Holiday Road

"Holiday Road" is a 1983 single composed and recorded by American guitarist/singer Lindsey Buckingham. Written for the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation, it was also used in the film's sequels National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), Vegas Vacation (1997) and Vacation (2015). Despite only peaking at number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during its original release, it has since become one of Buckingham's best known songs.
Buckingham released a live version of the song on his 2008 album Live at the Bass Performance Hall.
In July 2015, a remastered edition of "Holiday Road" was re-released, both on the Vacation soundtrack album and as a digital download along with "Dancin' Across the USA" from the original National Lampoon's Vacation soundtrack.
Following the release of Fleetwood Mac's 1982 album Mirage, Buckingham was approached by Harold Ramis to create two songs for Ramis's film National Lampoon's Vacation. Buckingham was initially reluctant and believed that soundtrack work "wasn't part of his discipline", but he ultimately decided to honor Ramis's request. Buckingham recorded "Holiday Road" without seeing the entire film, although he inferred that the movie "had to be somewhat uplifting and a little bit funny". As such, he added dog barks near the end of the song to account for this sense of humor, but was unaware that the movie featured a scene where a dog is accidentally dragged to death from the bumper of a car.
Upon hearing "Holiday Road", Ramis and producer Matty Simmons were surprised with how accurately the song addressed the movie's subject matter. During the same recording sessions as "Holiday Road", Buckingham also wrote "Dancin' Across the USA", a Mills Brothers pastiche intended for the movie's ending credits.
"Holiday Road" debuted at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week dated August 6, 1983. During its fourth week on the Hot 100, "Holiday Road" reached its peak of number 82 and then slipped to number 99 on its fifth and final week on the chart.
When asked in a 2017 interview about his thoughts on "Holiday Road", Buckingham replied that "It was one of those things that happened to work very well for the movie". Buckingham elaborated in a later interview that he enjoyed recording "Holiday Road" and remembered that Ramis was "thrilled" when he first heard the song in the studio.
The song has been covered by pop punk bands Limp, the Aquabats, Whippersnapper, Matt Pond PA, and Dirt Bike Annie. The song was also covered by gothic country band Murder by Death in their holiday album Lonesome Holiday. The indie rock band the Walkmen performed a version of the song in November 2010 for The A.V. Club's Holiday Undercover series. In 2015, the country group Zac Brown Band covered the song for the soundtrack of the film Vacation. In 2024, indie music supergroup Fantastic Cat and American pop singer Kesha both released covers of the song. Kesha's electro-rock version reached number 88 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, number 38 on the UK Singles Chart and number 61 on the Canadian Hot 100.
Country music singer Chris Janson performed "Holiday Road" on the Grand Ole Opry's "Opry Country Christmas" broadcast on December 11, 2022. He later recorded and released it as a single in 2023.
In 2013, "Holiday Road" was adopted as the unofficial playoff victory song of the 2013 Chicago Blackhawks, who went on to win the Stanley Cup on June 24, the 30th anniversary of the song's release.
In 2014, the song was used as the music on television advertising for Teletext Holidays, a British travel agency. The song appears under the closing credits of National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, a 2015 American documentary film directed by Douglas Tirola about the magazine and its related franchises and influence. A version of the song with rewritten lyrics was used in Honda television commercials in 2017. In 2023, the song appeared in the fourth episode of the second season of the FX television series The Bear.
In late 2024, the song is the backdrop for a Coca-Cola TV advertisement featuring people travelling home for the holiday season.