In 1980, Eddie Rabbitt scored one of the biggest crossover hits of his career with “Drivin’ My Life Away.” Now, 46 years later, the song is getting another ride up the charts, and this time we know what put it back on the road.
“Drivin’ My Life Away” landed at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart after being featured in episode 7 of Dutton Ranch, “Den of Sin.”
The new ranking helps explain a curious resurgence Parade spotted earlier this summer. Shortly after the episode aired, “Drivin’ My Life Away” made its first-ever appearance on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart, debuting at No. 23. At the time, its inclusion in the video game NASCAR 25 offered one possible explanation for the sudden spike.
But the new Top TV Songs ranking points directly to Dutton Ranch as another major force behind the song’s renewed popularity.
‘Drivin’ My Life Away’ Gets a ‘Dutton Ranch’ Revival
“Drivin’ My Life Away” appears prominently in a flashback that opens the June 19 episode of the Yellowstone spinoff.
The scene takes viewers back to Fort Worth in 1981, where a young Beulah Jackson (Rebeca Robles) is enjoying a night out with friends as Rabbitt’s song plays. The sequence ultimately takes a dark turn, revealing a traumatic event from Beulah’s past that would have consequences decades later.
That makes “Drivin’ My Life Away” more than incidental background music. The song helps immediately establish the flashback’s time and place before the story reveals why that night became so important to Beulah.
Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart combines song and television data from Tunefind with U.S. sales and streaming information tracked by Luminate. For June, Rabbitt finished behind only Deftones’ “Change (In the House of Flies),” Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” and Reggie’s “New Headstone.”
Not bad company for a song released nearly half a century ago.
Eddie Rabbitt’s ‘Drivin’ My Life Away’ Was a Huge Crossover Hit
Released in June 1980 as the lead single from Rabbitt’s Horizon album, “Drivin’ My Life Away” was written by Rabbitt, Even Stevens and David Malloy. Inspired by life on the road, the song captures the long hours and loneliness associated with truck driving.
It became Rabbitt’s seventh No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart and crossed over in a major way, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
And Rabbitt was just getting started.
His next major crossover hit, “I Love a Rainy Night,” went all the way to No. 1 on the country, pop and Adult Contemporary charts in early 1981. “Step by Step” and his Crystal Gayle duet “You and I” followed, establishing Rabbitt as one of the era’s most successful country-pop crossover artists.
“Drivin’ My Life Away” has also accumulated an impressive screen résumé over the decades, appearing in The Americans, Everybody Wants Some!!, Finding Steve McQueen and other projects before its latest placement on Dutton Ranch.
Forty-six years after Rabbitt first started “drivin’ that life away,” television audiences have put the song back on the road once again.
Related: 45 Years Ago Today, This Country Song Hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 After 12 Years in a Basement
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