3 Timeless Highway Songs That Will Make You Want To Hit the Open Road

Many highway songs are perfect for a road trip. However, the classic tunes here each distill the need we occasionally feel to get in the car and just start driving. No plans, and the only destination is wherever the road takes us. These songs are better loud, so crank them and try it with the windows down.

“Highway 61 Revisited” by Bob Dylan

U.S. Route 61 runs from Bob Dylan’s hometown in Duluth, Minnesota, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Writing in Chronicles, he says, “Highway 61 begins about where I came from.” Dylan fills the verses here with various characters—biblical Abraham, the king of France, and a roving gambler, to name a few—each searching for a solution to their problems. And each verse ends with the same destination, Highway 61. So, “Just take everything down to Highway 61,” says Louie the King to Mack the Finger. Like any great highway song, it offers the possibility of something better somewhere far away from here.

“Ramblin’ Man” by The Allman Brothers Band

Inspired by Hank Williams, the Dickey Betts-penned “Ramblin’ Man” remains a Southern rock standard. Betts sings, “And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus / Rolling down Highway 41.” But it’s also a kind of mission statement for any lifer in a rock and roll band. In Williams’s tune, the restless narrator can’t escape the allure of the open road. Not all outlaws are alike, but one thing they all have in common is the need to keep ramblin’ on.

“Born To Run” by Bruce Springsteen

This is one of the great escape anthems. Here, Bruce Springsteen describes a desire to get out of this boring town. To go anywhere but here because “tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.” He wants freedom: “Sprung from cages on Highway 9 / Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and stepping out over the line.” The hot rod poetry speaks to the power of release and the speed with which one finally escapes. It all feels dangerous and scary, but the idea of hope, of something better, makes “Born To Run” also feel like a hymn.

Photo by Charlie Steiner – Highway 67/Getty Images