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Haley Crozier

Lisa Tyler

ENG 1201

20 February 2021

Life Is a Highway

The song "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts goes hand in hand with the movie Cars.

Both music videos closely relate to the movie to give a claim that everyone should live their life

to the fullest and enjoy the ride because you never know where you may end up! In the first few

lyrics of the song it says “Life’s like a road that you travel on. When there’s one day here and the

next day gone” (Flatts 0:29). These two lines outline the whole claim of the song and help

support the overall message of the two music videos.

“Life is a Highway” is a song that almost everyone has heard of at some point or another

in their life. The Song was originally written by Tom Cochrane in his 1991 album. However, it

did not become popular until Rascal Flatts sang the song in his own version of it in 2006 when

the movie Cars first debuted (Owen para. 1). Since then Flatts’ version of the song has continued

to climb in popularity all over the world. It has won the Radio Disney Music Award for Best

Song From a Movie, the People's Choice Award for Favorite Song in a Movie, and the People's

Choice Award for Favorite Remake. The song is perhaps so well known not just because of how

good it is, but also because of how well it fits with the movie Cars and how people can relate it

to their own life.

In the video with Rascal Flatts, Flatts pulls up in an old fashioned car to an old drive-in

movie along with his other two band members to watch the movie Cars. The drive-in movie
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seems to be in the old west (like where the movie Cars took place). In the second video, instead

of it actually being more of a music video it shows different scenes from the movie. What is

especially interesting though about this video is how it only shows scenes from the movie that

are key to how McQueen seemed to grow and mature throughout the movie and learned to live

life to the fullest! Both videos work to convey the same claim from the song, however, one uses

the movie as well as other elements to help support its claim more than the other.

A similarity in the videos’ audience outlook can be seen when simply just watching them.

The similarity is that both videos are seemingly aimed at younger people who still have most of

their life ahead of them. This conclusion can be made because of how McQueen and all of his

friends are still very young and what the verses of the song say. In both videos these two

characteristics are used to the advantages of the videos to draw on Pathos (an appeal to emotion)

when it shows where McQueen started, where he ended up in life and how he matured along the

way. It is also shown when in the song it says things like “ There’s no load I can’t hold, or road

so rough, this I know” which means that you're always young at heart, so give it your all and go

have fun! In this way the videos draw on the audience’s emotions to make them excited about

their futures and what’s to come!

There is again, a key similarity between the two audiences of the videos that help

strengthen the claim of the videos. Overall, it is clear that the audience is people who have seen

the movie Cars before. If not, the audience would be very confused about what is happening in

both videos. In both, McQueen is shown at different times in his adventure that helped him grow

as a person, or rather as a car. Without these scenes mainly playing in the Cars Life is a Highway

video and in the background of the Rascal Flatts Life is a Highway video, the claim of both

would be greatly weakened.

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Both music videos share the same meaning and claim even though they have different

things happening in each. In the Cars Life is a Highway video the video plays the song in the

background while showing key parts of McQueen’s adventures in Cars that helped show him to

relax and have fun in life. In contrast, the Rascal Flatts Life is a Highway video played the song

in the background while showing Rascal Flatts and his band pull up to a drive-in movie (that was

showing Cars) and essentially “jam out” and have fun. In both videos it is clear that both main

characters in each video are having fun in what they’re doing. However, what really brings the

videos’ claims together is the song playing in the background saying things like “Life’s a road

that you travel on (Flatts 0:29)”, “Come ride with me to the distant shore, we won’t hesitate

(Flatts 0:46)”, and “This is the road and these are the hands” (Flatts 1:23). These three verses of

the song, along with many others, help convey the claim that you should live your life to the

fullest and have fun doing it even though you may hit some bumps along the way.

All in all, the videos use the song “Life is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts, the scenes in the

movie Cars, Pathos, audience age, and whether the audience has seen the movie or not to its

advantage. Recall that at the beginning of the song the lyrics say “Life’s like a road that you

travel on. When there’s one day here and the next day gone” (Flatts 0:29). This quote expertly

supports the claim that everyone should live their life to the fullest and enjoy the ride because

you never know where you may end up!

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Works Cited

“Rascal Flatts - Life Is a Highway (From ‘Cars’/Official Video).” Youtube, VEVO, 23

Jan. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tXh_MfrMe0.

“Cars Life Is a Highway.” Youtube, 24 Jan. 2007,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jURRsAMGuZk.

Owen, Chris. “Did You Know Rascal Flatts' ‘Life Is A Highway’ Was Never Supposed

To Be A Radio Single?” Country 106.5 WYRK, 106.5 WYRK, 29 July 2019,

wyrk.com/did-you-know-rascal-flatts-life-is-a-highway-was-never-supposed-to-

be-a-radio-single/.