Low Rider

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

"Low Rider"
Song by War
Album	Why Can't We Be Friends?
Released	1975
Format	LP
Genre	Funk, Latin, Rock

"Low Rider" is a song written by the band War and appearing on their album Why Can't We Be Friends?, released in 1975. It reached number one on the Billboard R&B charts and peaked at number 7 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."

[edit] 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.

[edit] Cover versions

• The song has been covered by the following artists:
  • Blues Traveler
  • Peter Cetera
  • The Fantômas Melvins Big Band
  • George Clinton
  • Earth Eatz Dog - on their album Sniff This!
  • Epsilon Minus
  • Exodus
  • Gary Hoey
  • JFA
  • Terry Kath
  • Korn
  • Latin Alliance
  • Phish
  • Popa Chubby featuring Galea
  • Quando Quango
  • Son Of Dave
  • Cedar Walton
  • Widespread Panic
  • Barry White
  • Yukon Kornelius
  • 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".
• 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.

[edit] 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

Preceded by "Sweet Sticky Thing" by The Ohio Players

Billboard's Hot Soul singles number one single (War version) November 8, 1975

Succeeded by "Fly, Robin, Fly" by Silver Convention