Live For the Music
by Steve Funk
And we’ll have fun, fun, fun ’til her Daddy takes her T-Bird away -Fun Fun Fun by the Beach Boys
Hot August Nights has made car culture a pivotal part of economic vitality in our City of Trembling Leaves. It's a truly spectacular event that turns the passionate American romance with the automobile into greenbacks and memories we love, and traffic snarls we despise. The success of the event, and its apparent recession-proof attraction for the Post-war and Boomer generations suggest that our love of the automobile is alive and well, at least as nostalgia, but there is something terribly wrong that bodes ill for the future. The car song is dead. I don't mean songs about the need for speed or the romance of the open road. Those subjects are alive and well and often a car is a metaphor (or, vehicle, if you prefer) for those emotions translated into song. I mean songs about the cars themselves, the GTO, Corvette, Mustang, Barracuda, Camaro, El Camino et.al, and our love affair with them. The 'Little Deuce Coupe' is now rusting away in the wrecking yard of music history.
She’s got a competition clutch with the four on the floor ... And she purrs like a kitten till the Lake pipes roar ... And if that ain’t enough to make you flip your lid There’s one more thing, I got the pink slip, Daddy -Little Deuce Coupe by the Beach Boys
The car song is dead and the eulogies abound. You don't have to take my word for it. Car Song Mechanic-In Chief, Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys f.y.i.) proclaimed it himself in a recent article in the Washington Post. “They ran their course; they did their thing,” he said. Blame the economy and the ecology. The joy has gone out of the joyride, replaced by our collective guilt for the way we and our cars have compromised the health of the planet and our budgets. Bob Merlis, a music publicist and automotive journalist who curated two “Cars and Guitars” exhibits for the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles reminds us that, “The obsession of cars in rock music was a reflection of teen-age culture. The car was a very exotic thing that gave the teen-ager a place of his own, or her own. It's where you'd go to escape your parents ... It was a refuge from square culture and repressive attitudes. It was your own universe where you could have your own social life.”
Oh we was only hidin', sitting in the back seat of my car ... And when we've finished drivin' we can say we were late in arriving and listen to her daddy’s song, we believe that we can't be wrong ... Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong ... Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong ... -Back Seat of My Car by Paul McCartney
That's still true enough, on the surface. Teens will forever need a place to escape parental tyranny, but it's much harder to create a universe of your own in a practical, gas saving Ford Focus than it was in a stylish, high performance Mustang. “There's not as much focus on car culture these days,” says Merlis, whose clients include the noted gearheads and occasional car-song singers in ZZ Top. “People need cars, they drive them, but they (complain) about putting gas in them. They're so anonymous. The romance is gone. Backseats just aren't what they used to be.
Move over baby (move over baby) Gimme the keys (gimme the keys) I’m gonna try 2 tame your little red love machine ... (I’m gonna try 2 tame your little red love machine) -Little Red Corvette by the Artist Sometimes Known as Prince
“Cars used to be romantic, but nothing's as romantic as it used to be, because there's so much serious stuff going down,” says songwriter and member of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street band, Nils Lofgren. “With the ominous destruction of mankind, we're all a little distracted.”
According to “Rockin' Down the Highway” author Paul Grushkin, “It's still the American prerogative to sing about your car. The problem is, most of the songs about cars were written a while ago. So we're singing about something that now is not your primary vehicle. And with gas being so expensive now, you're not even taking that car - probably American, hopefully a convertible - out for a joy ride on a regular basis. It's expensive even to drive down to the Trader Joe's.”
In an effort to keep the lifestyle alive, car makers have brought back many of the classic muscle car brands in recent years but trying to sell them with prospects like fuel efficiency, convenience and practicality have dulled the romantic triggers that made these cars worth singing about.
Strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car ... A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time ... I fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar ... Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime - Red Barchetta by Rush
Maybe the impracticality of the muscle car was more practical than we give it credit for. Maybe that was the true beauty of it. After all, that was a golden era for car sales as well as car songs. Maybe those cars were very practical, because, even tho' they shouldn't have, they gave us something that worked. If practicality is what works, if that's what the buyer wants, why is the car industry in such dismal, grim and cloudy shape today? Well, times have changed and the world has moved on and made the joy ride today an expensive luxury, unlike in that golden era. But, status still matters and a car is still a status symbol.
Oh lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends. Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends, So lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? -Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin
That aspect of car-love is still relevant. Rappers have added vitality to GM with their fixation on the Cadillac Escalade. Is the future of the car song bankrupt, killed in the courts along with the corporation that made and sold us the dream? Will the car song be re-born as GM has been? Do we still feel the need to raise a joyful voice for a machine linked to the demise of the planet? Do we still need cars to sing about? We may not have heard the last reference to the car in music but the Golden Days of Car Songs is now only a reflection of where we've been… in the rear-view mirror.
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride. All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride. All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride. -Mustang Sally by Wilson Pickett
Steve Funk has been stirring the musical melting pot in northern Nevada since 1967 as a musician, musicologist and recovering DJ. Steve does not own a car worth singing about. Steve welcomes comment at scfunk@charter.net