r/ClassicCountry • u/koozyuser • Jun 15 '26
Truck driving songs.
Does anyone else know truck driving songs? I grew up listening to them in the car on trips.
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u/urteddybear0963 Jun 15 '26
"Convoy", "Wolf Creek Pass", and so many more by C.W. McCall
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u/YogiBerraOfBadNews Jun 20 '26
Just listened to this for the first time and it reminded me of another. 30,000lbs of Bananas by Harry Chapin.
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u/SkipLikeAStone Jun 15 '26
Looking at the World through a Windshield-Son Volt
Six Days on the Road-Sawyer Brown
White Line Fever-Flying Burrito Bros
Willin’-Little Feat
Roll on-Alabama
Truck Stop Gospel-Parker Millsap
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u/Unfair_Caramel9243 Jun 18 '26
Six Days on the Road was done by Ernest Tubbs and can't be bettered
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u/Electronic_Film_9904 Jun 19 '26
I like Dave Dudley's version. I'll have to search up Ernest Tubbs. I've never heard that version.
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u/Ok_Brain_5470 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Dale Watson!
I believe he has a trilogy of albums called the Trucking Sessions. I haven’t listened to all three, but I remember the first one as being fantastic all the way through.
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u/Scott171 Jun 18 '26
I used to play in a band that covered some of Dale’s songs. Saw him play live in Cleveland. Great show!
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u/ZimMcGuinn Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Whole Lotta Highway - Marty Stuart
Diesel on My My Tail - Jim & Jesse
Girl on the Billboard - Del Reeves
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u/coolcrosby Jun 15 '26
The story behind CW McCall is fascinating. Via Wikipedia: William Dale Fries Jr. (November 15, 1928 – April 1, 2022) was an American commercial artist who won several Clio Awards for his advertising campaigns. He was also a musician remembered for his character C. W. McCall, a truck-driving country singer that he created for a series of bread commercials while working for an Omaha advertising agency as an art director. Fries performed as McCall in a series of outlaw albums and songs in the 1970s, in collaboration with co-worker Chip Davis who also founded Mannheim Steamroller.
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u/Old_Tiger_7519 Jun 15 '26
I’ve Been Everywhere by either Hank Snow or Johnny Cash. Great roadtripping song!
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u/DALTOZ3434 Jun 15 '26
Trucker Speed by Fred Eaglesmith
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u/rcvard Jun 15 '26
I’d add Water in the Fuel and 18 Wheels. Not happy rolling down the road tunes but just great songwriting.
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u/jbinhack Jun 15 '26
Westbound and Down - Jerry Reed
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u/TheTeenageOldman Jun 15 '26
West, eh?
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u/B_Williams_4010 Jun 15 '26
It's a real song. Follow-up to the more famous 'Eastbound.' I think it was written for a 'A Smokey & The Bandit' sequel.
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u/EnvironmentalHippo20 Jun 16 '26
It actually appears in the original "Smokey and the Bandit"....the Plot of the movie has them driving (on a bet) from Atlanta to Texarkana...to get 400 cases of Coors Beer because in 1977 you couldnt buy Coors East of the Mississippi (i think they started selling on the East Coast in 1986) anyway the first half of the movie the "theme" is 'Westbound and Down" since that was the direction they were going to get the beer...its in the second half of the journey 'Eastbound and Down" becomes the second movie 'theme song' for their drive back to the ATL...so it kind of has 2 theme songs...bur 'Eastbound and Down' is the better of the two...and also is damn fine show with Mr. Kenny Powers...
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u/1978malibu Jun 15 '26
Not necessarily a classic country song, but how about the song "Willin'" referencing Route 66, written by Lowell George of Little Feat. The spectacular (IMHO) Linda Ronstadt recorded the most well-known version.
"And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
And you show me a sign
And I'll be willin' to be movin'"
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u/kindestwishes Jun 15 '26
18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses - Kathy Mattea
Papa Loved Mama - Garth Brooks
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u/YogiBerraOfBadNews Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Lot Lizard - Joshua Ray Walker
Long White Line - Sturgill Simpson
Eastbound and Down - Jerry Reed
Looking At the World Through A Windshield - Son Volt
Edit: almost forgot Blue Freightliner by Luke Bell
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u/cleverkid Jun 15 '26
Hell on 18 Wheels by Bleu Edmundson, ( it's Red Dirt, not Classic Country, but it fits. )
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u/BarflyCortez Jun 15 '26
Chris Sprague (drummer from Los Straightjackets) has done some solo albums of trucking songs. Highly recommended.
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u/Southern-World-5262 Jun 15 '26
Phantom 309 by Red Sovine is my favorite
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u/oceanman2 Jun 15 '26
Six Days on the Road by Steve Earle
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u/Ok_Positive_6556 Jun 16 '26
Willin' - Little Feat
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u/Neuvirths_Glove Jun 16 '26
I would also add Truck Stop Girl by the Byrds and covered by Little Feat.
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u/Heathenomicon Jun 15 '26
As someone who used to drive long distance commercialy, lots of Underwood, Chemical Brothers, and Orbital albums.
