Some folks like music. Or at least a series of sounds that vaguely resembles music.
They will rip CD’s. Collect several yards of vinyl. Develop a nice little Youtube playlist. Perhaps even have an Ipod-like device with hundreds of digitized recordings. Some play. Others listen. But the enjoyment is always there.
Right around the early to mid-30’s something happens to these people. Either they become more into music. Or they have music merely serve as background noise for other hobbies.
Or, if they are among the Best & Brightest who regularly visit TTAC, they surely have certain types of music that reminds them of certain cars.
Those are the ones that truly enjoy a musical Nirvana. Or perhaps a Welk-ish purgatory.
Paul Simon’s The Obvious Child has always reminded me of Saabs. Off-beat. Wonky. A feeling that the car you drive, and the life you live, is set to a unique almost non-rhythmic beat.
Then there is the opening salvo to Asia’s “Only Time Will Tell.”. I always imagined a Chrysler commercial from the mid-90’s that starts with some shots of Chrysler’s Auburn Hills R&D center in the first five seconds. Then you start hearing that cowbell and see snapshots of different ‘new’ Chryslers that transformed the company. Neon, Intrepid, Ram, Viper… you get the idea. Then the final five seconds with the drum cymbals has the vehicle driving towards the camera and morphing from one model to the other in that typical 1990’s Chrysler way.
Okay, maybe I’m a bit too into incorporating car commercials into my musical tastes. But that’s the fun of it! At least for me. I have about 40 to 50 of these ideas that have been spinning around in my head since my college days.
I won’t ask you for a script or a series of vision boards to explain your own ideas. Just a simple question.
What songs remind you of a given car or marque?
Extra credit if you can figure out what type of car best fits “Boris The Spider“. And no… it can not be an Alfa Romeo.
“Mercury Blues” Alan Jackson – reminds me of… Mercury
“My Kind of Party” – Jason Aldean – Chevrolet one lyric is “took the cover off the 68, fired it up and let them horses sing”
“Buicks To The Moon” Alan Jackson – Buick
Rat Pack, Sinatra, Harry Conic Jr. – Classic Lincolns, Caddys, and Imperials
“Ain’t Nothing Wrong With the Radio” Arron Tippin – every teen with a beater and a stereo that costs more than the car
“Pick Up Man” Joe Diffee – American Pick Up Trucks
“455 Rocket” Kathy Matea – Oldsmobile
“Johnny Cash” – Jason Aldean – Pontiac (lyric – done gassed up the Pontiac)
As you can see I’m a bit of a literalist.
Wow, good one. I forgot all about “nothing wrong with the radio” now I can’t get it out of my head.
She needs a carburetor, a set of plug wires, she’s ridin’ me around on four bald tires, the wipers don’t work and the horn don’t blow…
Favorite part of that particular song has always been the “little bobbin’ dog watching everybody pass.”
Also, “two antennas whippin’ in the wind.” Because CB radio lovers everywhere know what’s up.
Since you use a Who song as a challenge, I’ll say that The Who actually had a song in the mid-60’s called “Jaguar” about…Jags.
If I see a 420 or a Mark II or an E-Type even an early XJ6, I hear Roger Daltrey hissing “Grace…space…pace…” in my ear. Likewise, hearing the song conjurs up those great 60’s Jags.
Grace…space…pace…
Everything they’ve seen you have seen,
Everywhere they’ve been you have been,
Everything they’ve done you have been and done already.
Every lovely spot near or far,
You can reach them too in your car,
Or you might be there now if you own a Jag already.
The radio’s blasting, the girls are glancing,
The dash is dancing with gleaming dials.
Grace space pace.
Grace space pace.
Jaguar, Jaguar, Jaguar, Jag-u-ar.
“Johnny Cash” – One Piece at a Time – Pretty much any GM product from the mid 60s through the 70s.
That song always reminded me of my Hornet. A friend introduced me to U-Pull-It and I learned that most AMC/Jeep parts of that era were interchangeable. Though it often took a couple of whacks with a hammer to convince them.
When I hear a Linkin Park song, they’re all the same sounding, I think of a douchebag with spiked hair and aviators driving a 350z through traffic like an asshat.
Not about any particular car, but Johnny Cash’s “Wednesday Car” song is excellent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0zCO6uScYc
Ummm…trying to post the YouTube link, but it doesn’t seem to be going through…
I keep forgetting – Michael McDonald – PANTHER LOVE.
Red Barchetta?
Yeah, Red Barchetta works with anything fast and red and shiny and deserving of preservation for 50-odd years.
