"Interstate Love Song" is a song by American rock bandStone Temple Pilots. Released in 1994, the song is from the band's second studio album, Purple. Considered one of the band's biggest hits, "Interstate Love Song" reached number one on the US BillboardAlbum Rock Tracks chart on September 17, 1994, replacing the band's previous single "Vasoline". The song stayed at number one for 15 weeks, a record at the time, and gave STP 17 consecutive weeks at number one with both songs. It also peaked at number two on the BillboardModern Rock Tracks chart and in Iceland, as well as number 20 in Canada. In 2003, "Interstate Love Song" was featured on the greatest hits compilation Thank You. In 2009, it was named the 58th best hard rock song of all time by VH1. The song was ranked at number 17 on Australian alternative music station Triple J's Hottest 100 countdown of 1994. In the UK, the song peaked at number 53. "Interstate Love Song" is praised as one of the best songs of the 1990s.
Background, recording and release
Bassist Robert DeLeo brought in a song he had been working on when Stone Temple Pilots convened at Cole Rehearsal Studios in Hollywood, California in March 1992. His brother, guitarist Dean DeLeo, said, "We were in Atlanta touring Core, and Robert was playing around with the chords and the melody in a hotel room. I had a feeling about that song immediately." Robert DeLeo stated it was originally a bossa nova song when he began writing it. When he played it for singer Scott Weiland, the vocalist started humming along and turned what was originally the melody for the song's intro into a chorus melody. The song borrows chords directly from Jim Croce's 1973 song "I Got a Name." As a title, "Interstate Love Song" may refer to this borrowing; the chorus of "I've Got a Name" begins, "Moving me down the highway, rolling me down the highway." The word "interstate" as a noun is usually short for "interstate highway." Stone Temple Pilots recorded the song during sessions for Purple at the Southern Tracks studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Weiland was able to complete his vocals for the song in one take. Upon its release as a single, "Interstate Love Song" reached #18 on the BillboardHot 100 Airplay and number one on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it stayed for fifteen weeks. The song also reached number two on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 22 on the Top 40 Mainstream.
Composition
According to Weiland, the song dealt lyrically with a number of themes, particularly "honesty, lack of honesty, my new relationship with heroin." At the time he was having relationship troubles with his girlfriend, as he was using heroin while recording Purple but told her he no longer was. "She'd ask how I was doing, and I'd lie, say I was doing fine," he admits in his autobiography Not Dead and Not For Sale. "I imagined what was going through her mind when I wrote, 'Waiting on a Sunday afternoon for what I read between the lines, your lies, feelin' like a hand in rusted chain, so do you laugh or does it cry? Reply?" The song has been described as grunge, alternative rock, hard rock and country rock.
Music video
The music video, directed by Kevin Kerslake, has a washed-out color effect throughout the majority of the video and features a long-nosed protagonist escaping from an unseen pursuer. The protagonist's nose grows longer throughout the video, to symbolize the theme of lying in the song lyrics. At the beginning of the video, an early 1900s silent film-esque clip of the protagonist is shown.
