The 1973 “Chevy Van” song that was a million seller hit single in the United States. Eventually reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was aired in a time of carefree sex before herpes and AIDS. Initially a pop tune, the song was later re-released as a country song and country artists like Eric Church, Waylon Jennings, and Sammy Kershaw have released covers of the song.

Singer/writer Sammy Johns penned this epic pop hit about a guy on a cross-country journey, and his chance encounter with a girl that ends with a one night stand in the back of a Chevy van, before dropping her off in a small town. Recording the record in 1973, it sat on the shelves at the record company for 18 months before actually getting airplay in 1975. The song went on to sell 3-million copies and was called “The Song of the Seventies” by Rolling Stone magazine.

Chevrolet conversion van. Photo from www.wikipedia.org

“Chevy Van” began to symbolize the free-love era of the 1970s and probably helped to sell a lot of Chevy vans. About the same timeframe, conversion vans were becoming popular. Chevrolet’s G-series vans were commonly used in these conversions. Even when the conversion van was not a Chevy, the credit was almost always given to Chevy in the form of this song as seen in the 1977 feature film, “The Van.” In the movie, the featured van was a Dodge but the music was “Chevy Van.”

While the writer/singer, Sammy Johns, passed away in 2013, his song will forever live on as one of the most carefree songs of casual sex in a vehicle.