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Driving Songs: Deep Purple – Highway Star

Submitted by Michael W. Rush on Monday, 20 April 200914 Comments

Driving Songs: Deep Purple - Highway Star

Yes. We promised to go a little bit newer, but when we thought it through, we decided to present you the “Highway Star” sang by Deep Purple … why you ask? No special reason, it’s just a great song that deserves to be presented here. And every petrolhead who heard it once, has repeated it again countless times. Just imagine, driving through a mountain pass, with the scenery ranging from foggy sleeping valleys, brought then by sunny curved hills, and back again through the thick forests of pine trees, oak trees who bring quite a shadow over the road, listening to this song. Or maybe getting on that mountain highway, getting to the ocean side and enjoying the scenery. All we can say, beauty and true driving pleasure all the way.

This song was born on a tour bus going to Portsmouth in 1971 when a reporter asked the band how they wrote songs. To demonstrate, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore grabbed an acoustic and began playing a riff consisting of a single “G” repeated over and over, while vocalist Ian Gillan improvised lyrics over the top. The song was refined and was performed that same night. The song first appears on the 1972 LP Machine Head. The track remains one of the band’s staple live performances, and was the set opener for many years. These days the song is usually an encore. Two live versions of this song can be heard on the Deep Purple-Extended Versions Live Compilation CD. The first version heard on the CD is fused with the song “Not Fade Away”.

The structure of the song consists of a 35 second guitar introduction, before the band launches into the thumping opening riff, which soon leads into the first vocals section (0:55). The first two verses are sung, then Jon Lord begins his organ solo (2:14). The organ solo lasts for about a minute, then Ian Gillan sings the third verse of the song (3:24). At the conclusion of the third verse, the guitar solo starts (3:45), and lasts for just under a minute and twenty seconds. Then, the fourth and final verse, which in the original recording is simply a repetition of the first verse, is sung, finishing around 6:10. Depending on the version, there may be a 15 second-long exit section before the end of the song. When the song is played live, Gillan has been known to improvise its lyrics, as seen in the official video for the song.

Source: Data gathered from Wikipedia.org and Information on the web collected by the editorial of My Car Portal

14 Comments »

Vanja K. said:

Nice song, graat article once again, hope that our readers will like it

- 20 April 2009 at 17:40

Michael W. Rush (author) said:

I’m happy you like it because it will have more stuff added in this category soon! We hope that the readers enjoy it even more

- 20 April 2009 at 20:50

The American Classic Car Song: Mustang Sally | American Cars said:

[...] Driving Songs: Deep Purple – Highway Star | My Car Portal [...]

- 20 April 2009 at 22:38

Industrial Thinking said:

Another nice song here, I like it

- 20 April 2009 at 23:49

Tinky said:

Wohooooooo let’s rock once more )

- 20 April 2009 at 23:50

Vanja K. said:

It’s a good thing that everyone likes it

- 21 April 2009 at 02:27

CenturiON said:

Finally some good website that has articles like this one, I’m sick and tired of car websites reviewing bicycles and crap like that, which really has nothing to do with cars in the first place. Please don’t get with the flow, and continue with this

- 21 April 2009 at 13:21

Vanja K. said:

Thnak you for your nice comments here, we strive to get you only the best news, and the news that will interest a rel petrolhead here, not the crappy “New _______ 1.4 model is out” news that generally get as much attention as bold skinny guy gets at prom night really …

- 21 April 2009 at 13:27

lychee said:

A really cool song, brings back memories of some better spent hours and days when we were younger …

- 21 April 2009 at 16:10

Vanja K. said:

Ahahaha … that’s what my coworker said, he remembered all the days when he was worry free, got in his car, drove to the sea and enjoy it for month or two. Now he goes and panics when there are traffic jams on the highway, but anyway he and all that saw this series said it was nice

- 22 April 2009 at 13:27

Vid said:

Like the article, when is the next part coming?

- 29 April 2009 at 23:01

Michael W. Rush (author) said:

Hopefully this friday we will have the next part. We had some work that had to be done, so we didn’t get a chance to finish another part of this topic …

- 29 April 2009 at 23:04

lychee said:

What’s the problem with the next realase?

- 3 May 2009 at 21:21

Michael W. Rush (author) said:

Well sorry for the delay, we had to make some adjustments to the website, and we we’re working on a new header for the website, so this got a little delayed. But hopefully we will have a chance tommorow to finish things up.

- 3 May 2009 at 21:22