1977 Rock Classic Ranked Among ‘Best Road-Trip Songs of All Time’ Became an Anthem

In 1977, Iggy Pop’s album Lust for Life featured what would become one of his signature songs. “The Passenger” was the B-side to the single “Success.” It never charted in the U.S., yet it remains one of the Godfather of Punk’s most recognizable anthems nearly 50 years later.

Rolling Stone ranked “The Passenger” as one of the best road-trip songs of all time. Describing it as “an ode to driving at night,” the outlet noted that David Bowie played piano on the track, then mused, “Was Pop the passenger in this lyric, giving the steering wheel to the more famous Bowie, or was Bowie the passenger, getting to ride along with Pop and his artistic cred?”

Iggy Pop revealed what inspired ‘The Passenger’

“The Passenger” was co-written by Pop and guitarist Ricky Gardiner. In 2016, Pop told The Guardian the song had several inspirations as he spent time with Bowie, who was “always looking out” for him.

“’The Passenger’ was partly written about the fact I’d been riding around North America and Europe in David’s car ad infinitum. I didn’t have a driver’s license or a vehicle,” Pop shared.

Pop also revealed that he got the song’s title from a movie. “I saw [director Michelangelo] Antonioni’s [film] The Passenger was playing at the Westwood Theater and it made a big impression on me,” he told Uncut in an interview. “’The Passenger’ was derived from the Antonioni film, the [Jim] Morrison poem, and a lick that I was doodling in the studio. It was never supposed to be a song.”

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Gardiner hadn’t expected to write the song

Gardiner was behind the riff on “The Passenger,” but his involvement in the song wasn’t originally planned. It happened when Pop and Bowie, both of whom he knew well from past projects, invited him over to hang out.

“It didn’t occur to me that they would want material,” Gardiner told Total Guitar in a 2012 interview. “But then David said, ‘Have you got anything?’ And I said, ‘Oh well, no…’ to start with, but then I remembered these chords.”

“I had an old Les Paul Junior round my neck, and I was just wandering about and enjoying this fantastic spring morning,” he shared of a previous chord progression he had come up with. “I wasn’t paying any attention at all to what I was playing, but I heard these chords, and I thought, ‘Oh, I must remember that…’”

When he played the chords for Pop and Bowie, it all came together.

“Iggy recorded it on his mono battery cassette player with me playing it unplugged on the Strat,” Gardiner recalled. “And then he came back the next morning with the lyrics, and that was it!”

Five decades later, “The Passenger” remains an anthem during Pop’s live performances. In April 2026, the music legend, now 78, performed the song for fans at Coachella.

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