Low Rider

This article is about a song by the band War. For the vehicle, see lowrider.

"Low Rider" is a song written by the band War and appearing on their 1975 album Why Can't We Be Friends?. It reached number one on the Billboard R&B charts and peaked at number seven on the Pop Singles chart.^[1]

According to the Allmusic review of the song, "the lyric takes the cool image of the lowrider — the Chicano culture practice of hydraulically hot-rodding classic cars — and using innuendo, extends the image to a lifestyle."

Music video

The music video for the song consists of various pimpmobiles on a typical traffic suburban style street, showing two men each driving a pimpmobile. At one point, an animated version of the face of the album Why Can't We Be Friends is lip-synching as well as a man wearing a mask of the album's face. There are also scenes consisting of a driver showing off the album holding it out the window or on the windshield.

Cover versions

• The song has been covered by the following artists:
  • Blues Traveler
  • Bona Fide on their album "The Poe House"
  • Peter Cetera
  • Cypress Hill
  • The Fantômas Melvins Big Band
  • George Clinton
  • Earth Eatz Dog - on their album Sniff This!
  • Epsilon Minus
  • Exodus
  • Gary Hoey (this version is played at the start of the Greg and the Morning Buzz radio show each day)
  • JFA
  • Terry Kath
  • Korn
  • Latin Alliance
  • Look People
  • Paul Rodriguez
  • Phish
  • Popa Chubby featuring Galea
  • Quando Quango
  • Son Of Dave
  • Cedar Walton
  • Widespread Panic
  • Barry White
  • Yukon Kornelius
  • Slapbak
  • Tyson Carter with the Men in Crothcless Leather Chaps
  • Many P2P networks credit the War version of the track to ZZ Top, but the band has never recorded a version of the song.
• "Low Rider" was sampled by The Offspring in the remix version of "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)".
• "Low Rider" was sampled by Tito & Tarantula on the track "Bullets From A Gun".
• War's "Low Rider" was also significantly sampled by The Beastie Boys for their track "Slow Ride" on the 1986 album Licensed to Ill.
• The song "Jorge Regula" by The Moldy Peaches borrowed the main riff from "Low Rider."
• Sublime sampled the song in the bassline of Forman Freestyle on disc 2 of their posthumous release Everything Under the Sun.

Cultural references

• The song was featured on the first compilation in the Lowrider Soundtrack series.
• Movies: The song has been featured in fourteen movies, including the Cheech and Chong series, A Gnome Named Gnorm, Robots, 21 Grams, Dazed and Confused, Paulie, Beverly Hills Ninja, A Knight's Tale, the 2000 remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds, The Young Poisoner's Handbook, Friday and Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
• The song was also featured on the 5th season of Beverly Hills, 90210.
• Low Rider is the theme song for George Lopez and for its titular star's stand up comedy appearances.
• At the 2007 ALMA Awards, George Lopez also called this song, "The Chicano National Anthem".
• Low Rider is featured in the video games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (playing on Master Sounds 98.3), Skate 2, Skate It, and Driver: Parallel Lines.
• It can be heard in MLB 08: The Show, a Playstation 2, PSP, and PS3 game.
• CWF Superstar 'The Casino Kid' Vegas Ford used the song as his entrance theme from 1996-97.
• Nomar Garciaparra of the Oakland Athletics and Mark Loretta of the Los Angeles Dodgers use this song as their entrance music when they come up to bat.
• On That '70s Show, it is considered by Eric to be his and Donna's song, since they heard it on their first date.
• In The Simpsons episode Little Big Girl "Low Rider" is played when Bart Simpson flees to North Haverbrook.
• Parts of the song have been used in advertisements for Marmite in the United Kingdom, and CIBC in Canada
• George Lopez said if he chose a featured song for the 2009 Christmas Music party, that it would be Low Rider.

References