(midtempo blues music) (static crackles) (gentle music) (static crackles) (midtempo blues music) - [Radio Host] You're listening to WPBS Sound Field, where we play all the best road trip music.

We've got a caller on the line.

Go ahead, caller.

- [Caller] Yeah, I have a question.

How do you know it's the best?

- [Radio Host] Pardon?

- [Caller] How do you know it's the best road trip music?

(midtempo blues music) - Well, as it turns out, we found the five things that make for the best road trip tunes.

Even though everyone has their own favorite song to drive along to, there are some classics that you can't deny sound like the open road.

♪ We gotta get right back to where we started from ♪ ♪ I've been through the desert on a horse with no name ♪ ♪ Baby, we were born to run ♪ - But these songs are all substantially different.

So what is the common thread between them?

And what other songs make for great driving?

Well, we found just that recipe.

And does your favorite road trip song match these criteria?

(uptempo music) The first element road trip music needs is its heartbeat, the rhythm of the road.

But these rhythms don't just match your vibe, they can match the car.

Listen to the rhythm a car makes driving over a crack in the road.

(car thumps) Now compare that to a blues shuffle.

(midtempo drums music) This is unique to the car.

A train, for example, has a straight rhythm.

(train wheels clacking) (car thumps) So it makes sense that some early songs about the highway featured this shuffle groove.

♪ I got the key ♪ ♪ To the highway ♪ ♪ Look down Highway 61 ♪ - [Arthur] And rock and roll would come from this blues tradition.

The driving groove that's in so many classic road trip songs traces its roots right back to that shuffle beat.

(midtempo rock music) ♪ Oh, babe ♪ - Classic road trip songs tend to rely on a 4/4 time signature with a strong backbeat.

(upbeat rock music) And it's not just the classics.

The driving backbeat is also what makes something like drum and bass good driving music.

(uptempo music) ♪ Baddadan, baddadan, baddadan ♪ - And it isn't just the rhythm of the road, it's also about speed.

Road trip songs tend to fall somewhere in the range of 100 to 140 beats per minute.

Studies have shown that the music you're listening to actively impacts your driving.

Unsurprisingly, faster tempo directly correlates to faster driving, but also music that is too slow can negatively impact your attention on long-distance drives.

So that 100 to 140 BPM tempo is fast enough to be energizing.

♪ Sweet home Alabama ♪ - But not quite the speed of action movie scenes.

(energetic music) They could even be slightly rushing.

Take "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire.

♪ Do you remember ♪ - [Arthur] It starts at 126 BPM.

♪ September ♪ - But ends closer to 129.

♪ Ba-dee-ya, dee-ya, dee-ya ♪ - This wasn't necessarily by design.

In the analog era, when songs were often played live in the studio and without a click track, it wasn't unusual for the tempo and timing of a song to drift.

(midtempo music) The third element we found for the best road trip music is nostalgia.

Songs for travel have been around practically forever.

Go way back to the 1800s, and you'll hear themes of journeying around the country in traditional folk song ballads.

♪ Bound to go ♪ ♪ 'Cross the wide ♪ - Giving way to work songs of the 1900s.

♪ I've got an old mule ♪ ♪ And her name is Sal ♪ - Even songs about cars go back way farther than you might expect.

One of the earliest odes to autos, Bill Murray's "In My Merry Oldsmobile," came a few years before the Model T made owning a car a reality for the average American.

♪ In my merry Oldsmobile ♪ - [Arthur] But it was in the 1940s that the modern road trip and its accompanying music would become mainstream in America.

With World War II cutbacks behind them, over half of US families owned cars.

That number would rise into the 1950s, and construction of the interstate highway system would begin to connect the farthest corners of the country.

Everyone was hitting the road.

♪ Get your kicks ♪ ♪ On Route 66 ♪ - And the road trip itself has become a symbol of nostalgia for mid-century Americana.

With rising gas prices and lower airfares, we're simply not road tripping as much.

By 2001, over 65% of US travel over 1,000 miles was by airplane.

So it makes sense that when folks are creating playlists, they're reaching back into that history.

And there's even new road trip music that is heavily steeped in this nostalgia.

♪ Saw your white Mustang ♪ ♪ 3A, didn't know you drove American cars ♪ - There was another artifact of the 20th century that played a big role on the sound of the highway, the car radio.

In the early 1950s, about half of American cars had installed radios.

But by the mid 1960s, that number had jumped to 80%.

A Britannica article by Christopher H. Sterling states, "This coincidental rise of portable radios and popular music content, combined with the diversion of most adults to television, transformed radio into a predominantly youth-oriented medium."

♪ Everybody's gone surfin' ♪ ♪ Surfin' U.S.A.

♪ - [Arthur] AM radio made what music you were listening to in the mid 20th century a regional experience of the USA.

♪ Goin' places that I've never been ♪ - [Arthur] So where you were might've played a role in what you were listening to.

♪ In my Tennessee mountain home ♪ - While the digital age means you can listen to pretty much any music anywhere, that doesn't mean there aren't sounds we associate with places, and those continue to show up.

♪ California girls ♪ ♪ We're unforgettable ♪ ♪ A cowboy always finds a way to leave ♪ ♪ There were some things ♪ - Obviously, not every road trip song comes from the mid-century.

♪ The dog days ♪ - [Arthur] The 2010s have recently entered the nostalgia party.

♪ The dog days are done ♪ - Which brings us to the next key element in any good road trip song, a catchy hook that's impossible not to sing along to.

♪ Whoa-oh, livin' on a prayer ♪ - So what does a song need to have a sing-along hook?

A simple melody and repetition.

For example, Miley says... ♪ It's a party in the USA ♪ - Eight times, twice per chorus, during the three-ish minute song, ensuring it'll get stuck in your head.

And it doesn't get much simpler than the trumpet, bah, bah, bah of "Sweet Caroline."

With roadside attractions and the ubiquity of the family car in America, the road trip became a family affair, so intergenerational music and musical activities are a must.

This has led to more unusual playlist entries.

Infectious disco and musical theater melodies might not seem like road trip numbers, but these earworms are impossible to ignore.

♪ Young and sweet, only seventeen ♪ ♪ Tell me something I don't know ♪ - Our sixth and final element of the great road trip song is what it says, its theme.

So many staples of a road trip playlist talk about the future, how life, like a road, is a journey.

♪ Life is a highway ♪ - And this, too, is a particularly American phenomenon.

As Jack DeWitt pointed out in "The American Poetry Review," "Compared to other countries, America is still pretty new," a sentiment he ties to what Walt Whitman says in his "Song of the Open Road," "The road is before us."

Road trip songs often sing of hitting that open road both as a metaphor for breaking free.

♪ Yeah, runnin' down a dream ♪ - And the literal road itself.

♪ Head out on the highway ♪ - American music tends to associate movement, the simple act of going, with freedom.

Freedom from responsibility, from worry, from the rest of the world.

♪ You got a fast car ♪ ♪ I want a ticket to anywhere ♪ - And these American ideas are not just in songs of the past.

♪ Don't forget the past when you check ♪ ♪ 'Cause she never looks back, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ And she can't go home ♪ - But just like everyone's route is different, everyone's backing track will be different, too.

So what's your favorite road trip song?

Do you have other criteria for the soundtrack of the open road?

Or maybe the real question is, what does driving off into the great unknown sound like to you?

(midtempo blues music ending)