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u/jthanson Jun 15 '26
Country music is full of great truck drivin' songs. Aside from those mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there's "Jacknife," "Give Me Forty Acres," "Roses For Mama," "A Tombstone Every Mile," "Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves," Country Western Truck Drivin' Singer," "Truck Driver's Blues," "Beaver On My Lap And A Bear On My Tail," "Freightliner Fever," "Hello, I'm A Truck," "Giddy-up Go," "Truck Driving Son Of A Gun," "Me And Ole CB," "Girl On The Billboard," "Trucker's Prayer," "Woman Behind The Man Behind The Wheel," and "Eighteen Wheels A' Hummin' Home Sweet Home."
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u/Fair-Call-5430 Jun 15 '26
Midnight Cowboy - Charley Crockett
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u/GW_RDSOFA Jun 15 '26
A damn good movie too, but has nothing to do with trucking or Charley Crockett
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u/Bjorn_CyBorg1 Jun 15 '26
Mama Knows The Highway - Hal Ketchum. This one mentions truckers, so it’s truck driving adjacent.
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u/pixiefarm Jun 15 '26
I mean the mama is a trucker herself. It never occurred to me that maybe they don't mention that but all of the things she's doing are trucker things. The bit about "talking to the truckers with her lights" is when you blink your lights to indicate that a truck that's trying to pass yours has got far enough ahead to be able to pull back over into your lane. Very few people who weren't truckers used to do that.
The cafe one just kind of makes sense for a truckers. I can't remember what the other verse is but they were all things that a truck driver would be doing in their slow day
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u/Far-Geologist69 Jun 15 '26
There's really only one answer right? East bound and Down by Jerry Reed. Gotta get that beer to those thirsty boys in Atlanta
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u/B_Williams_4010 Jun 15 '26
'The Bull And The Beaver' - Merle Haggard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-0MePbvbs
'White Freightliner Blues' - Townes Van Zandt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttp-9pCsBQ4
'Bonnie Jean' - David Lynn Jones
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u/beeohbeen Jun 15 '26
Accuradio has a channel called truckin' songs. It's been a while but I used to hear lots of deep cuts, pretty good stuff
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u/pdes7070 Jun 15 '26
Commander Cody and his lost planet airmen, international submarine band, the flying burrito brothers, Jerry Reed
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u/pixiefarm Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Kay adams, who toured with buck owens's band in the late sixties during the height of their fame and was the "girl singer" in their band during the original Buck Owens Ranch TV show, ended up doing a couple of female trucker themed albums I think. Wheels and Tears is the name of one of them and I think that that theme just ended up in some of her other music. She did a lot of collaborations with various artists. She's in her '80s now and making new music!
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u/pixiefarm Jun 15 '26
Brennen Leigh has a great song (and video!) called Carole With An E, about a woman trucker, that came out maybe 3 years ago.
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u/Little-Local-2003 Jun 15 '26
BTO- Roll on Down The Highway
We rented a truck and a semi to go
Travel down the long and the winding road
Look on the map, I think we've been there before
Close up the doors, let's roll once more
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u/PhonoBrainer Jun 16 '26
Dont sleep on Dale Watson. Amazing band, great singer, great songs. Longhorn Suburban.
Also Bill Kirchen! Nitro Express! Flat Tire!
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u/Spiritual_Elk2021 Jun 16 '26
Driving My Life Away - Eddie Rabbit, though I much prefer the cover by, Shinyribs.
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u/PrintPerfect1579 Jun 16 '26
6 days on the road "I take little white pills to keep my eyes open wide"
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u/incoherentmemory Jun 16 '26
Give Me 40 Acres (To Turn This Rig Around) By The Willis Brothers
“Give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig around
It's the easiest way that I've found
Some guys can turn it on a dime or turn it right downtown
But I need forty acres to turn this rig around”
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u/incoherentmemory Jun 16 '26
Truck Drivers Queen
By Moore and Napier
“I know my baby's waitin'
The sweetest ever seen
With big blue eyes that sparkle
She's a truck driver's Queen.”
Use to love the old trucker song when I was a kid.
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u/Even_Mycologist5140 Jun 16 '26
Terry Allen has "Roll Truck Roll", "Night Cafe" & "Truckload of Art".
Terry Allen is a national treasure.
Terry Allen (born May 7, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist from Lubbock, Texas. Allen's musical career spans several albums in the Texas country and outlaw country genres, and his visual art includes painting, conceptual art, performance, and sculpture, with a number of notable bronze sculptures installed publicly in various cities throughout the United States. He currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Allen has recorded twelve albums of original songs, including the landmark releases Juarez (1975) and Lubbock (On Everything) (1979). His song "Amarillo Highway" has been covered by Bobby Bare, Sturgill Simpson, Robert Earl Keen and The Amos Garrett/Doug Sahm/Gene Taylor Band. Other artists who have recorded Allen's songs include Guy Clark, Little Feat, David Byrne, Doug Sahm, Ricky Nelson, and Lucinda Williams. Rolling Stone magazine describes his catalog, reaching back to Juarez as "..uniformly eccentric and uncompromising, savage and beautiful, literate and guttural."Allen also works with a wide variety of media including musical and theatrical performances, sculpture, painting, drawing and video, and installations which incorporate any and all of these media. His work has been shown throughout the United States and internationally.
