jungle Love” by Steve Miller stands out in my head. May or not have been “the” first but was high on the list.
May 1972, schools out, Alice Cooper, blasting out of stock radio in a 64 Falcon. That song still makes me smile and amaze’s the grandkids when I turn it up full in my truck!
It was Dec. 76\’ and I put the Doobie Brothers Captain and Me tape in the cassette player of my Red 73\’ Gran Torino..I dont remember what song played first, but I do remember doing my first burn out about 20 minutes into my first day of driving alone..
Don’t know the song, but the same day I bought my first car (68 Charger) I also bought an FM Converter so I didn’t have to listen to AM. It was summer 1972.
Supertramp, Crime of the Century on 8 track, in Roger’s moms Hornet, pale yellow, four doors, automatic six. A real chick magnet!
Anybody here under 60? Anybody?
Yeah, the one at the top, listens to Rammstein
Lol, yeh no shit.
Great question.
Probably Boston – More Than a Feeling as the AM radio was pretty-much playing it every twenty minutes at the time. Was all good.
Later when I’d blown the big bucks for a Radio Shack under-dash cassette, Nazareth Close Enough for Rock n’ Roll ruled it’s little transistors for some time.
I’m 44
My Model T didn’t have a radio. You whipper snappers are ruining everything! Cars shouldn’t have radios! Too distracting! Focus on the road you punks!
We drove with no music, and we liked it!!!
January 1969, AM radio in a “62 Impala, hadta been Indy’s WIFE, which means anything from ABB to the Stones, Beatles, MOTOWN, Sly, or LZ. When I finally got an 8-track I’m pretty sure it was CCR, probably Green River, oh man though, coulda been Grand Funk Live. Yeah, I’m waay past 60, but pop a top, roll-em fat, crank it up and I’ll still be here in the morning when the children are wakin’ up wondering . . . “whaaat just happened?”
Great topic, Brian.
RATT. Round and Round. Full blast on my FM converter equipped 73 Malibu. Remember that night like yesterday. I also pegged the speedo about 3hrs after getting my license. 120 I think. 1984.
1973 El Camino small block with a 4 speed and LOUD exhaust.The year was 1998. The song was Im From The Country by Tracy Byrd. Gotta class it up in the El Camino. Did I mention I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago? I was a little out of place.
Aerosmith “Sweat Emotion”.
May ’99, I had the song picked out and waiting. I thumped Rob D’s “Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino remix) and other instrumental electronic stuff as I cruised around Academy Boulevard in my grandfather’s 1998 Dodge Intrepid later on at night. That was a high I didn’t come down off of for a week straight.
that would be Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith.
Eagles, \”Hotel California\”
Mustang Sally in my ’63 Studebaker Lark.
327 4 speed ’55 Chevy I built while waiting to turn legal driving age. Led Zep Physical Graffiti on the 8 track
I can’t remember that exact deal – but Beach Baby was on the radio when I hit the road in the Falcon heading down to Galveston that summer after graduation. Still a favorite and all I have to do is close my eyes..and there we are. That’s KFJZ-AM, the Big 1270!
Not so much a song, but first 8 track tape played in my 65 Mustang with a hand me down Kraco 8 track player (thank you grandpa Sid) was Boston’s first album. Wore out 2 of those puppies….