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I wonder when the first song about cars was written. I'm guessing about half an hour after Henry Ford's pre-dawn test of his horseless carriage on the streets of Detroit in 1896. I mean, cars have become such a symbol of America - a complex symbol involving freedom of movement, exploration, masculinity, status, sex - that it was inevitable that we'd end up writing and singing about them.

Of course, some people made a cottage industry out of it. The Beach Boys used cars as part of their trilogy of songwriting tropes, along with girls and the beach. '"Little Deuce Coupe," "Little Old Lady From Pasadena," and "409" were just a few of the car songs that seemed ubiquitous in the 60s. These may not have been the Beach Boys' best songs, and maybe they were novelty songs, but there was a whole subgenre of tunes about cars.

Rock has been especially good with cars because both have grown to celebrate excess. My car is the fastest; my engine is the biggest; my song is the loudest and coolest. And the best car songs make it clear that the singer isn't just singing about his wheels. Deep Purple's "Highway Star" has been my fave since I was a kid, and it is still the perfect song about the open road, the big machine, and the fast girl.

Now, the image of the car has changed. Maybe it started with Gary Numan's 1979 hit "Cars," where the automobile is the last refuge of the insecure and the perhaps sociopathic. This is not the freedom of the open road; it's a place where you can lock all your doors and keep the world at bay. Yes, occasionally a song like Prince's "Little Red Corvette" will pop up (but that was already 26 years ago!), but these days, songs about cars seem to be more about the car as metaphor for environmental catastrophe, or a cry of willful defiance in favor of the singer's old pickup or new Escalade or whatever. Either way, it's become way too serious.

Tell us: Is the age of the great Car Song over? Do you have a favorite car song?
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