Dani California by RHCP
Hotel California by the Eagles
Go to California by Rob Zombie
California Love by 2Pac and Dr. Dre
California Uber Alles by DKs
Going to California by Zep
San Francisco (Wear Flowers In Your Hair) by Scott Mackenzie

Not sure what you mean by #3, to be honest.

The cross country trip makes me think immediately of Holiday Road by Lindsey Buckingham - from the National Lampoon's Vacation soundtrack and I've Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash.

Also, I tend to have certain songs in my mind (i.e. A lot of 60s and 70s songs like One Toke Over the Line and I Wasn't Born to Follow and such are etched in my mind as 'traveling' songs due to seeing them in movies about traveling). Those connections are mostly mine tho.

Road to Ensenada by Lyle L. (of course).

Graceland by Paul Simon (not the right locale, but the road trip/movin' on feelings are all there, in spades).

Golden by My Morning Jacket (or check out the whole album, It Still Moves).

Passion: Sdtrk to The Last Temptation of Christ by Peter Gabriel (wholly personal choice, but I'm from N.M. and this soundtrack really captures the bleak deserty feel).

Grand Canyon Sdtrk by (I think) James Newton Howard (a little synth heavy, but there's some good 'wide open spaces' feeling in it. Skip the rock song in the middle though, for certain.)

Take Me Home by P. Collins (for the 80s geek in you).

White fuckin' Rabbit by J. Airplane (which you can't go to SF and not listen to, for real).

Edited to include reader-friendly spaces. Lord.



Edited at 2008-04-01 04:32 am (UTC)

The Whitlams - Beautiful as You (despite the track name is has a travel feel to it for me)
The Mountain Goats - First Few Desperate Hours (this one REALLY makes me think of moving house etc)
John Denver - Take Me Home Country Roads
Dixie Chicks - Wide Open Spaces

That's about all I'm good for, and I can't guarantee you'll like any of them, but I tried :)

There's this song I heard last time I was out in San Francisco that I really liked. If you like rock kinda music, there's a great radio station out there called KFOG. I think it's 104.5. They have an awesome mix of classic rock and contemporary rock. Anyway, the song is called San Francisco Days by Chris Isaak

I'm surprised no one's hit up B-52's Roam.

You only need to bring one song with you on your trip, and play it on continuous loop:

I LIKE TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT.
I LIKE TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT.
I LIKE TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT.
YA LIKE TO... MOVE IT!

counting crows -r ecovering the satellites esp long december

it would be remiss if i didn't also recommend a greatful dead album like american beauty or workingman's dead - whichever one has trucking on it, or casey jones. hell, get both.

Around the Bend is excellent road trip music. I will try to think of some more.

Me and Bobby McGee is all I can think of atm.

emmylou harris and alison krauss are the more contemporary country artists who i think are most reflective of the ones you've mentioned. so good.

i have a million road mixes. here's one i think you'd especially like:

see clearly - ellis
you can sleep while i drive - melissa etheridge
magnolia street - catie curtis
road buddy - dar williams
fast car - tracy chapman
big yellow taxi - joni mitchell
traveling thru - dolly parton
every state line - ani
volvo cowgirl - sheryl crow
wide open spaces - dixie chick
vaulted heart - libby kirkpatrick
traveling again - dar williams
power of two - indigo girls
ol 55 - sarah mclachlan
drive - melissa ferrick

I'm trying to remember what I put on a travel CD for a drive a few years back

Long Way by Antje Duvekot
Traveling Again by Dar Williams
Midnight Ghost by the Kennedys
On Any Given Day by Carbon Leaf

I can send you any of these that you want (or, since I'd like to meet you in person at song point, burn you a CD to give to you.)

Plus a random selection of really upbeat songs that are fun to sing along to, and a few great rock tunes, to help keep your speed up ("Radar Love" is, I believe, the classic "I'm sorry officer, how fast was I going?" song).

I'll upload some stuff for you. I have a choice few "road songs" / rooted in Americana type stuff... "California Stars" comes to mind, written by Woody Guthrie, interpreted by Wilco and Billy Bragg.

Someone recommended My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves album .. YES. That album sounds like a slow train coming.

Haunted country/rock singer Gram Parsons of course is rooted in the myth of Joshua Tree and the desert ... Lucinda Williams does a GP cover called Return of Grievous Angel, the ultimate road song, and her interpretation is stunning.. the lyrics are

"Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, and I remember something you once told me
And I'll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

`Cause I headed West to grow up with the country
Across those prairies with the waves of grain
And I saw my devil,
and I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet from
Cheyenne to Tennessee"

Dylan comes to mind immediately as well. He always created himself as a drifter .. he has a song called California; I haven't heard it, but the lyrics are certainly inspiring .. http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/songs/california.html

You may want to make a tape entirely of Dylan. Talking New York Town, Tangled up in Blue, Highway 61, 115th Dream, Nashville Skyline Rag.

