You're listening to song-explanter where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

I remember watching the movie Dazed and Confused when I was a sophomore in high school and the song Lowrider by war came on.

And I had this strange moment of feeling like I was hearing the song for the first time, but I'd also already known it my whole life.

It's one of my favorite movie music memories.

And that song had been around my whole life.

To me, it feels like it's part of the architecture of pop culture.

The band War formed in 1969 in Long Beach, California.

Low Rider is from their 1975 album, Why Can't We Be Friends?

The song was a hit as soon as it came out,

and went to number one on the Billboard R&B charts.

And it's just had tremendous lasting power ever since.

Besides being in Dazed and Viewed where I heard it, it's been sampled by the Beastie Boys,

it was covered by corn, and it was the theme song for all six seasons of the George Lopez show.

For this episode I talked to Wars Bandleader Lonnie Jordan and their producer Jerry Goldstein.

The two of them told me how Lowrider was made in the studio through a combination of improvisation

and meticulous editing. Low Rider, the real car.

My name is Lonnie Jordan. I am the bandleader, music coordinator, and keyboard player

of war. That's me, along with my partner. I'm Jerry Goldstein. I'm

Wars producer from beginning. There was seven people in the band. Charles Miller, saxophone and vocal on

low writer, Papa D. Allen on percussion, Harold Brown on drums, B. B. B. B. B.

Dickerson bass, Howard Scott, a guitar,

the Oscar Harmonica.

...