Rock anthem Born To be Wild is 50 years old

Middle age crisis means that the former baby boomer's thoughts turn to some irrational behaviour.

Some will buy a sports car or a Harley motor cycle and many will dream of the road trip across the US - like Route 66 or Highway 1.

I now see it is 50 years since Steppenwolf gave us the anthem Born To Be Wild.

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Expertly illustrated in the 1969 movie Easy Rider they also coined the phrase ‘heavy metal thunder’.

In April the song was inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame in a new category for rock songs that changed the course of music.

This week a 3CD set called Classic Road Trip attempts to collect 60 of them within this new release. Rock fans of a certain age will smile in recognition of songs like Summer Of 69 (Bryan Adams), All Right Now (Free), Roll Over Lay Down (Status Quo), I Surrender (Rainbow) and Bon Jovi’s You Give Love A Bad Name while the connoisseurs of rock will nod in appreciation of Asia, Uriah Heep, Poison and even Tom Sawyer by Rush.

Southern Rockers are represented by the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd while the pop element still has its place with T Rex, Edison Lighthouse, Glen Campbell, Mungo Jerry and that most magnificent of one hot wonders in Something In The Air by Thunderclap Newman and once ‘underground’ in their day the hits from Small faces, The Herd and Cream. Classics all and cheaper than a Harley Davidson.

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