Oh yeah! Joni Mitchell's Blue album is ESSENTIAL. She has beautiful, beautiful song entitled California, but you must have the entire album.

Back to Dylan, he has brilliant musical taste in the tradition of what he calls "old, weird America" ... on his XM radio show, he devoted a theme to California; check this page out for a lot of inspiration -- http://www.thebobdylanfanclub.com/themetime/index_7.htm#california

Everything I've suggested up until now is heavy, reflective stuff. Don't forget the Beach Boys were Cali-soaked and pure America. Now would be an excellent time to remember the sunny, surfing side of life ...

If you want a country sound, try Bosque Brown. I'm crazy about her.

http://www.myspace.com/bosquebrown

California Stars by Billy Bragg

some obvious San Francisco songs off the top of my head:

Chris Isaak San Francisco Days, San Francisco Nights
Otis Redding Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay
Tony Bennett I Left My Heart in San Francisco
Scott McKenzie San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

i'm sure i'll come up with more. it's early in the morning and my brain is foggy.

xp

I heard Ventura Highway on the radio (!) about 17 times on my drive west in 1999. Also heard Santa Monica a few times while in Santa Monica.

The Electric Company theme is great get-started music in the morning.

For Arizona/New Mexico stuff I strongly recommend Calexico -- especially The Black Light.

Here's a trailer for my brother's movie BURIED, which features Calexico's "Stray".

Also, You Can't Buy A Gun When You're Crying by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs.

* going back to cali (to cali, to cali) - ll cool j
* come monday - jimmy buffett (headed out to san francisco...)
* go west - pet shop boys (life is peaceful there!)
* california loooooove - dr dre
* going to california - led zeppelin
* california uber alles! - dead kennedys
* san francisco bay blue - clapton

For any sort of road trip, I love the Almost Famous soundtrack. Classic rock heavy, but excellent. U2's Joshua Tree is a little mainstream, but great for the long desert drives.

Whoever recommended KFOG as a Bay Area radio station is right.

"California Waiting," by Kings of Leon, and the entire Celebrity Skin album by Hole.

"Jolene" is my favorite Dolly Parton song.

I may have more suggestions later.

California by Phantom Planet

My very loosely related to the topic suggestions:

Miles Away-Marc Cohn
Strangers in a Car-Marc Cohn

I have all of these songs on my computer so if you shoot me an email address, I can send them to you.

"California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade" by the Decemberists, for sure.
Also, slightly less appropriate perhaps, but still a great song: "Come Back From San Francisco" by the Magnetic Fields.
The best cross-country trip track I have on hand is probably Godspeed's "Antennas To Heaven", but you've already got that in there someplace.

Hmm...

1. Joni Mitchel has been mentioned? Then I have nothing to say.
2. I have a blues song, off the Putomayo American Blues album, called "Hello San Francisco". Sugar Pie DeSanto. Other than that, I've got nothing.
4. Tom Waits seems like a good choice for traveling, mostly because he writes songs about characters who are restless, unsettled. "The Long Way Home", for example. And if you can get Bob Dylan doing "I Was Young When I Left Home"... Perfect. Heck, a lot of Bob Dylan works really well, I think. The old stuff, as well as some of Modern Times. (Which, in my mind, is worth having regardless).
And if you don't have "America" by Simon and Garfunkel... well, you need it. Even if it's heartbreaking (and it is): own this song.

Edited at 2008-04-02 03:25 am (UTC)

Commander Cody's "Hot Rod Lincoln' (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZUA6mnEXo8I)

It's not about Cali or moving, but it's a great driving song especially for those long dark country roads.

I am working on a playlist for you! Traveling songs are my favorite.

if you really want to capture the Dakotas, you should stick to Def Lepard and Metallica and any classic rock that you can stand.

"Our Lady of the Highways" by John Wesley Harding will make you reflective

Notes on Lyle Lovett:
I will totally second the Road to Ensenada, it was my first Lyle album
"My Baby Don't Tolerate"... specifically "The Truck Song" and "Wallisville Road"
for country sound, I'd also recommend "Cowboy Man" and/or "Step Inside this House"
for non-country "Live in Texas" or "I Love Everybody"
for mixing "Joshua Judges Ruth"

also, look up Joe Ely and Guy Clark and some later John Hiatt.

For weird and random, look up a South American band called "Los Rabanes", but I wouldn't blare it too loud in Spanish speaking neighborhoods.

Finally, my two FAVORITE stops in western South Dakota are Wall Drug and Badlands National Park.