The perfect camper van driving sound track? Music to journey to for ever and ever?
We would LOVE to know your favourite camper van and perfect driving tracks.
My huge list has been on my desktop for months and Ive finally got it whittled down to 30 tracks. They are in no particular order and I realise that it’s a mix of feeling up and energised and tracks to chill, driving as the sun going down but……….well hey!
There is huge slab of retro music here (some of these tracks were released before I was born) and I’ve left the wilder side of my listening off the list.
This is Michael’s list, Benjamins will be along shortly……….
Diamond day – Vashti Bunyan
Did ye get healed – Van Morrison
Vapour trail – Ride (or Trespassers William version is great too)
Driftwood – Travis
New Amsterdam – Elvis Costello
Get ready – Ella Fitzgerald
Tomorrow never knows – The Beatles
Swoon – Chemical Brothers
8 Ball – Underworld
Down by the water – The Drums
1990 – Jean Le Loup (Québécois 90’s pop is an acquired taste and I know it!)
Wouldn’t it be nice – The Beach Boys
I want that man – Debbie Harry (I once heard someone say ‘I wasted my teenage years trying to be Debbie Harry, which made me laugh)
South Africa – Roy Harper (this man is so good)
One man guy – Rufus Wainwright
Life in Technicolor II – Coldplay
Search for the delicious – Panda Bear
Light through the veins – Jon Hopkins
Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush (almost anything by Kate would be good)
It’s always been like this – Henrik Jose
Regntung day – Gjermund Larsen Trio
Lullaby of clubland (Jay Sinister Sealee remix) – Everything But The Girl (The Adapt or Die album is great camper van cruising music)
I guess the lord must be in New York City – Harry Nilsson
Alarm call (Phunk Your remix) – Bjork
Sound and vision – David Bowie
We share our mothers health – The Knife
Do you want to dance – Mammas and Pappas
Bubble – King Creosote and Jon Hopkins (unbelievably perfect – find the animation on YouTube)
Subterranean homesick alien or Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead (or almost anything by my man crush Thom Yorke)
Late october – Brian Eno and Harold Budd (or the album The Pearl which is the ultimate intelligent chill music)
Ok, your turn now……
Note: The 1970′s Devon conversion advert I collected from the internet somewhere.
As the radio/tape deck in our camper does nothing more than look pretty (and for that, read ‘ugly’) in the middle of the dash, our family has to sing to provide a musical backing to our travels. Our 3 and 5-year old girls love ‘Meeting Mr Miandad’ by the Duckworth Lewis Method (it has a campervan reference!) and also our very own version of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes’. This has verses tailored to our camper, such as ‘She’ll be driving Moominbus when she comes’, ‘She’ll be topping up the oil when she comes’, ‘She’ll be trying to find the gears when she comes’ etc etc. Last summer we drove our camper 650miles to the Isle of Skye…you can imagine how many times we repeated this particular playlist (and considered fixing the radio).
Ours has to ‘warm up’ otherwise it wont play. The customised songs sound cool (although I can imagine they might get a little less exciting after 650 miles!) Thanks for commenting!
My modern mixed tape for the road must include, “I’ll follow the Sun” and “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” by the Beatles, “Ventura Highway” by America and “No Matter What” by Badfinger. Sadly, I don’t have a Volkswagen camper van, but imagine these tunes would send me down the funky road nicely.
Thanks for the suggestions. We can hear the 70′s rock booming from your camper van!
After spending a very hot, very wet Christmas Day road tripping in Australia a few years back, the best campervan music (even though we were in a ’89 Holden Commodore) for us here is the Christmas album by Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton (on cassette, obviously)! Although the ‘Avenue Q’ soundtrack (“The internet is for porn!”) is very satisfying too.
Hurrah! A brilliantly quirky answer from the Dutch team! Kenny Rodgers and Dolly Parton on cassette, I’m not sure this is going to be surpassed……
John Denver on eight-track…?
(I’m not kidding, we actually do own this. It wasn’t my idea, but there you are)
Im not sure about surpassing your own suggestion but yes that is even more bizzare. Although to be be fair John Denver could actually sing and was cute in a 1970′s geography teacher kind of way.
And 8-track…I used to go in to a junk shop and they had piles and piles of 8 track cassettes (we are talking several hundred) and I always wondered who would buy them (this was in about 1990).
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Great list – I’d add Hurry on Sundown by Hawkwind.
Thanks Richard. We will have a listen to it on i-tunes.
Good stuff indeed. It has that ‘Im on the road and travelling for ever and ever’ feeling.
I did our campervan playlist on Spotify yesterday. Ruby came with a CD changer that reads mp3 discs, so I did a 5 hour long playlist to go on a disc for roadtrips. I may have to pinch some of your ideas too though! I should blog about our playlist too – thanks for the idea!
Wooo, that sounds great. Happy for you to pinch some of the playlist too!