There were 6,328,000 car accidents in 2003. These accounted for 2.9 million injuries and 42,643 deaths related to auto crashes. Almost 60 percent of children, age 14 and under, who die in motor vehicle accidents were unrestrained. So buckle yourself and your kids up! This playlist contains songs about car accidents. A tragic theme to be sure, but one that started way back in the 1950’s with the popular “teenage tragedy” story.
Many times it was love itself, which drove the teenage lover to their death in these songs as in Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I Love Her”, the tragic love story of Laura and Tommy. His love for Laura is the driving force behind Tommy entering a stock car race for a $1000 prize. Just enough to buy the engagement ring for his beloved Laura. Needless to say Tommy made the wrong decision.
Also, in the classic “Teen Angel” a teenage couple’s car stalls on the railroad tracks. The boyfriend returns to the car for school ring and is killed by the oncoming train. So again, it was love represented by a ring that caused these horrible car accident deaths.
These car wreck tragedies continued through the decades. Some of the most disturbing broke from the traditional storyline.
The Normal broke onto the underground scene in the 80s with the creepy “Warm Leatherette” whose lyrics painted chilling images in the mind of the listener.
Is in your eye
The hand brake
Penetrates your thigh
Quick - Let's make love
Before you die”
The Sugarcubes also contributed to the car crash genre with the stream-of-conscious lyrics found in 1988’s “Motorcrash”.
Saw the injured parents
Cuts on the children
An awful motorcrash
So dangerous motorcrash
So terribly bloody
Motorcrash”
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Douglas Mays
Well then, there is always "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangrilas. OK, motorcycle wreck...
2 - Douglas Mays
Oh man, there it is. #21 on the list. Sorry folks, I'm foggy and in need of coffee.
3 - HW Saxton
"I Want My Baby Back" by Jimmy Cross is
the funniest and sickest car crash tune
that I know of.It's about a couple that
are coming home from a Beatles concert.
They swerve to avoid the Leader Of The
Pack and wipe out on a rainy highway.
The guy misses his girl so much after
she dies in the wreck that he digs her
up and crawls into the coffin with her.
As the song ends you hear some creaking
coffin hinges & what sounds like a guy
singing from inside the coffin. Sickass
tune but funny if you hear it.It must be
heard to be appreciated. Also there's a
song called "Car Crash" by a 50's R & B
group called The Cadets (they did a song
"Stranded In The Jungle" that was remade
by the NY Dolls on their 2nd LP)that has
this guy crying pitifully throughout the
song for the whole duration.It is funny
in a morbid way and is a spoof of other
1950's car wreck tunes like Teen Angel,
etc.
4 - SphinxMontreal
With regards to #8 on the list, "Last Kiss", J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers performed the original in the early 60's. The song was written by Wayne Cochran before Eddie V. was even born.
Just giving credit where credit is due.
5 - Mark Saleski
Detroit Rock City
Hot Rock Lincoln
(no, wait...no accident there, i think the driver got arrested..)
6 - Robert Burke
I am quite aware of who wrote "Last Kiss" but that version is not available on Rhapsody thus the Pearl Jam verison is used so that it can be heard for those who wish to do so.
7 - Taloran
1952 Vincent Black Lightning, by Richard Thompson. A wonderful, sad and mournful tune about love, motorcycles and death. From the album Rumour and Sigh.
8 - Antfreeze
You missed a great one. Thunder Road, sung by Robert Mitchum. Killer. Highway 101 is the king of the motorcycle wreck songs. These are probably before everyone's time, even mine.
9 - Antfreeze
Actually not Highway 101. It's called Black Denim Trousers. I've found both these on the net. Both should be heard, they flat rock.
10 - JR
Don't see my all-time favorite Brian Setzer song: "Drive Like Lightning (Crash Like Thunder)".
11 - Mark Saleski
what about Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On"?
(every time i hear it i want to drive my car into a tree!)
12 - Al Barger
Double thumbs up on the Porter Wagoner. That song came out when I was about 10, and it messed my little world up for years.
You definitely need Roy Acuff singing "Wreck on the Highway."
Also, you could put together a sub-section or even a separate disc with just the motorocycle crash songs. "Leader of the Pack" and "Vincent Black Lightning" of course. But also, you gotta have "Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die." I bet there are a bunch more.
Then there's Bloodrock and "DOA." Is that a car crash or a plane crash, though?
13 - JR
Also:
"Don't Pass Me By" - The Beatles
"Then Came the Last Days of May" - Blue Oyster Cult
"That Smell" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Terminus El Dorado" - Ted Nugent
14 - Nick Jones
I think D.O.A. is about a plane crash - "We were flying along, and hit something in the air".
15 - HW Saxton
JR,"Then Came The Last Days Of May" by
B.O.C is about a couple of guys getting
set up and killed in a drug deal out in
the desert,not a car wreck. "That Smell"
is about OD'ing on drugs.
