“Bill Taylor’s Top 10 Motorcycle Songs” |
| Bill Taylor’s Top 10 Motorcycle Songs Posted: 14 Dec 2010 10:40 AM PST Dec 14, 2010 Bill Taylor Special to the Star The trouble with putting together your Top 10 Car Songs, as Peter Bleakney did just last week (click here if you missed them), is that there are so many to choose from. How do you narrow it down? When it comes to two wheels, there are a lot fewer good tunes out there, especially if you eliminate the all-time cliché champion, Leader of the Pack, by the Shangri-Las. (Okay, if you really REALLY must, you can find a live version here.) Meantime, here's a selection of golden greats, one or two of which might be new to you: TERRY — By one-hit-wonder Twinkle, this was Britain's version of Leader of the Pack, released the same year — 1964 — and banned by the BBC because of the suicidal overtones. How could you not love a song where each verse ends, "Please wait at the gates of Heaven for me, Terry." VINCENT BLACK LIGHTNING 1952 — By Richard Thompson, the thinking man's Eric Clapton, this is a fabulous song in which boy gets girl and "fine motorbike," loses life, girl gets bike. Thompson knows his bikes, although when the rocker angels come for the hero, they're riding Ariels, of all things. Nanci Griffith does the harmony with Thompson on the version I like. (Incidentally, Nanci Griffith does one of my favourite car – or van – songs, Ford Econoline, here. BLACK LEATHER TROUSERS — Why do so many motorcycle songs end in tragedy? Recorded by the Cheers in 1956, this may have been the first, as it records the inevitable sad end of "the terror of Highway 101." I like Chris Spedding's 2005 cover (with instrumental shades of James Bond). (Bonus – we won't count this toward the total but it's something you can win bar bets with: French chanteuse Edith "No Regrets" Piaf recorded her own, surprisingly funky, version, L'Homme à la Moto, here.) JUST FOR KICKS — British TV and film actor, director and writer Mike Sarne had several hits in the '60s with novelty songs (a guilty secret now? He doesn't mention them on his website). This one, about "a burn-up on my bike is wha' I like," is cheerfully anarchic and doesn't have a sad ending. ROLL ME AWAY — is Bob Seger's 1982 paean to the open road, a hard-core biker anthem. Guy gets girl "and we rolled, we rolled clean outa sight." He loses her, of course, but "I headed off alone" and soon his heart is mended. A love song on several different levels. BAT OUT OF HELL — Written by Jim Steinman, one of the best rock lyricists ever, for the inimitable Meat Loaf and first heard in 1977, this tragic tale of a biker who rode "faster than any other boy has ever gone" is an almost operatic tribute to a whole genre. FUNKY MOPED — From the sublime to the ridiculous, British comedian Jasper Carrot's 1975 send-up tells of a guy who loses his girl to a "long-haired yob on a cycle." He vows revenge "as soon as me moped's front mudguard is fixed … tell him he'd better leave town." Funny and quite clever. LITTLE HONDA — Neither funny nor clever, this free ad for "a groovy little motorbike" still has something compelling about it. Originally a Beach Boys song released in 1964, the Hondells' cover isn't as good but I'm choosing it because of the amazing video. And the band's sweaters. UNKNOWN LEGEND — Can't leave out our own Neil Young's 1992 song about a girl who "grew up in a small town, never put her roots down … Somewhere on a desert highway, she rides a Harley-Davidson, her long blonde hair flyin' in the wind …" Does it get any better? THE MOTORCYCLE SONG — Generic title for Arlo Guthrie's "not the best song I ever wrote… I don't wanna pickle, just wanna ride my motorsickle … I don't wanna die, just wanna ride my motorcy…cle." First performed (I think) at Woodstock, it's really just an excuse for a shaggy-dog story about riding his motorsickle down a mountain at 150 miles an hour, playing his guitar, "when suddenly a string broke …" Humour at its sublime driest. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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