7 SONGS ABOUT CAR CRASHES
We dedicated the May/June 2023 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine to the deep connections between music and cars, including several fun lists featuring your favorite car songs. Come back often or click the Music & Cars tag to stay up to date on these stories as they roll out online. You can also jam with our custom Music & Cars playlist on Spotify, available here.
Hard-partying musicians are certainly well represented among the millions who’ve died in car crashes, but perhaps none of the songs written about such accidents has been as eerily prescient as Jan & Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve.” A 1963 hit about a street drag race gone wrong, it echoed loudly in memory when, in 1966, band member Jan Berry drove his Corvette into the back of a parked truck not far from the dangerous corner whose legend he and partner Dean Torrence had helped to cement. Berry and the band’s career were never the same.
The pride of El Sobrante, California, Primus scored its first hit in 1991 with “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver.” Penned by the punk-funk band’s virtuoso bass-playing leader, Les Claypool, it concerns an “I’ll show them” type of guy who’s in over his head and meets his end driving an Oldsmobile 4-4-2 too fast after many too many beers.
Here are seven more hits about fender-benders—and worse.
Jan & Dean
“DEAD MAN’S CURVE”
Well, the last thing I remember, Doc, I started to swerve
And then I saw the Jag slide into the curve
I know I’ll never forget that horrible sight
I guess I found out for myself that everyone was right
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve
Sounds a lot like the automotive equivalent of “you’ll shoot your eye out!”
Ray Peterson
“TELL LAURA I LOVE HER”
He drove his car to the racing grounds
He was the youngest driver there
And the crowed roared as they started the race
‘Round the track they drove at a deadly pace
No one knows what happened that day
How his car overturned in flames
But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck
With his dying breath, they heard him say . . .
” . . . I probably should have eased into this whole racing thing. Maybe some SCCA Solo, or just a high-performance driving experience to see if racing was right for me.”
Dave Edmunds
“CRAWLING FROM THE WRECKAGE”(Graham Parker cover)
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Bits of me are scattered in the trees and on the hedges
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand new car
How’s about you crawl into that ambulance first? Then we can talk about a new car.
David Bowie
“ALWAYS CRASHING IN THE SAME CAR”
Every chance,
Every chance that I take
I take it on the road
Those kilometers and the red lights
I was always looking left and right
Oh, but I’m always crashing
In the same car
Maybe less looking left and right, and more eyes forward? Try that for a while.
Mark Dinning
“TEEN ANGEL”
Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe, but you went running back
PSA: Don’t tug on Superman’s cape. Don’t spit into the wind. Don’t mess with the Lone Ranger’s mask. And never, ever, crawl back into a car when a train is barreling down on it.
The Beach Boys
“A YOUNG MAN IS GONE” (about James Dean)
For this daring young star
Met his death while in his car
No one knows the reason why
Obviously, The Beach Boys don’t read Wikipedia, because it says exactly why right there.
They Might Be Giants
“MINK CAR”
I got hit by a mink car Hit by a mink car Driven by a guitar And the silver chauffeur says That it’s all in your head
Or . . . it might be in that toad you just licked.
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