"Life Is a Highway" is a song written by Tom Cochrane, from his 1991 album Mad Mad World. The song was Cochrane's most famous song, as it was a number one hit in his native Canada. The song also peaked at number six on the Billboard charts in the United States in 1992. The song has been covered by Rascal Flatts for the Cars soundtrack, as well as by Chris LeDoux, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Home Free.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Cochrane said the song was originally envisioned several years before its release as "Love is a Highway," but was shelved while he was still working with his band mates in Tom Cochrane and Red Rider during the late 1980s.

Following a trip with his family to East Africa, where he helped to raise awareness and money for the World Vision famine relief organization, he revisited the song with advice from his friend John Webster, an instrumentalist on Mad Mad World. In an interview with The Canadian Press to mark the songs 25th anniversary, Cochrane said Webster encouraged him to revisit the demo recording, which only had mumbled vocals and improvised lyrics, but not the song's well-known chorus. Eventually that version was released on the 25th anniversary reissue of the album as "Love is a Highway."

While his trip to Africa was influential to a notable portion of the Mad Mad World album, it was especially formative to the final version of "Life is a Highway." Cochrane says he was trying to unpack the poverty he witnessed on his trip, which he found “shocking and traumatic.” He later said the uptempo spirit of the song came from looking for something positive to “hang the experience on."

Most of the vocals on the track were recorded in the small studio in his backyard.

“It became a pep talk to myself . . . saying you can’t really control all of this stuff, you just do the best you can,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview.

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