Song you'd play in a car chase

[ribbons]

^ That's a really nice song! If you were driving Iggy around, I suppose you had to turn down The Beatles offer:

I would never turn Paul down for anyone.  Iggy will have to go get a taxi. 

[DJChameleon]

[Saulaac]

I think I'd like to groove Brazilian style if I was being chased. Doug Rauch was a very groovy bassist who played with Santana. The percussion section such as congas and bongos are top class too. This clip (live concert around 1973) for me is up there with Bullitt and French Connection.

[Trollheart]

[Saulaac]

Good spot, TH.
Coming up, American car chase music versus European and North African car chase music. All of them are a mayhem of sounds which encompass jazzy chords and bass licks. All in all, a delightful combination of anticipation, panic and sonic escape..

[Lisnaholic]

Good spot, TH.
Coming up, American car chase music versus European and North African car chase music. All of them are a mayhem of sounds which encompass jazzy chords and bass licks. All in all, a delightful combination of anticipation, panic and sonic escape..

^ Well that all sounds very intriguing, Saulaac ! In the meantime, here's some good old, driving rock: (best version of this song I've ever heard) :-

[Norg]

i mean is there any other song ..to be going 120 down a highway

[DJChameleon]

This is my highway at 120 song.

[Trollheart]

i mean is there any other song ..to be going 120 down a highway

Yes there is.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Runnin' Down a Dream"

[Saulaac]

An appropriate tune when one is being chased through a city:

Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra

Hold on a sec! that's the wrong version. This is the version to be weaving through multiple intersections whilst those to your left and right screech to a halt, honk their horns and holler at your recklessness (hence the horns reference, plus trombones and trumpets of course. When I say course I don't mean race course.. Well, in fact it could be).
Or, perhaps they are cheering you on, throwing wanker signs at the guy behind you, and willing you to safety. Car horns are difficult to decipher sometimes.

Salinas - Straussmania (1973)

[Saulaac]

Sometimes a major 7th, or a minor 3rd, or the relative minor, or a sus4 can throw out a hell of a lot of shrapnel. That is to say there is a lot to understand from yesteryear. Let's just keep trying to understand the music played before us. Do I understand it all? Hell no.

[DJChameleon]

The first track I associate so much with slow moving objects that in no way would it fit a car chase scene. It's always used in space scenes with a slow moving object now the second track I can get down with being used in a car chase scene even though it's usually associated with fight scenes from that era.

[Saulaac]

Apols for taking a while to get back to you, DJ. That's an interesting take, that there might be a slight difference between car chases and fight scenes in terms of how composers/arrangers might have gone about depicting those scenes. I had always lumped car chases and fight scenes together as high-octane situations which called for the major and minor to sweat it out by using jazzy chords (sus, dimininshed, maj 7) on the keys, choppy wah-guitar, latin-infused percussive rips and colourful basslines.

Perhaps there's a subtle difference between 'car chase' and 'fight scene' in the mind of the composer. You've got me interested in that difference!

Some of my favourites include Rhythm Heritage's S.W.A.T, Edwin Starr's Airport Chase, Hancock's Hang Up You Hang Ups, a lot of Lalo Shifrin, Patrick Williams' Streets of San Fran, Mark Snow's Hart To Hart, Isaac Hayes (obvs), Oliver Nelson's Bionic Man soundtracks, Johnny Pate etc. I don't know many of the Blaxploitation soundtracks well but they're probably on YT so I try and go through them.

And I think the US definitely had the upper hand versus the Brits, although we did quite well with Laurie Johnson's Professionals!

[DJChameleon]

I didn't realize how well these two tracks fit with car chase scenes. In my mind I guess I associated them with fight scenes I do need to re watch more blaxploitation flicks.

Found a fight scene with a groovy track to it.

[tristan_geoff]