This adrenaline-fueled rocker is about a man and his love for his high-powered car, which he says can out-race anything else on the road. It spawned a sub-genre known as "speed metal," a division of heavy metal later popularized by bands such as Motörhead and Metallica. The song is responsible for many speeding tickets.
According to Deep Purple bass player Roger Glover, the band wrote "Highway Star" on their tour bus on the way to a gig at the Portsmouth Guildhall (in the UK) on September 13, 1971, where they debuted the song. They wrote it because they were getting sick of their opening number, "Speed King"; "Highway Star" became their opener from that point on. The song evolved through live performances, and was recorded for the Machine Head album in December 1971.
This is one of the most famous driving songs in rock, right up there with Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild," Golden Earring's "Radar Love."
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