Ah, the smell of hot asphalt and diesel. The high-octane machine thunderously revving while you are hauling long distances alone in a cold, dark night, with nothing but you, the road, and the 80,000-pound truck.
Being a trucker is an experience. It is a lifestyle, a passion, and a way of life. You know all the best trucker movies, jokes, and even jargon that no one besides a fellow trucker can understand.
But music… Music is something special for a trucker. It is one of the few things that help relax while on the road by telling a story of love, trucks, exploration, hardships, and even ghosts.
Few experiences come close to being on the road listening to your favorite songs.
Here is our pick for the top 100+ Truck Driver Songs.
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Top 100+ Truck Driver Songs – Spotify Playlist
Top 100+ Truck Driver Songs – YouTube Playlist
Our Top 20 Pick
Here’s our top 20 truck driver songs list:
- 20. Phantom 309 by Red Sovine
- 19. Girl on the Billboard by Del Reeves
- 18. Me & Bobby McGee by Roger Miller
- 17. Highway to Hell by AC/DC
- 16. Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
- 15. Texas Bound and Flyin’ by Jerry Reed
- 14. Convoy by C.W. McCall
- 13. Brothers of the Highway by Tony Justice
- 12. Trucker Man by Gretchen Wilson
- 11. A Girl Who Loves to Truck by The Road Hammers
- 10. My Big Ole Truck by Buddy Brown
- 9. A Man With 18 Wheels by Lee Ann Womack
- 8. Truck Driving Man by Terry Fell
- 7. Driving my Life Away by Eddie Rabbit
- 6. Big Wheels in the Moonlight by Dan Seals
- 5. Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses by Kathy Mattea
- 4. Six Days on the Road by Dave Dudley
- 3. Roll on Big Mama by Joe Stampley
- 2. Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler) by Alabama
- 1. I’ve Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash
20. Phantom 309 by Red Sovine
Let us set the scene here – the narrator of the song is picked up by a Phantom 309 truck driven by Big Joe. They travel together throughout the night, and the narrator is dropped off at a truck stop in the morning. Big Joe gives him some change to buy coffee, and when the narrator orders his coffee, he tells Big Joe gave him a ride, only for the waiter to tell him that Big Joe died years ago. He crashed his truck, trying to avoid a “bus-load of kids coming from town.”
19. Girl on the Billboard by Del Reeves
Reeves is driving a truck when he spots the billboard he knows quite well. “Who is the girl wearing nothing but a smile and a towel in the picture on the billboard in the field by the big old highway?” He’s smart, though. He slows down when passing the billboard, as drivers get distracted as they pass it and crash quite often it seems. Reeves passes and admires the billboard for many a day and finally stops to ask the painter who is The Girl on the Billboard.
18. Me & Bobby McGee by Roger Miller
The song is about two drifters, the singer, and Bobby McGee. Both hitch a ride on the same truck, and during the trip, they are sharing songs, stories, and cold nights all the way from Kentucky to California. Then, somewhere near Salinas, they go their separate ways, and the singer laments letting Bobby go. He says, “I’d trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday/Holdin Bobby’s body next to mine.”
17. Highway to Hell by AC/DC
Although not necessarily a trucker song, it still can be interpreted as one. The long hours, the endless road – all of this is a metaphorical “highway to hell” for a trucker that can’t handle the pressure. Funny thing is the song is written for going to a bar named The Raffles. Going there required a trip down Canning Highway, dubbed “Highway to Hell” due to the countless people who were killed by driving fast on the same road.
16. Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
Another song that’s not necessarily a trucker song, but perfectly fits the trucker lifestyle. We don’t think there is a song coming nearly as close to capturing the feeling of being homesick after being away from home for long periods of time – which is a staple of trucking by the way. The good times, friends, family, scenery – all are pleasant memories that induce nostalgic feelings for one’s home.
15. Texas Bound and Flyin’ by Jerry Reed
We’re going to go on a wild guess here: ain’t no trucker who hasn’t seen Smokey and the Bandit. This iconic movie inspired many people of its generation to love the Firebird and the lifestyle on the road. It is one of those movies that, if you’ve watched as a kid, you will remember it for the rest of your life.
Texas Bound and Flyin’ is a peek into the Bandit’s life, as well as an introduction to the legendary story of Smokey and the Bandit. “Their story is a legend/That will live on in time” – can’t be more true!
14. Convoy by C.W. McCall
If there’s a rebel trucker song, then this is it. This song is about a convoy of truckers protesting the 55 mph speed limit, the logbook manipulation that came to be after the mandatory rests were introduced, the toll roads, speed limit – everything that plagued truckers in the 70s. Throughout the song, a convoy of three trucks becomes 85 trucks pursued by the “bears/smokes” (police).
13. Brothers of the Highway by Tony Justice
This is a song describing what it’s like being a trucker. With its start during a rainy day when the trucker needs to say goodbye to their love through their rearview mirror, you know it hits all the right notes. It is the unwritten manifesto of all truckers out there, describing the monotonous, but yet liberating trucker lifestyle.
