Road Tripping

Sometimes, despite the price of petrol these days, it's nice to just go for a drive, especially when the weather is like it is Manchester at the moment and you wake up feeling pretty good about life.

Obviously, Britain is a bit too small for proper road trips even if you could afford the juice. Despite that, if you happen to live in Manchester, you're ideally placed to have some top day trips out.

And if Bruce Springsteen taught me anything, it's that if you're going to hit the road, you need some proper music to match. Something too up-tempo, and you're going to get done by a speed camera, but at the same time, you need to match your mood, which for me today is very good. Here's a sample of what should be part of a playlist for a planned drive around Mam Tor way.

Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Action
Power pop at it's finest. Don't know much about the band, only that this song sounds fantastic. If I remember right, Bill Drummond wanted to sign the Bunnymen to Sire in part because they released this single. It's sentiment is pure mod, from the title, and the lyrics talking of an urge to "bust out at full speed". The yell from the singer before the 50s rock and roll-esque guitar break is perfect for urging you to be a little more aggressive with the accelerator.

Teenage Fanclub - Sparky's Dream
Teenage Fanclub are, as anyone with any sense knows, blessed with three songwriters who know how to write a brilliant pop song. I could have picked any of about 20, but Gerald Love's finest moment gets the nod. It has all the things the Fannies do best: jangling guitars, wonderful vocal harmonies and loved-up lyrics about "needing a crystal ball to see her in the morning". Whoever Sparky was, they must have woken up in a very good mood.

Big Star - When My Baby's Beside Me
Related to the above, in terms of influence. The late Alex Chilton wrote a lot of excellent pieces of guitar pop and had a great voice to boot, but my favourite Big Star moment was one fronted by his songwriting partner, the also late Chris Bell. It's a straightforward song as you could hear, almost all leading up to the relentlessly catchy chorus. Hearing it only confirms why people these days are baffled that they were almost entirely ignored in their own time.

Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now I picked this Furs song on the basis that it came up on mp3 the other day and I remembered how amazing it still sounds: Richard Butler's usual throaty vocals, keyboards blurring in and out and, best of all, John Ashton's best guitar solo. I don't usually go for solos, but I make a big exception for this as it sounds so brilliantly triumphant, leading on from the final cry of "let it stay forever now".

Care - My Boyish Days
How can you go wrong with two of my favourite songwriters in the same band? You can't, at least not in terms of quality of songs. Care was Paul Simpson (Wild Swans) and Ian Broudie (Lightning Seeds) working together in the early 80s. Though only three singles were released, a fine compilation - Diamonds and Emeralds was later released and this is the highlight of their all-too-brief period of collaboration. The part where the strings kick in in the middle melts me everytime.

Crowded House - Weather With You
Neil Finn is, of course, one of the best pop songwriters of all time, able to write about the light and dark in life with equal genius. I picked this one as it reminds me of being ten years old and going places with my parents, as it seemed to be on the radio constantly in 1991. Plus it's easy to sing along with really loudly (and, in my case, badly) when driving with blue skies above.