Todd Partridge – “Car Song” (Live From The Gilded Palace)

Todd Partridge performs “Car Song” live on Tuesday, May 20, 2026, at Live From the Gilded Palace. “Car Song” is a King Of The Tramps song from the album Wicked Mountain, released May 18, 2013. Before playing it, Todd talked about moving around before his family settled in Wall Lake, Iowa, where he learned to drive around a small town, go to parties in the country and spend time on gravel roads and around corn fields. Todd said “Car Song” has a lot of autobiographical shenanigans in it. One of the stories behind it came from his teenage years with a 1966 GTO, a trip to Lakewood Ballroom in Lake View, Iowa, too much sloe gin, six people in the car and a chase that ended outside of town when the car ran out of gas. The song turns those memories into a bigger reflection on youth, cars, trouble, friendship and the way old stories live inside old machines. In the lyrics, a Chevelle sits in the front yard on blocks, holding memories of reckless drives, small-town trouble, near misses and the people who were there for all of it. At the center of the song is one of its strongest lines: “sometimes it’s best to let things rust.” In “Car Song,” rust becomes more than decay. It becomes a way of holding onto the past without having to relive every part of it. In this Live From the Gilded Palace performance, Todd brings the song back to the kind of Iowa roads, small-town stories and hard-earned memories that shaped it. This session continues the Live From the Gilded Palace series, an intimate listening-room experience dedicated to showcasing folk, roots and acoustic artists while sharing the feel of room concerts with audiences everywhere. 👉 Learn more about Todd Partridge: https://www.toddpartridge.com/ About Live From the Gilded Palace Live From the Gilded Palace is a hidden gem in Dallas County, Iowa, where roots music comes alive. Inspired by Gram Parsons, we host Iowa’s finest artists with elite HiFi sound and high-quality streams. The space is warm and lived-in: vinyl records line the walls, racks of CDs fill the shelves, rugs soften the floor, and a hint of motor oil lingers near the tool bench. Tucked in the backyard of a split-level home, it’s a one-of-a-kind venue where music fans gather to hear songs the way they were meant to be heard. 👉 Learn more about Live From the Gilded Palace: https://livefromthegildedpalace.com/ #iowamusic #americana #folkmusic #rootsmusic #acousticmusic #midwestmusic #livemusic #storytelling