12. Trucker Man by Gretchen Wilson
Another song describing what it’s like being a trucker, but this song focuses more on the return trip after a long haul. The song is about the return of a Peterbilt truck driver, who’s heading from Minneapolis back to Tulsa, with the “hammer down on eighty two.” The sunburn on his left arm hints he’s in trucking for a long time. After a long haul throughout mostly night time (those red eye runs are taking their toll — red eye – tail lights), he’s finally going home. It is night; he’s got the CB radio on channel 19 (weather channel) and a Smith & Wesson gun in the glove box, and ready to pull an all-nighter just to get home as fast as he can.
11. A Girl Who Loves to Truck by The Road Hammers
Now this song is about a trucker meeting a girl on a “lonely trucker’s website.” It turns out the girl loves trucking – all subliminal suggestions aside – and if taken literally, it is an innocent song about finding love on a dating site and teaching her how to drive the truck so good that she drives from Houston to Georgia. At the same time, the trucker is “ridin’ shotgun.”
10. My Big Ole Truck by Buddy Brown
A song about an ordinary person driving an SUV who suddenly decides to ditch the “4runner” and get themself a brand new rig. When he went for a drive, his ego started to grow so much it got him “high.”
Now, that brand new rig is a big ole truck, but he still feels like a “million bucks” because he feels like a boss whenever he is driving it.
9. A Man With 18 Wheels by Lee Ann Womack
The singer is in a relationship with a trucker awaiting his return after ten long days on the road. She reminds herself that he is close to home with only one more stop to go. When he comes home, she will make sure they are going to make up for the nights they’ve missed. Sadly, she knows that the trucker is hers until the time to roll again comes, but that’s okay because she signed up for loving “a man with 18 wheels” after all.
8. Truck Driving Man by Terry Fell
This song is so meta. It talks about playing itself while it plays itself. A trucker enters a roadhouse in Texas, a place called Hamburger Dan’s, to get some coffee. He hears the old jukebox playing a song about a truck driving man as he was drinking his coffee. He puts a nickel in the jukebox to play it again, because “that old song sure does fit [him] cause [he is] a truck drivin’ man.”
7. Driving my Life Away by Eddie Rabbit
This song is a throwback on the life of an OTR truck driver and how they feel about the long periods they are away from home. For a trucker, everything is repetitive, so much that the wipers are slapping out a tempo that is the same with the music playing on the radio. Using coffee as fuel, girls hitchhiking, driving at night – it is driving one’s life away, it seems.
6. Big Wheels in the Moonlight by Dan Seals
This song was a #1 Hot Country hit back in ‘88. It tells the story of a small-town boy who loves watching the trucks that pass by. The boy’s dream, of course, is becoming a trucker one day. But, he is just a normal man, who “can’t complain about all I’ve got kids and a wife and a regular job.” He never became a trucker, but still keeps the memories of trucks passing by dear in his mind.
5. Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses by Kathy Mattea
Charlie is a trucker running his final run before retiring. After thirty years of driving, he doesn’t have much to show for it – except for a golden watch. But, none of that matters, since he has ten more miles on his four-day run, and he will be with the one he loves for the rest of his life.
4. Six Days on the Road by Dave Dudley
This song here is credited for launching the truck driving song genre and helped establish country music as music for the working, blue-collar man. This song captures the lifestyle of a truck driver, the boredom, danger, and machoism that comes with trucking. With the long days away from home, driving overweight, skipping scales, and missing logbook entries – but that doesn’t matter since he is making it home tonight.
3. Roll on Big Mama by Joe Stampley
A truck driver is singing to Big Mama, his truck, about how it delivers him from a life he doesn’t want to be in and how the engine sings a song to him with a heavy note. They go everywhere together, through the snow and the driving rain, freezing and hellishly hot temperatures, from the Colorado mountain tops to the desert where Reno stops. There is no road this trucker and his truck Big Mama haven’t seen.
2. Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler) by Alabama
An eighteen-wheeler driver leaves his three children and wife at home while on a midwest run. He calls them each night to tell them he loves them. On his way back, he jackknifes his truck in a snowbank in Illinois. The police find the truck, but the trucker is nowhere to be found. The family fears the worst, but then the trucker calls, saying he’ll be home.
1. I’ve Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash
Our pick for the number one is probably obvious. There is something special about this song. Now, it was originally written by Australian singer Rolf Harris, but the Johnny Cash version remains the most popular. It is about a Mack trucker who’s down a dusty Winnemucca road when a semi driver picks him up for a ride. They strike a conversation, and the driver asks “Mack” whether he’d “seen a road with so much dust and sand.” “Mack” says, “Listen, I’ve traveled every road in this here land.” And the rest is history.
Like Our Pick?
We hope you like our pick for the top 100 truck driver songs ever made. If you have any comments, or have a song we forgot to mention and add to the playlist, let us know and we will happily add it to both the YouTube and Spotify playlists.