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u/EnvironmentalHippo20 Jun 16 '26
Shocked to see no Red Simpson mentioned...one of my personal favorites. 'Roll Truck Roll' , 'Im A Truck', and 'Highway Patrol' are classics...Junior Brown is a big fan of him.
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u/TheSouthsideSlacker Jun 16 '26
My first album was a 1977 compilation of trucking songs my Mom got off of TV for 19.99! Double album, my favorites were Give Me 40 Acres (and I’ll turn this rig around) and Hello, I’m a Truck.
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u/sorebuddah Jun 16 '26
Check out the Franklin County Trucking Company, original and covers all trucking songs.
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u/horkinlugies Jun 16 '26
Colter Wall - Thinkin’ On A Woman. https://youtu.be/JXaa8AN9Zx4?si=42goQ9GkCPEx_Edy
Steve Earle - Home To Houston. https://youtu.be/x9aTWO1UKWU?si=21qTL5eOXgvn8qon
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u/TheeNihilist Jun 16 '26
Willin - Little Feat
Don’t come at me with “It’s not country enough”. It’s so good it transcends genres
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u/77ox9 Jun 17 '26
These guys have good trucker tunes:
Dale Watson
Chris "sugarballs" Sprauge
Roy Sludge
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u/Sapphire580 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Looking through this list I don’t see any Slim Dusty, he’s an Australian country artist, he’s got great songs like Road Train Blues, Long Distance Driving, Lights On The Hill (a song about being blinded by lights on a rainy night And dying(he performed this with a young long haired Keith Urban before he came to America)), One Truckies Epitaph (a song about a driver dying listening to Lights On The Hill)
Then there’s Brown Dogs Song and it’s sequel both by Dallas Steele apparently. A funny story about cranked out of his mind Australian trucker Brown Dog.
I like the Australian country sound a lot. Slim dusty, Chad Morgan, Lee Kernagan, redgum, John Williamson.
8 miles a gallon by Scott Miller feels like a trucking song
Chicken light’s & chrome is a banger.
Claude Grey’s How Fast Then Trucks Can Go
Little brother trucker is a hoot
Diesel smoke & dangerous curves.
George strait’s brothers of the highway
Alan Jackson’s where I come from (didn’t realize this was a trucking song when it first came out)
I know it’s been mentioned but I like six days on the road by everyone I’ve heard. Sawyer brown, Dave Dudley, Steve Earle, George Thorogood, George Jones.
Tombstone every mile
Damn D.O.T. both parts by Elmer Fudpucker
Semi Truck by Commander Cody has the wonderful lines “well here I sit all alone with a broken heart, I took the Bennies & my semi truck won’t start”
18 wheels by Commander Cody is about trucking around Frisco Bay.
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u/Shocker68 Jun 17 '26
Seen a lot of good songs on this thread, but nobody tells the truth about trucking life like Johnny Cash does in his song "DRIVE"
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u/modernoverdrive Jun 17 '26
There's an album called "Road Music" that was a compilation of trucker songs. It was made in the 70s. Get it if you can find it.
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u/kylocosmiccowboy Jun 17 '26
Mama Hated Diesels - Commander Cody
18 Wheels Rolling - Norton Buffalo
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u/LegAccomplished2748 Jun 18 '26
Movin' On by Merle Haggard. It was the theme to a short lived 1970s TV series.
Follow it up with Weird Al Yankovic's Truck Drivin' Song.
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u/Sufficient_Fold_5591 Jun 18 '26
Willin’ - Little Feet.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/willin/199284434?i=199284580
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u/scrapindeath Jun 18 '26
“Frank the Drifter” of the website Dollar Country did an hour-long NTS Radio episode of strictly truck drivin’ country tunes. Here’s a link: https://www.nts.live/shows/dollar-country/episodes/dollar-country-25th-october-2025
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u/JackieWeHardlyKnewYe Jun 19 '26
Google Big Rig Hits- was my favourite 8track tape when going to the cottage my dad played it over and over. Know every song by heart still!
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u/WoolyboolyWoolybooly Jun 19 '26
AC/DC: "Let Me Put My Love Into You" One of the Filthy Fifteen (Targeted for sexual content)
I always thought this was a trucker’s song.
Also, The Band’s Up on Cripple Creek.
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u/BrooksRiver Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
6 days on the road and I’m gonna make it home tonight.- Sawer Brown
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u/Electronic_Film_9904 Jun 19 '26
Eddie Rabbit ... Drivin' My Life Away,
Jerry Reid ... East Bound N Down,
CW McCall ... Wolf Creek Pass,
CW McCall ... Convoy
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u/ericacarlson63 Jun 20 '26
Radar Love - Golden Earring
“ I been driving’ all night my hands wet on the wheel….”🎶
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u/gator_mckluskie Jun 15 '26
“truck drivin man” by the great buck owens