(02.27.08) Recommends:

Busting Our Your Favorite Driving CD and Going for a Drive.

Call us old timers, but this post is a nod to old school music listening ways.

One of the things that our iPod world makes us contemplate is the future of the Driving CD. Anyone born from about 1985 and earlier knows what we're talking about. The CD that you always have somewhere in the car because if a long road trip should suddenly break out, you'd need it because it's your favorite Driving CD. They are those rare albums where every song is good, every song flows perfectly into the next song, and together the album seems to perfectly soundtrack whatever landscape that happens to surround you.

Do people still have Driving CDs, or is it all iPod mixes, perfectly tailored to meet the expectations of the destination, the driving company, the climate controlled environment? God, we hope not.

Probably our favorite Driving CD is Son Volt's Trace. This record came out when we were Sophomores in high school, and my goodness, driving really meant something at that age, you know? We can definitely recall getting out and getting lost among the dusty backroads of Kansas, with the windows rolled down and that humid heat beating down on us, listening to this record over and over and over again. We didn't know where we were headed, but we were hopeful that the open road and this album held some of the answers.

And this week, we're there again. I mean, we're not back in Kansas. We've found ourselves sequestered in a certain California city that was heretofore unknown to us. But this town has a really stunning mountain range. So when we've had time, we've gotten out, like that Sophomore stuck inside of us, and have been driving in the shadow of that mountain range. Looking for answers, trying to clear our heads. And wouldn't you know it, but we had to bust out our favorite Driving CD again. And it can still make everything seem more meaningful.

These songs will never be as powerful to us as they are coming out of a CD player, out on the open road, but here are two of our favorite tracks from our favorite Driving CDs.