As part of National Walking Month, Walk1000Miles teamed up with radio station Planet Rock to find the Top 10 Rock Songs for Walkers. Here’s what Walk1000Milers and Planet Rock listeners came up with.
1 Led Zeppelin – Kashmir
Led Zep loved using imagery of walking and mountains. In 1970, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant retreated to the cottage of Bron-Yr-Aur near Machynlleth in Eryri (Snowdonia) to write a bunch of songs for the band’s third and fourth albums, including two songs containing the cottage’s name. Kashmir is from later in their career but it’s your classic journey song, and John Bonham’s drumbeat rolls this epic track along at perfect walking pace. (Check out Ramble On, too.)
2 Aerosmith – Walk this Way
This stone-cold classic was always going to be in the mix. The lyrics have very little to do with
actual walking, but who cares when the title is everything?
3 Dire Straits – Walk of Life
‘Here comes Johnny and he’ll tell you the story / Hand me down my walkin’ shoes.’ Any chance this one wouldn’t be in there? Nah.
4 AC/DC – Highway to Hell
‘Askin’ nothin’, leave me be, takin’ everythin’ in my stride’. Bon Scott and friends articulate the why of walking, although we generally prefer a nice tearoom rather than, er, hell.
5 Disturbed – The Sound of Silence
Simon and Garfunkel’s classic is transformed into a heavy metal howl of anguish. Darren says it’s ideal for bellowing out when you’re walking to get over some troublesome thing.
6 Electric Light Orchestra – Mr Blue Sky
If you’re on a walk with a beautiful clear blue sky, you might not need to pad out the moment with a song. But if any record complements that experience perfectly, it’s probably this one. Please tell us why.
7 Foo Fighters – Best of You
Not especially walky in its lyrics – but Darren says there may not be a better song to have in your ears if you’re on a long walk, flagging a little, and in need of rocket boosters.
8 Queen – Hammer to Fall
The same goes for this one. Twenty miles in on the Yorkshire Three Peaks and still another peak to go? This absolute banger by Freddie and Co will get you up it.
9 Metallica – Whiskey in the Jar
Okay it’s about robbery, infidelity and murder, but this immortal Irish folk song (given a hard-metal twist here by US rock icons Metallica) starts off ‘in the Cork and Kerry mountains’, and that’s good enough for us.
10 Joe Bonamassa – Mountain Climbing
“I straight up love this song,” says DJ and avid walker Darren, “and how about this for a chorus? ‘Ain’t no map to follow, just follow your own path / Get close to the edge and there’s no turning back / The wind and the rain gonna push you around / Hard times try to break you, don’t ever let ’em back you down’.”
