Everyone hop in the wagon!
The Nest likes good music, and so should you! And we certainly shouldn’t limit our music showcase to only those great songs that time and corporate playlists have forgotten. So we’re on a mission to play some of my favorite tunes that are too hipster for Scratchy to spin on her Dusty Vinyl Archive… and we’re calling it the Top 30 Songs We Just Feel Like Playing! It’s time to tie Fleabag to the bumper and put Rainy in her rocker on the roof, and go on a fantastic voyage to the theme park of awesome muzak…
#19. “Holiday Road” – Lindsey Buckingham
In 1983, Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was commissioned to write a song that would become the theme song to one of the 80’s more quirky and beloved movie franchises. National Lampoon’s Vacation needed a tune to lead into its family road trip from hell plot, and Buckingham threw together one of the decade’s more catchy and fun songs that everyone knows, but you rarely hear anymore…
“Holiday Road” probably doesn’t instantly pop into the mind when you think of 1980’s movie soundtrack hits. For one thing, there were so many iconic and thoroughly overplayed songs from that genre. For another, despite its upbeat earworm nature, “Holiday Road” wasn’t actually a hit. It only reached #82 on the US Hot 100 chart, and was the least successful of Buckingham’s trio of solo hits, despite arguably being his most well known solo song.
It’s enough to make you go insane…
Admittedly, the song doesn’t have a whole lot of substance to it. At a whopping two minutes and change, it’s pretty easy to tell it was just thrown together for a Hollywood request. The music video with the theme of how work feels like indentured servitude is deeper and had more thought put into it than the song itself. But I’ll always turn it up when I hear it, and it’s almost definitely the greatest song ever to feature dog barking!
OK, maybe the second best song…
It’ll be a long way down that holiday road to Song #18, coming after the holiday, next Monday…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
That Chevy Chase movie still cracks me up EVERY time I watch it – and that song – although short and not a top-10, was perfect for the movie. As many times as I’ve heard it, until you said who wrote it I had no idea it was Lindsay B.
I don’t think it was the first Lindsey Buckingham song I knew (It had to be “Trouble” that I remember), but I knew who he was before I ever knew there was a band called Fleetwood Mac. The same can be said of John, Paul and George…. Ringo’s the only member of the Beatles I didn’t already know as a solo artist before I found out there was this epic band by that name before I was born!
thanks for the. music and I love the pic at the top, reminds me of my childhood!
I did a few road trips facing backwards in a station wagon! The handle for the door didn’t work from the inside, so you weren’t just riding backwards, but you were also stuck that way.
I spent some quality time in that seat )
Superb choice! LOVE this song, but it always ends before I want it to….
I know! It’s way too short. It needs another verse or a bridge…
Love this song and the movies were so funny. 🙂
Yep! And it provided the nickname for my employer!
Awesome pic, love that song.
Yes!
One of the best songs to hit the road playing. #turnitup
#AreWeThereYet
You know I never ever thought of it as a Christmas song? Maybe as a vacation song … you know, on the road, in the car, something easy to sing? But okay, barking dogs is a thing.
It’s not a Christmas song, but who knows anymore. Mixed in with the Christmas music at work is someone’s rendition of “America the Beautiful.” That’s just so… Chirstmassy….
I liked that one, but then I liked Lindsey back in the day.
I’ve never really cared for his other solo songs, but love this one. And he did “Big Love” which is my favorite Fleetwood Mac song…
Very catchy, though I don’t remember it at all.
The Vacation movies must not have been big over there. I guess that’s what they get for making fun of England…
That is a fun, upbeat song! I never knew it was Lindsey Buckingham, which is not surprising since I used to think Lindsey was the other chick in Fleetwood Mac. (The one that’s not Stevie Nicks.)
I always thought Lindsey’s voice in the Fleetwood Mac songs sounded feminine. I don’t know who sounded more like a woman… Buckingham doing “Don’t Stop,” or Nick Gilder singing “Hot Child in the City”…