16 - godoggo
Riding With Mary, by X.
What the heck, here are the words:
they can't go to sleep at four the car is parked outside the door scars of a knife on his arm her husband knows they're together riding with mary protection to pass riding with mary protecting immaculate love rows of numbered doors behind the car warms up, the street is clear and empty and green with lights they talk and never stop moving he's sounding her name in his head she's falling asleep next to his face her sister's getting married today and the saints of easter smile on the dashboard rides a figurine a powerless sweet forgotten thing so the next time you see a statue of mary remember my sister was in a car
17 - godoggo
On a lighter note, who did that Dr. Demento song Transfusion, "I'm never ever ever gonna speed again..." ?
18 - ClubhouseCancer
Burma Shave:
And the spider-web crack and the mustang screamed.
Smoke from the tires and the twisted machine.
Just a nickel's worth of dreams every wishbone that they saved
Lies swindled from them on the way to
burma shave.
And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat-wing shadow
Up against the car door on the shotgun side.
And when they pulled her from the wreck you know she still had on her shades.
They say that dreams are growing wild just this side of burma shave.
Tom Waits
19 - JR
HW Saxton: JR,"Then Came The Last Days Of May" by B.O.C is about a couple of guys getting set up and killed in a drug deal out in the desert,not a car wreck. "That Smell" is about OD'ing on drugs.
Yeah, I've always been a little unclear on the BOC lyrics. Your interpretation makes sense.
In "That Smell", see the line, "Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars/Oak tree you're in my way".
20 - Robert
Great comments. I guess it's a matter of degree on whether a song can be included or not.
I included "Blasphemous Rumours" by Depeche Mode for example, which is really about anger at God for bad things that happen in life, but one lyric talks about a teenage girl being hit by a car so it mad the grade.
Not sure about "That Smell" althought the lyric "Oak Tree you're in my way" hints at an accident nowhere is one specifically mentioned.
21 - eric
i was wondering if n e of you knew the title/artist of that song, my god i cant even remember the lyrics, but its about this bf and gf who get in a car accident and the girl is dieing and the guy is singing about how horrible it is, i think its older, but its really good, i think its something like the night the lord took my baby form or something, idk please help if you can
22 - brian richkel
Just to be nitpicky. It's the girlfriend, not the boyfriend who dies in teen angel. And for my fellow rt fans, the hero of Vincent Black Lightning dies of a shotgun blast to the chest, not a motorcycle crash. Great list though. Another great dead-teenager song is Ebony Eyes by the Everly Bros. It's a plane crash song. I'm still not sure about what happened in D.O.A. but boy is it creepy!
23 - Mike
Great list- But there are some others that deserve at least an honourable mention:
1) Pile-Up On the Highway by Lisa Bade from 1978, covered by Grace Jones in 1980 2) No Return by The Third Rail (Joey Levine's group) 1966 3) Hello, This is Joanie by Paul Evans 1978 (Charted) 4) Chicken by the Cheers 1957 5) Rocky's Girl by David Geddes 1978 6) Come to Me Johnny by Johnny Victor 1960, 7) I Want My Baby Back by Jimmy Cross 1964 (Mentioned Previously) 8) Transfusion by Nervous Norvus 1956 (Top-10 Charted)(Mentioned previously) 9) The Beginning of My End by The Unifics (Top 20 Charted) 1968 10) Two Hour Honeymoon by Paul Hampton 1960 11) Message from James Dean by Bill Hayes 1955-6. 12) Car Crash by the Cadets 1958 (Mentioned previously) 13)Burma Shave by Tom Waits (mentioned previously.)
There are many others not cited, (177 more not mentioned on this page that I've documented), but most were obscure one-indie-45 artists or flip sides.
Regarding "Crawling from the Wreckage" by Dave Edmunds, it is on my list as well, but the "wreckage" is only a metaphor for a ruined relationship. It is "wreckage" by title only.
Regarding "D.O.A." by Bloodrock: I have always recognized this one as being a surreal reference to drunk or high driving. The "flying along" is a drug and/or alcohol reference, while the "...hitting something in the Air" refers to an hallucigenic swerve.
Also, the entire "Bat Out of Hell" LP by Meat Loaf was created when he and Jim Steinman were wanting to create the "ultimate car crash fetish (album)," according to Steinman.
Great list, just wanted to add some essentials deserving recognition regardless of their online availabilities.
24 - Mike
Gotta at least mention one of those "indie" 45s that never went anywhere. It was by Les Art and the Dancsters on Fraternity Records about 1982, titled "I Wanna Die (In a Rockabilly Auto Wreck)" It was one of the best, but only a couple hundred were pressed.
25 - Steve
Check out "The Road to Mingus" by John Clay and the Lost Austin Band. A recording ca. 1975 can be heard at:
http://www.jhfarr.com/farrsound/
not the best acoustics but a brilliant example of the genre from a neglected genius.