November 2018

Musicians Who Sing The Most About Cars
Article By Gold Eagle

  Is there anything better than belting out your favorite song in the car? Whether it's a road trip or just a solo grocery store trip, you've never felt so much like a rock star in the privacy of your own ride.

The connection between music and cars has existed ever since they started putting radios into cars in the 1930s — and the tie didn't end there. Musicians have married this relationship between music and cars by using cars as their ultimate muse. We all know the famous songs about cars like the Beatles' "Baby You Can Drive My Car" or Prince's "Little Red Corvette," but just how many songs about cars are there?

We decided to take a drive through the data about cars and songs to determine which artists and musicians mention cars the most in their lyrics. We analyzed over 100,000 songs to determine how many mention cars within their lyrics. In our research, we included various car variants such as "cars," "coupe," "whip," "truck," "4×4" and others as well as car brands and models like "Bentley," "Ford," "Mustang," "Chevrolet," and more.

So, which artists are car crazy and who sings the most about  cars? Let's take a look at the results.

Musicians Who Use The Most Car References In Their Lyrics
After digging through the lyrics, we found that 94% of the top 100 musicians who reference cars the most in their songs are hip hop artists or rappers.

The No. 1 car lover on our list with the highest number of car references used in their lyrics, was Lil Wayne, who had 370 car references. Lil Wayne was followed by Jay-Z, who had 354 car references in his lyrics. Coming in third was Snoop Dogg, who had 326 car references in his lyrics. Nas came just behind Snoop with 324 car references in his lyrics. Rounding out the top five is Gucci Mane, who had 313 car references in his song lyrics.

Other artists who made our top 25 list were future, Rick Ross, E-40, 50 Cent, Master P, Birdman, T.I., Big Tymers, Redman, R. Kelly, Cam'ron, Lil' Flip, Raekwon, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, Too $hort, Yo Gotti, Juvenile, Ludacris, and The Game.

Genres Of Music Who Sing The Most About Cars
We already know that hip hop artists and rappers reference cars the most in their songs, but what about other types of musicians sing about cars?

In rock music, there are definitely some car-crazy musicians, including Bruce Springsteen who has 88 car references in his lyrics, Tom Waits with 83 references, Kid Rock with 77 references, Frank Zappa with 66, and They Might Be Giants with 48.

Another car-obsessed genre, country music, had some artists who also had plenty of references to cars like "The Man in Black" Johnny Cash, who had 73 car references in his lyrics, Jason Aldean with 64, Toby Keith with 64, Tim McGraw with 58, and Alan Jackson with 52.

Folk musicians may be soft and willowy, but they are also big fans of cars — especially Bob Dylan, who has 85 references to cars in his lyrics. Iron & Wine has 30 lyric references to cars and John Denver, who has 20 car references.

In the genre of pop music, there are some notable car lovers — including Jimmy Buffet, who has 67 car references in his lyrics, Prince with 66, Elton John with 57, and the Beach Boys with 48.

The genre with the least amount of car references was Punk, with the most car references in lyrics from Iggy Pop, who had 29, The Fall, who also had 29, Bowling for Soup with 28, Dead Milkmen with 24, and The Dead Kennedys with 23.

Most Mentioned Cars In Song Lyrics
Now that we know which musicians sing the most about cars, we wanted to find out which cars they were most likely talking about.

The most mentioned cars in song lyrics, according to the data, are Mercedes (which had 4,746 mentions), followed by Cadillac (with 2,923 mentions), Bentley (with 1,400 mentions), Chevrolet (with 1,306 mentions), and Jeep (with 1,127 mentions). Jaguar, Porsche, Ford, Dodge, and Lexus were also heavily mentioned in songs.

The least mentioned vehicle, however, was the Honda Civic. While it's a reliable car, it apparently doesn't give off as much inspiration for musicians as Prince's "Little Red Corvette," or Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz."

Methodology
We analyzed more than 100,000 song lyrics from the lyrics.com database.

Terms we searched: car, cars, truck, trucks, 4×4, automobile, hooptie, hoopty, wheels, whip, whoopty, coupe, sedan, BMW, beamer, beemer, Bentley, Mercedes, Mercedes Benz, Bugatti, Cadillac, Caddy, Chevrolet, Chevy, Dodge, Escalade, Ford, Honda, Hummer, Jaguar, Jag, Jeep, Lamborghini, Lambo, Lancer, Lexus, Civic, Lincoln, Mustang, Navigator, Porsche, Rolls Royce, 3-series, C-Class, E-Class, G-Class, S-Class, M3, F-150, F-250, F-350, X-5, X-3, MKZ, MKX, Cayman, XJ, XF, XE, IS, GS, ES, LS, H2, CR-V, CTS, ATS, CT6.

The numbers associated with each artist represent the frequency of search terms and variants that were found within their lyrics. Some of the numbers may contain duplicated song titles or sets of lyrics, such as remixes or live releases.

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