Bon Voyage

Luggage packed, tickets purchased, passport stamped, check, check, check . . . but you’re gonna need one more essential item before you step onto that 747: la música. We kick off our tuneful travelogue old-school-style, with the undisputed, gold-plated, all-access king of the swingin’ skies, Frank Sinatra, crooning at his jet-setting best in “Come Fly With Me.” Meanwhile, the equally hep cat Nat “King” Cole, keeps his wheels — if not his feet — on the ground in the ultimate American road trip, the snazzy, jazzy “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66.” And the Rat Pack’s Dean Martin serves up a platter full of la dolce vita in “On an Evening In Roma (Sott'er Celo de Roma).”

In Next Steps, we’ll discover a few trips that might give you reservations about your reservations.

Not every journey comes with chocolates on the pillow, so in our Next Steps we’ll peek in on a few trips the guidebooks didn’t mention. As you may recall, Napoleon had a little travel trouble in 1815, breaking down just outside Brussels, and ABBA turns his three-day beat-down into three minutes of candy-coated pop perfection in “Waterloo.” Former ABBA-ites Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson team up with Lion King lyricist Sir Tim Rice to give Murray Head his first — and only — #1 with “One Night In Bangkok” from the rock opera Chess. And if you’re in the bazaar for something bizarre, take a stroll down the ominous Orient’s back alleys with Tom Waits in the creepytime late-night fright of “Singapore.”

In Deep Cuts, we’re going to hear from folks who live in places that folks who live here want to visit.

What better way to get a taste of globetrotting goodness than with a suitcase full of songs that come from the places you’d like to visit most? Bollywood diva Asha Bhosle teams up with Ashok Kumar and Saroja Devi on a pan-Asian rave-up for the Pearl of the Orient in her jangly cross-cultural combo plate “Hongkong China Meena.” Seven seas away, reggae legend Jimmy Cliff — at the tender age of 14, no less — ranks and skanks his way through a beaut of a track dedicated to his newly independent nation’s beauty queens, “Miss Jamaica.” And when it comes to the international definition of suavitude, you need look no further than the gravel-voiced Gallic grandeur of Serge Gainsbourg, given a techno-friendly (and posthumous) polish in “Aéroplanes (Readymade's Bold Mix).”

Aloha, adiós, fare thee well, see you later, alligator; every now and then, you just have to set aside your baggage, pack up your bags, and make a bee line for Points Beyond. And nothing, nothing else will give you a spectacular sonic send-off like our hand-picked playlist. It doesn’t matter whether you’re headed for Paris or Peoria, Adelaide or Zagreb, we’ve got the music that’ll take you there, bring you back, and maybe even give you an idea or two for your next trip. Our musical destinations are as all-over-the-map as your potential vacation spots, from ABBA to Elvis and from Tom Waits to the Chairman of the Board. So come fly with us, say a travelin’ prayer, get your kicks on Route 66, and we’ll give you a ticket to ride.