My pappy said, "Son, you're gonna' drive me to drinkin' If you don't stop drivin' that Hot Rod Lincon.
Released November 1971
This song has an interesting history.
The original inspiration is
"Hot Rod Race" by a country act called
Arkie Shibley and his Mountain Dew Boys (1950). It hit #5 on the country charts, but failed to make a dent on the pop chart because it contained a controversial line (
"We were ripping along like white folks might") which resulted in an airplay ban in several markets.
Tiny Hill filled the void with a watered-down version that reached #29 on the pop chart the following year. Shibley ended up releasing several sequel songs over the next couple of years which expanded on the plot --
"Hot Rod Race No. 2",
"Arkie Meets The Judge (Hot Rod Race No. 3)",
"Hot Rod Race No. 4 (The Guy In The Mercury)" and
"Hot Rod Race No. 5 (The Kid In The Model A)".
The country was probably sick of hot rod story songs by 1952, but by 1955 they might have been ready to open up their hearts and ears again. And, so,
Charley Ryan and The Livingston Bros released
"Hot Rod Lincoln". This was what was known as an "Answer Song", where the lyrics (and sometimes the melody) of one song are specifically written to refer to events or questions or themes from a previous song.
Side note: the most (in)famous Answer Song might be
"Bear Cat" by Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas (1953), which was released by Sun Records as an answer to Big Mama Thornton's
"Hound Dog". Thornton's record label ended up filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against Sam Phillips (owner of Sun Records), which Phillips lost. In order to pay for the lawsuit, Phillips was forced to sell the contract of one of his budding young singers. To add insult to injury, that budding young singer ended up having a worldwide #1 hit with
the very song that caused him to leave Sun in the first place.
Ryan's 1955 version did not chart, and neither did a
remake from 1959, but in 1960 the song was
revived by
Johnny Bond, whose version reached #26 on the Billboard chart.
The song is widely credited with jumpstarting the "hot rod" music genre. When Chuck Berry was first signed to Chess Records, they showed little interest in his attempts at the blues.....but they did see some potential in a song he had presented under the title "Ida May", which was an obvious revival of the 1930s country song
"Ida Red". Chess wasn't really interested in a country revival, so they suggested that the song would have more appeal to the youth market if Berry could re-write the lyrics around a theme that involved automobiles. Berry quickly scribbled some lyrics which were obviously inspired by "Hot Rod Race".....and
the world was never the same.
Anyway, now you know why Commander Cody asked "Have you heard the story of the Hot Rod Race?"