Today’s iPod playlist was all motorcycle-related songs.
The Other Kind, Steve Earle
I’m back out on that road again, turn this beast into the wind
There are those that break and bend, I’m the other kind
I’m the other kind
See, it used to be I was really free, didn’t need no gasoline to run
Before you could say Jack Kerouac and turn your back, I’d be gone
Yeah but nowadays I got me two good wheels
And I seek refuge in aluminum and steel
It takes me out there for just a little while
And the years fall away with every mile
The Motorcycle Song, Arlo Guthrie
I don’t want a pickle, I just want to ride on my motorsikkle!
I don’t wan’t a tickle, I just want to ride on my motorsikkle!
I don’t want to die, I just want to ride on my motorcy…….cle!
Bat out of Hell, Meatloaf
I’m gonna hit the highway like a battering ram, on a silver and black phantom bike
When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry, and we’re all about to see the light….
I can see myself, tearing up the road faster than any other boy has ever gone
And my skin is rough but my soul is ripe
Ano ones gonna stop me now, I gotta make my escape
But I can’t stop thinking of you
And I never see the sudden curve til it’s way too late
No I never see the sudden curve til it’s way too late
Then I’m dying on the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun,
Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell
And the last thing I see is my heart, still beating and breaking out of my body
And flying away like a bat out of hell
New Sensations, Lou Reed
I took my GPZ out for a ride
The engine felt good between my thighs
The air felt cool, its was 40 degrees outside
I rode to Pennsylvania near the Delaware gap
Sometimes I got lost and had to check the map
I stopped at a roadside diner for a burger and a coke
There were some country folk and some hunters inside
Somebody got themselves married and somebody died
I went to the juke box and played a hillbilly song
They was arguing about football as I waved and went outside
And I headed for the mountains feeling warm inside
I love that GPZ so much, you know that I could kiss her
Ghost Rider, Rush
(of course, the whole song is about motorcycling, so here’s an excerpt I especially like):
Sunrise in the mirror, lightens that invisible load
Riding on a nameless quest, haunting that wilderness road
Like a ghost rider
Just an escape artist, racing against the night
A wandering hermit, racing toward the light
From the white sands
To the canyon lands
To the redwood stands
To the barren lands
Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory on suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line….
…baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real
Unknown Legend, Neil Young
Somewhere on a desert highway, she rides a Harley-Davidson
Her long blonde hair flyin in the wind
She’s been runnin half her life
The chrome and steel she rides, colliding with the very air she breathes
The air she breathes.
Motorcycle Mama, Neil Young
Motorcycle Mama, won’t you lay your big spike down
Motorcycle Mama, won’t you lay your big spike down
I always get in trouble when you bring it round
Motorcycle Mama, won’t you lay it down.
I’m runnin’, I’m runnin’, I’m runnin’, down the proud highway
Yeah, I’m runnin’, I’m runnin’, I’m runnin’ down the proud highway
And as long as I keep movin’ I won’t need a place to stay.
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OK, readers, what else have you got? Any other good ones I’m missing?
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