"I've been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel"

Those are the opening lines to what many believe to be one of the greatest driving songs ever played on a car radio. But yet, in a Canadian survey released today, Golden Earring just didn’t make the cut, nor did many others which you would think would be a natural when it comes to summer driving and rock and roll.

A panel of music journalists has made their deliberations in the Pontiac Rhythm of the road competition. And when the pedal hits the metal, it’s Bryan Adams that apparently gets our motors running.

The Globe and Mail ran a complete story on the music competition on today’s website, including some interesting statistics about our habits behind the wheel. Did you know that BC residents are most likely to be caught singing while driving down the road? Guess that explains the whole Adams experience.

Adam’s 1984 hit, Summer of 69, was selected as the ultimate car song, edging out the other short listed six of Queen with Bohemian Rhapsody, Steppenwolf and Born to Be Wild, The Rolling Stones with it’s only Rock and Roll, Drive my Car by the Beatles, Tom Petty’s Free Falling and of course the monster hit by Holland’s Golden Earring.

Lists of these kinds will always spur on debate, which is no doubt the purpose of the bit of summer fun from Pontiac. And certainly there are questions about some serious absences on the list of road tune masters, No Tom Cochrane’s Life is a Highway? Where is AC/DC's Highway to Hell, Mellencamp's Jack and Diane or Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run? What’s the matter with you Canada, you leave the volume up too loud, damaging your ears or something?

Adams is an ok choice, I’ve always liked his stuff. Though I'm not even sure that Summer was his best ever work. But for highway cruising I would politely suggest that he’s not quite in the realm of the master.

For me, you put me in a car, on a nice sunny day and it’s gotta be the Boss! There are any number of Springsteen songs that just were made for the car. From the above mentioned Born To Run, through Thunder Road, Badlands, Cadillac Ranch and dozens (hell maybe hundreds) of other great songs, Springsteen and cars were made for each other.

We should demand a judicial recount, clearly Canadians need to get out on the road more often and expand their musical education. There’s a bounty of rockin’ road songs just waiting to be blared out from the speakers.