2012Released
3:13

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Low Rider. By Songfacts®.

A low rider is a car, and also a culture. "Low Riders" are modified with hydraulic lifts that allow the driver to lower each wheel and make the car bounce. They are often customized with outrageous paint jobs, tiny steering wheels and swivel seats. The culture formed around these cars is big in the Southwestern US, and popular in Latino culture. Most of the band grew up in Southern California and were immersed in low rider culture.

War's drummer Harold Brown, who was a founding member of the band, knows his way around cars and had his own business working on them for a while, which kept him from getting drafted during the Vietnam War. Brown told Songfacts: "The first time I knew about what we called Low Riders were my cousin Leon and a few more cruising up and down the coast in California. You also had Hot Rodders, which were a different breed racing around town. They were from the other side of the tracks. Leon left his 1953 yellow Mercury with black prime spots on it, tuck and roll seat covers from Tijuana Mexico, lowered in the front, parked on the side of the house. He eventually lowered it all the way around after returning from the Korean War. My brother KB and I had a 1953 Dodge. We'd chop our springs with torches - this would lower the car a few inches. It made for a hard ride up until homies started putting hydraulics on them. If you were driving a truck with lift gates on the rear, you'd better check to see if someone has stolen your hydraulics - it happened to me. We would drive from Pomona California to South Los Angeles taking side streets and main drags through El Monte, Whittier, Watts, and Compton, then eventually into Long Beach/San Pedro, California. When they finally built freeways in Southern California we would cruise in the slow lane just in case we had to pull over and do some repairs. There wasn't any AAA for us folks. Back in 1965-66, The Sheriffs would stop us for our car being too low. At first they would have a long rod with a clamp on it. Then they would take a pack of Camel cigarettes and clamp it on to the rod sliding it under the chassis of your hooptie. If it didn't go from one side to the other they would give you a ticket or impound your ride. You have to call your daddy or momma to come give you a rider. After a couple of years they became more sophisticated by having a stick with a caliper on the end made as a ruler. The Sheriffs would measure from the ground up to your rims, then slide the calipers from one side to the other to make sure you had proper clearance. Could you imagine having a blow out? You would be dragging along the cement. Thank God for lifts."

The lines "Take a little trip" and "Rides a little higher" led many listeners to believe this song was about drugs, but Brown tells a different story: "We did not want it to sound as if we were referring to drugs. As a rule most Lowriders are not big druggies, because we all had regular jobs as machinists, body and fender and mechanics. We didn't have any extra money for drugs. We put the money into our cars. Drugs didn't come into the picture then. That became a Hollywood thing for some reason. Maybe Cheech and Chong? We were trying to convey that the Lowrider gets a little higher by riding in his automobile, being proud of how he takes care of his ride. It's like riding around in your trophy. We have found that if you are a real Lowrider with a nice ride and it's clean you will find that his or her home and work place is neat and in order. We Lowriders like to make our surroundings better by taking pride in what we are blessed with. 'Take a little trip, take a little trip with me and see.' That's how it felt with my big brother Charles Miller. He's the one that sung the song. When he and I would cruise in his 1948 Chevy (You can see Charles Miller in our Lowrider film on Youtube.com) we never knew what adventure we would encounter. One morning about 2:30 - 3:00 AM we came up on a fire in an apartment complex in Long Beach, California. The people were all asleep. Charles jumped out of his hooptie (1948 Chevy), me following close behind, and started banging on doors and throwing barrels and things against the building to get the attention of the residents inside. I had forgotten about that little trip out of many that we took."

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Low Rider.
CKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
139BPM

Album

The album Low Rider is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Low Rider.
Memo Tutti Frutti
2012 Acewonder ltd.
2012 Cugate ltd.

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