Summer is approaching and soon many will embark on road trips across the states. On every great road trip, of course, is great music to listen to as the lines in the road move by. One year, two of my friends and I travelled from Central Florida to Ohio, only to realize we had one CD to listen to the entire trip: Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever. It was fun for awhile, but as we grew sleepy along the mountainous roads in the higher ends of the Southern US, we threw the CD into the trunk, never to be listened to again. I wish then, from my experience of being able to quote “Running Down a Dream” to you at any moment (great song, by the way), is to propose some great soundtracks for the road.
The key thing here is that soundtracks enhance the visuals on screen. Listening to them in the car also enhances the visuals, i.e. the beautiful landscape around you or the assholes swerving through traffic on the highway. I remember another incident where I listened to Hans Zimmer’s Black Hawk Down on a trip and my friend in the passenger seat commented, “This music makes me feel like something bad is about to happen.” It was an early lesson for me about the power of music to modify our sense of expectation and mood, and here I’ve chosen two albums that lend themselves to adventurous and enjoyable driving music.
The Pirates of the Caribbean by Klaus Badelt
Ages ago, I drove four other high-schoolers on a four-hour trip to Orlando to see the Drum Corps International competition with this CD on my playlist. While listening to this album we felt like adventurers and it enlightened the mood of the stretching and curving turnpike through Florida as the cities and thin forests passed by. It may cause you, at times, to put your foot to the metal when a neutral-colored sedan gets in your lane and slows down, but it’s lots of fun.
Listen:
Beetlejuice by Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman’s break-out hit, Beetlejuice is a raucous, fun soundtrack of immense personality and color. The charm and life that the music creates keep the eyelids open on a long drive while offering plenty of unique moods and emotions to have passengers going-on with stories like a gaggle of hens. Not to be missed on a road trip with friends.
Listen: