Traffic Jams: A Playlist
Songs I miss singing in my car, from back when I could still leave the house.
My car’s name is Linda.
She’s an old jalopy, she’s a mess, but she gets the job done.
Linda is a used 2004 Nissan Sentra that came with a permanently broken shut back door, and a decent few dents and scratches that I’ve generously doubled over the past few years.
Her entire trunk and back bumper are coated in stickers and magnets. A collection that began under my sister’s ownership, I added a few of my own to spite hers’. Why do we have a 26.2 sticker when neither of us have ever run a marathon?
After reaching a certain point of garishness, I asked myself, what difference does one more sticker make? And at every opportunity, I’ll slap on another.
As loud and obnoxious as my car is, when I’m driving and the right song comes on, I’m louder.
Here’s a toast to those of us who used the car as a rehearsal studio, and kept ourselves entertained on long road trips — giving our best performances with no audience.
Whether they’re perfect to scream along to, or simply about the act of driving itself, the following are some songs I’ve missed jamming out to with Linda while I’ve been holed up inside, as she rests patiently in front of my house.
Chicago Is So Two Years Ago by Fall Out Boy
The namesake of this playlist.
In 2016, I was driving to my community college and playing the bridge of this song over and over — “you want apologies / girl you might hold your breath / until your breathing stops / forever, forever” — singing along and determined to nail it.
Once I had it down, I thought about the other songs within my range that I wanted to impress myself with. I used to think I was tone-deaf.
But as it turns out, training yourself during a daily commute is a great way to kill time and prove yourself wrong. I threw together a playlist based on this first song, and the title Car Jamz Are So Two Years Ago was born.
Runnin’ Down A Dream by Tom Petty
It’s a little on-the-nose how my ultimate driving song is a song about driving.
But sometimes the “no shit” answer really is the right one. The hits are hits for a reason.
We don’t know where Petty’s headed. It seems like a mystery to him as well. The road is the perfect place to lose yourself when you’re not in any hurry, putting the pedal down to make some time. Petty’s even singing along to the radio.
And if it’s good enough for an American rock icon, it’s something we can all learn a thing or two about freedom from.
Thoughts by Charli XCX
Charli’s meme-famous Vroom Vroom would’ve been the obvious choice here.
Yet this time, I’m going for the thinker. (Thinker… Thoughts… get it?)
Have you ever bawled your eyes out behind the wheel? Charli has. On her recent self-titled record, Thoughts is couched in the track listing between a collaboration with HAIM and a pop banger with Lizzo. It’s the centerpiece of an album detailing troubled relationships, partying to escape them, then crawling back with an apology.
“Driving round in Hollywood / I can only think about you”. Hollywood or elsewhere, we’ve all been there, all with a different “you” on our minds.
Go Home by Julien Baker
I’ve made a complete ass of myself — more than once — screaming until I’m hoarse from trying to keep up with Baker’s tortured belting in the final verse. The singer herself joked that all her songs are sad, one time dubbing an as-yet-untitled track “Sad Song 12”.
Sadness doesn’t always make a droopy ballad. Here, sadness is drunkenly wandering from a party. Collapsing on the side of the road in a ditch. And pathetically calling for a ride home over sparse piano chords.
If you’re hitting the road alone at night — whether you’re the friend to the rescue or the one eluding some personal demons — it’s hard not to find yourself screeching along, as her once-soft voice ramps up into a final cry for help.
If It Makes You Happy by Sheryl Crow
It was hard to choose just one Sheryl song for this list.
Sometimes I’ll just put her biggest hits on shuffle, and she’ll ride with me as my copilot on the road through life. I’ve even referred to Linda as “the Sheryl Crow Sing-a-Long Mobile.”
What an iconic chorus.
I can zone out during the verses — no offense to Ms. Crow, a songwriting genius who deserves every ounce of credit for her success. But when the music drops out and she starts wailing, I think that anyone who doesn’t pause to wail right along is committing a musical crime.
Making the Most of the Night by Carly Rae Jepsen
If you only know CRJ as “the Call Me Maybe girl”, I cannot stress hard enough how much joy you’re missing out on.
I think about the times I’ve hit up a friend late at night when I’m feeling like shit, or vice versa. We’d drive out to our favorite late-night hangout to rant and ramble over greasy comfort food.
And if the weather was right, our next stop was the beach. We’d climb up the empty lifeguard chairs and stare out at the ocean, drowning our sorrows in the sound of waves.
“Eyes wide / like you’ve never seen the ocean, never seen the tide” paints the clearest image of two friends, towered over the sand. Their problems still exist, but distantly now.
Sometimes, solving a friend’s problem isn’t about finding an immediate solution. It might just be hijacking their feelings that’ll rescues you both, at least for the night.
Night Shift by Lucy Dacus
Getting dumped sucks.
My breakup a few years back came unexpectedly, when my then-boyfriend decided we were better off as friends. Then he dropped me from his life entirely — to the point where he blatantly avoided introducing me to his new girlfriend when I ran into them at a show a few months later.
You know, like how friends treat each other?
I’ve shared a collaborative playlist with a friend titled Boys Are Literally The Worst since our first high school heartbreaks. I can’t thank this friend enough for introducing me to Night Shift, the most cathartic breakup song of all time. (Sorry, You Oughta Know.)
With a six-and-a-half-minute runtime, sometimes I’ll reach my destination before the song finishes. I’ll kill time driving aimlessly until it finishes — and sometimes, I’ll hit repeat and drive around some more.
Monkey Wrench by Foo Fighters
Do not play this unless you’re prepared to unconsciously hit the gas harder. You’ll wonder why everything’s moving so fast. And surprise yourself in finding that you’ve hit 85 mph somehow.
I got into the Foos in high school. Was it to impress the cool boys in a band I knew? Was it to make myself think I was better than people who prefer Nirvana? Who’s to say? All I know is: I shouldn’t have thought I was that cool for liking Dave Grohl’s other hugely successful band, and I shouldn’t have been driving so fast at 17.
Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen
As a proud native of the Jersey Shore, I can easily list off the cultural touchstones any resident or visitor needs to experience first-hand.
A beach day at your boardwalk of choice. Inhaling a pork roll-egg-and-cheese sandwich. Condescending to your friends that your local pizza joint is better than their local pizza joint.
Sand in your shoes and junk food might not be your cup of tea. But getting stuck in the same Route 9 traffic that The Boss calls out in his biggest song is Jersey universal. “The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive,” indeed.
Fast Car by Tracy Chapman
My original Car Jamz Are So Two Years Ago playlist on Spotify is 43 hours and several hundred songs long, so I’ll end this here, on the most quintessential.
Everyone knows — or really, really ought to know — Chapman’s biggest hit. This could be the star of another playlist, one themed around songs I grew up on and never realized were so deeply sad until way, way later in life.
I’ve never had to quit school to care for an ailing parents, or live in a homeless shelter, or face half the struggles the narrator works her way through. I absolutely have, however, taken my car far from home, not to reach a destination, but to leave a past life behind, even for a little while.
If you, like me, live with enforced restrictions on driving right now, real-life carpool karaoke might be fading into distant memory.
Don’t let it.
Keep those songs on replay. Sing your heart out at home. And count down the days until Linda and I ride again.
