10. Peter, Paul and Mary: 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' (1967)
In the days when air travel was epic enough to inspire hit songs.
This wistful John Denver ballad telling the story of an achy-hearted traveler’s sadness at leaving a loved one and not knowing “when I’ll be back again” is an anthem for long-distance love.
In these days of volcanic eruptions, striking air traffic controllers and passengers wearing explosive underpants, it could simply be a mundane tirade against the uncertainties of commercial flying.
Sad but apt fact: In one of popular music’s most apt demises, Denver died when his experimental plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
9. Gene Pitney: '24 Hours from Tulsa' (1963)
The face -- and respectful haberdashery -- of the Bible Belt booty call.
Clearly a song of its time, Gene Pitney’s hit is a tale of unexpectedly falling in love a day’s drive away from an existing relationship.
It wouldn’t happen today because the song’s protagonist would have hopped onto a budget airline and made the journey in a couple of hours -- although he could perhaps have squeezed in a mile-high quickie with the woman in seat 43a who was giving him those looks ...
Slightly tasteless fact: The Welsh hotel room where Pitney died of heart failure in 2006 was about 24 hours’ travel time from Tulsa.
8. Iggy Pop: 'The Passenger' (1977)
Looks like a chicken wing, sounds like a rock legend. Kudos.
Not to be confused with Elton John’s execrable 1984 song “Passengers,” or the 2003 album “Passenger” by Swedish nu metal band “Passenger,” Iggy’s restless punk anthem cleaves a ragged path through the dark heart of an unexplored urban landscape -- or at least it used to until it was appropriated (with lucrative results for Mr. Pop no doubt) to peddle cars, Guinness and cosmetics.
Sell-out fact: Apparently no longer content to be a passenger, Iggy himself -- old, wrinkled but still shirtless -- now advertises car insurance in the United Kingdom.
7. M.I.A.: 'Paper Planes' 2008
One song combines visa bureaucracy, drugs, the KGB and pre-paid Wi-Fi. Genius really.
Before you start hurling heavy objects at your computer screen, hear us out.
Yes, this might be a feeble attempt to keep this list current, but M.I.A.’s melodic mash-up of The Clash’s “Straight to Hell” and Wreckx-n-Effect’s “Rumpshaker” is about travel.
Sure, M.I.A.’s incoherent polemics on global oppression create as many critics as fans, and all the edgy stuff about visas and hustling on “Paper Planes” is somewhat undone by the misfiring irony of the song’s cartoon violence -- but there’s no avoiding the fact it was a solid platinum hit.
Undiplomatic fact: M.I.A.’s strident support for Sri Lanka’s Tiger Tamil fighters led to her being branded a “terrorist sympathizer” by the island’s government.
6. The Go-Go’s: 'Vacation' (1982)
And they sound even better than they look. Thankfully.
This splash of California sunshine unabashedly wallows in the giddy romance of a holiday fling without coming to terms with the fact that -- this being the 1980s -- he was just some sleazeball waiter who probably beds a different girl group every week.
Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin gets extra travel points for her 1985 solo single “Rush Hour” and her cameo in “Bill and Ted’s Big Adventure.”
Surprising subcontinental fact: Lead singer Belinda Carlisle now has a home in Goa, India.
5. Simon and Garfunkel: 'Homeward Bound' (1966)
Homesickness isn't so bad if it gets you a top 10 hit.
This great travel song celebrates the tedium of being stuck in a dead-end en route to somewhere slightly better, which as any passenger knows, is half the fun.
Another contender from S&G is “America,” veering off the beaten track to name-check the dreary destinations of Pittsburgh, Saginaw and New Jersey. “Homeward Bound” is a candid admission that being on the road blows and you’ve had enough. Boo hoo hoo.
Dirty fact: “Homeward Bound” was reputedly penned by Paul Simon after he was stranded for the night at Widnes station in England. Widnes’ only other significant export is pollution.
4. Bob Dylan: 'Tangled up in Blue' (1975)
Knowing what he's singing about isn't the point.
In truth you could conjure up a whole album of restless whines from the king of modern folk rock.
Tunes like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” inspired legions of disenfranchised youths to make tracks, even if no one really knew what Bob was on about.
There’s more clarity to be had from “Rolling Stone,” even if he resorts to harping on about “clowns and jugglers” yet again.
But nothing rivals the epic trans-U.S. poetry of “Tangled.”
Acting fact I: Dylan won an Oscar in 2006 for a song that featured on a soundtrack. Just as well, since his woeful attempts at acting would never make the grade.
3. Willie Nelson: 'On the Road Again' (1980)
On the road again ... when he's not being interrogated.
Country legend Willie Nelson doesn’t mess around with Dylanesque whimsy in this straightforward classic that does exactly what it says on the cover.
It’s called “On the Road Again” and it’s about being on the road again.
Hopefully Nelson isn’t driving though. After recent arrests for marijuana and magic mushroom possession, it’s perhaps better if one of his friends takes the wheel.
Acting fact II: Unlike Dylan, Nelson can act. Not that he needs to in movies like “Dukes of Hazzard.”
2. Bruce Springsteen: 'Born to Run' (1975)
Only The Boss could sing "Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims, And strap your hands across my engines" and still be cool.
On the face of it, a rollicking love song for a girl going by the unlikely name of Wendy, but in truth a desperate anthem about getting the hell out of nowheresville (in Springsteen’s case, Asbury, New Jersey), with the disaffected howl of “We gotta get out while we’re young, ‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.”
Career fact: A frustrated Springsteen recorded “Born to Run” as a final effort to hit the big time. Apparently it worked.
1. Steppenwolf: 'Born to be Wild' (1968)
If this travel anthem doesn't get you going, they're not singing about you.
The ultimate open-road song.
Steppenwolf’s full-throttled cover version would be a perfect check list for the rock ’n ’roll voyager, if having a check list wasn’t so un-rock ’n’ roll.
“Get your motor running” -- check. “Head out on the highway” -- check. “Looking for adventure” -- check ... you get the idea.
Mind you, it’s been so worn out over the years that the only people still listening to it are graying oldies whose checklist is more likely to include things like tummy pills, sensible shoes and a hernia truss.
Not-so-wild fact: Despite being classed as one of the first heavy metal bands, Steppenwolf were originally called The Sparrows. Doesn’t quite have the same ring does it?
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