Low Rider  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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"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.

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 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, "Low Rider knows every street, yeah.", 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:
  • Willy DeVille
  • Carlos Santana
  • 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)
  • Andy Offutt Irwin
  • JFA
  • Terry Kath
  • Kid Frost and Latin Alliance
  • Korn
  • Look People
  • Paul Rodriguez
  • Phish
  • Popa Chubby featuring Galea
  • Quando Quango
  • Son Of Dave
  • Cedar Walton
  • Widespread Panic
  • Barry White
  • Yukon Kornelius
  • Warren Hill from his 2005 album PopJazz
  • 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 Everything Under the Sun.
• The song "Surfin Buena Park" by The Ziggens borrowed the main riff from "Low Rider".
• Jazz funk/Contemporary jazz instrumental group Bona Fide covered the song from their 2001 album "The Poe House."
• An spanish version of mexican group Banda Pachuco was recorded in 1996 for the album with the same name.

Cultural references

• The song was covered with the name "Me no fry" for a sunscreen commercial on Australian TV.
• The song was featured on the first compilation in the Lowrider Soundtrack series.
• Movies: The song has been featured in thirteen movies, including the Cheech and Chong series, Colors, A Gnome Named Gnorm, Robots, 21 Grams, Dazed and Confused, Paulie, Beverly Hills Ninja, A Knight's Tale, the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 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, Lopez Tonight, 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".
• George Lopez said if he chose a featured song for the 2009 Christmas Music party, that it would be Low Rider.
• Low Rider is featured in the video games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (playing on Master Sounds 98.3), Skate 2, Skate It, Driver: Parallel Lines and Rock Band 3.
• It can be heard in MLB 08: The Show, a PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation 3 game.
• CWF Superstar 'The Casino Kid' Vegas Ford used the song as his entrance theme from 1996-97.
• Current free agent Nomar Garciaparra and former baseball player Mark Loretta would use this song as their entrance music when they came 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. Also in episode "A Midsummer's Nice Dream" while Homer is riding in the van with Cheech from Cheech and Chong.
• In the Family Guy episode "It's A Trap!", the music for "Low Rider" is playing in Peter Griffin's flashback when he's driving the Millennium Falcon and pulls up to a car full of girls.
• Parts of the song have been used in advertisements for Marmite in the United Kingdom, and CIBC in Canada
• Cheech & Chong used it as their entrance music when they guest hosted WWE Raw on March 1, 2010.
• Used in Season 1, Episode 6 of the UK television show Misfits on E4.
• The tune was also used in the UK Marmite adverts.