Assignment 23 - Grace Payne

If there's anything my family likes to do, it's go on road trips. Who wants to fly when you can spend 8 hours cramped in a car with the people you love? Many times, my family's road trips include hours of driving through literally nothing. The sign game doesn't really help cure the boredom there. So, it's important that we have an awesome playlist for our trip.

1. Africa by Toto. I'm not really sure how it happened, but either this summer or the one before it this song kind of became a meme between my friends and I. There's something about this song that makes it the perfect road trip song. It's probably the ability to scream the lyrics. This song goes first on my list because everyone in my family knows the lyrics, and it's always our go-to song for road trips.

2. Take me Home, Country Roads by John Denver. Continuing with my theme, this is another song that somehow became a meme between my friends and I. This song has perfectly belt-able lyrics, and that's exactly what we do during road trips. Just a heads up, this song is 10x better if you play while in the state of West Virginia. This song goes second on this list, but only barely, cause this is also a must play road trip song. This is an all around awesome song.

3. You'll Be Back by Hamilton (Sung by Jonathan Groff). Pretty much anyone can tell you I am not a huge Hamilton fan. But, I've loved Jonathan Groff since his Glee days, and this song is no exception. This song is super catchy, and contains enough funny lines (and Groff's British accent) to keep our road trip entertaining. This song goes third on my list because as long as I'm in the car with Wes, one Hamilton song has to be played, and it might as well be this one. This song is different than the other two, but that sums up my taste in music. Broadway, some older music, and a little bit of Pop.

4. One Day More by Les Miserables Cast. My dad is a HUGE Les Mis fan, as are my brother and I. My dad dislikes the movie version of this song and instead prefers the version from London, but I like this one. The passion in this song usually leads to us yelling the lyrics in the car, which makes our road trips better. This song goes fourth because of the controversy between which version is better.

5. Defying Gravity by Wicked (Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel). This song is long, which helps to pass the time during long road trips. It also includes two distinct parts, which Wes and I split sometimes to make it more entertaining. This song goes a little big later on my list because my family likes the song, but not everyone knows the lyrics.

6. Rock Lobster by B-52s. This is my all time favorite song, and I'm not even joking. It's quirky and weird and just flat out awesome. It too goes lower on my list because while I demand that this song is played during every road trip, this is my favorite song, and the rest of my family just kind of puts up with it. It's still a fabulous road trip.

7. 99 Luftballons by Nena. I chose this version and not the English one for a specific reason. I hear the English version on every road trip we go on, and just on this past road trip we did (this past weekend) did I discover that there was a German version. I was shook to say the least. The German version just sounds so cool, and sometimes the German doesn't flow as well as the English words and makes the song that much better. It goes lower on the list because, well, it's in German, and I do know any of the lyrics in German.

This is a bit of a lopsided playlist, but there's a logical reason. My dad doesn't go on a lot of our road trips, because he has to work. On those road trips you see a lot more Broadway and less of the music from the 80s. On the road trips my dad does go on, he controls the music and we listen to what he wants to listen to.