Favorite moment with music in your car.

One evening, high school ‘70, and the 5/8” thick homemade plywood boxes with 5” round speakers in my VW bug’s backseat well (dampened with plexiglass lathe shavings) somehow harmonically synced to ELP’s “Lucky Man” and the whole car seemed to shake…only happened that once!

A close second involves, back in the day, thinking of a song, turning on the radio, and it’s playing!

Happened more than once.

The year was 1977, and my buddy and I were in his 1968 VW Microbus nicknamed "Old Blue" driving down Black Mountain in Kentucky, after leaving a gig in Cumberland.  He was the drummer in our pretty successful regional rock band, and "Old Blue" was used to haul his drum kit.  It took just about the entire Microbus for his drum kit, because he had a Slingerland set that was identical to Neil Peart's drum kit on Rush's "2112 Tour" -- including Wind Chimes, Wood Blocks, and a freaking Gong.  What...didn't every High School drummer have a Gong in the 1970's? 😂  His dad was an Electrical Engineer and as a side business he owned a popular musical instrument store in town that also sold Hi-Fi gear.  So we had access to some pretty fancy gear for our ages.  We rigged up a set of JBL monitors in the middle of "Old Blue" (all the seats except for the front two Captain Chairs were removed to make hauling space), strapping them in where the middle seat normally bolted to the frame.  Had it wired so we could play a Jensen car AM/FM Cassette Deck through the JBL using a hefty A/D/S amp.

So there we were, the end of January, at 2:00 a.m. in a blinding snowstorm, creeping down the mountain, following the tail lights of the other band members.  We weren't playing any music, because my buddy was freaking out trying to concentrate on driving down the mountain and had wanted it quiet.  He finally said, "Man, put some music on so I can calm down!", and I told him I had just bought Pink Floyd's new release that morning and before we left my step-brother had burned me cassette copy while we were loading the gear.  Needless to say, hearing "Animals" for the first time in that situation and in those conditions, was one of the few life-altering moments I've had in my life.  We actually felt like we were tripping during "Dogs" -- the head lights reflecting off the snow in front of the VW appeared to be flickering in tempo with the voice echoing "Stone, stone, stone, stone...".  After it finished, we both just sat in silence for what seemed to be half an hour.  Finally my buddy just said, "Play that again."

I've listened to "Animals" hundreds of times, own the original pressing, a Japanese pressing, the Remaster, the Remix, several bootleg live recordings -- but nothing compares to what I felt hearing it for the first time in that blinding snowstorm, not knowing what was real or imaginary.  To me, that is the magic of certain music.

@allenf1963 +1

Your VW van story was great.

I had a used ‘62 VW camper van that was electrically 6 volts, so I had to buy a 6V to 12V converter which bolted under the dash and powered my Tena 8 track tape player.

With four people in it, going uphill, the underpowered 40 HP engine meant I’d have to drop down to second gear to move at all.

One particularly long, uphill interstate stretch so stressed out the entire van that half way to the top the converter couldn’t take it anymore and just blew up….freaking us out and robbing us of tunes…but, hey, it wasn’t the engine.

Wish I could remember what tape it was.

In the late 70s I was driving north from Baltimore to New Jersey listening to a decades long folk music show from Philadelphia, Folklore, emceed by Gene Shay. He played a song sung by Priscilla Herdman, who had an utterly gorgeous , angelic voice, called, And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. This was not the classic Australian Waltzing Matilda but an anti war song about an Australian at the World War I battle of Gallipoli  who is gravely wounded and about the wasted lives at the battle. The words start with the glory of going to battle and end with the total horror of war. And the contrast of Priscilla's gentle, angelic voice and the horror of the story make the story even more poignant.

This was before the internet and Priscilla was not big box office. It took me years to finally find the album in Baltimore when I was again visiting my friend.

I went to work for the old Ma Bell AT&T and for 5 years my constant habit was to buy the New York Times on my way to work, get to work early, page through the Times and try to do the daily cross word puzzle. Finally one Friday I stopped to pick up the times and it wasn't there. I was pissed and started to walk out of the store but turned around and for the very first time bought a New Jersey paper. I paged through it and at the bottom of the page saw a few paragraphs saying Priscilla Herdman was singing that evening at The Princeton Fold Song Society. Needless to say I went.

Priscilla is retired now. She never wrote her own songs she jus made carefully chosen songs more beautiful with her straight forward approach to singing and with her beautiful voice. I do have every album she ever made. And her version that first song I heard on the car radio is among my most special musical moments.

1975 - 8th grade new kid at school used to take his dad’s Grand Prix... we’d go joy riding up and down Revere Beach blasting Golden Earing, Big Star & Aerosmith - we were 14 & 13yo - 8-Track

1977 - HS blasting around in Rocky M dad's Cadillac playing Bowie, nothing but Bowie - 8-Track

1979 - Graduate HS and busting around the beach again with The Cars, The Knack & Blondie in his Trans-Am - Cassette Deck

1997 - riding my H-D back & forth to work with an FM Walkman Sport headphones on blasting WBCN & WFNX

2008 Back & forth to my son's boarding school in my Landcruiser turnt way up on Jimmy Page w/The Black Crows and old The Jam - CD

I don't listen to music in the car anymore - just talk radio. I play enough music at home... memories, so good and the music always sounded great through very mediocre car systems. Always the laughs and the people you were with.