“Cadillac grills, Cadillac mills, Check out the oil on my Cadillac spills”
Cadillac Grills by Ludacris, apropos on many levels
“At Pascal, well, I’m number 1
Do vector calculus just for fun
I ain’t got a gat but I got a soldering gun
“Happy Days” is my favourite theme song
I can sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong
I’ll ace any trivia quiz you bring on
I’m fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon”
The Toyota Camry, Weird Al, White and Nerdy
That Ludacris lyric enters my mind at least once a day. Not particularly one Cadillac would want to use, I guess.
If you are on the open road you can’t stay out of the acccelerator with this song…
Listen until the chorus “Faster, faster, faster” and see if you don’t agree.
I think of the new 2013 Shelby GT500 with the “highest horsepower V8 in the world” and how this song applies.
Group: Within Temptation
Song: Faster
Search Youtube for the song and video (not the acoustic version!)
Search: Within Temptation Faster official video
You will love it!
I still haven’t forgiven Alan Jackson for the Mercury Blues. What a sell out.
But, then again, I haven’t forgiven Country Music for Toby Keith. I’ve since gone back to my geeky roots, and found Jonathan Coulton and MC Frontalot.
I haven’t forgiven Ford for using that song to sell Ford trucks instead of, y’know, MERCURYS!
My theory is if they had used Mercury Blues as-is, we’d still have Mercury. I know that theory’s bunk, but hey, that’s my excuse for the untimely death of the brand.
Ramrod: Springsteen’s hemi-powered high boy
Apparently, singer Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders liked the GTO Judge so much that he wrote a song and offered it to Pontiac. At least that’s how the story goes. Jim Wangers is involved so the myth may not match reality but it’s fun to watch the video. There’s a short form spot, a 60 second long form and also the full version of the song, Judge GTO, from a promotional package you could get from Pontiac.
http://www.carsindepth.com/?p=8529
Mike Curb wrote You Meet The Nicest People On A Honda as a college student. It’s not clear if he wrote the jingle based on the ad campaign or they based the ad campaign on the jingle, but in any case, the money he got from Honda for licensing the song gave him his start in the music biz. Seeing Curb’s success with Honda, P.F. Sloan encouraged the Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson to write Little Honda, which charted by the Hondells, and was later released by the Beach Boys. In appreciation, Honda sent him a motorbike which Wilson wrecked riding with Sloan. After they brought the bike back home, in pieces, the two of them wrote Dead Man’s Curve.
http://www.carsindepth.com/?p=8919
Australia’s Radio Birdman gave us this bit of Poncho-love
I got a dream machine from the Promised Land
Got a ’71 Trans Am
Got a Hurst T-stick in my hand
Borg Warner 4 speed says I can
Do the standing 1/4 mile in 12.5
Run it through bring tears to your eyes
Edelbrock high rise manifold
Zero to 70 in seven point 0
Hit the road late at night
Deserted highway cold moon light
Gotta keep driving, we gotta stay young
Drive on in the risin’ sun
455-SD Energy 455-SD Mystery
“Volare”, also the version in the movie “Hollywood Knights”.
“Hot Rod Lincoln”, which I play every time I drive I-5 North out of LA.
Soundgarden’s (one of the most underrated bands of all time) “Ty Cobb”. A song for everyone who owns a Hummer or any other vehicle that gets pansies/greenies/self righteous panties in a wad.
Ah hahahahahaha! Yes!
“You are the everything” reminds of all the times I drove across the country when I was younger, probably b/c it was usually playing somewhere in Wyoming at three in the morning.
“Here’s a scene you’re in the back seat, laying down
the windows wrap around to the sound of the travel and the engine.”
I can’t help but feel like I’m in the intro to Gran Turismo 4 whenever Van Halen’s “Panama” hits the radio. Makes me want to rev-match my downshifts and every stoplight.
I think the Wildhearts’ “The Hard Way” is a pretty awesome song to put on when you’re hitting the road, too. http://youtu.be/vc_OAfDFVDc
A good one about a touring band with a broke down van is The Bottle Rockets “Stuck in Indianapolis”
I got your Boris the Spider car:
Tesla Roadster, as “tested” by Top Gear.
Because the way he sings that title is like when a Cassette Walkman is on the last few bits of battery.
Nazareth’s “Heir of the Dog” for whenever I’m incrementally passing someone on the interstate to hold up the guy I observed coming up behind me at speeds WELL above the posted speed limit.
I found a couple of Dean Martin cassettes in a car last week – I assume it’s to no one’s surprise that it was a Lincoln Town Car.
Blonde in the blue T-bird- Walter Egan
Call Me Lightning- The Who…”My XKE is shining so brightly”…
Life’s Been Good- Joe Walsh…”My Maserati does 185, I lost my license and now I don’t drive”…
Chevy Van- Sammy Johns…”We made love in my Chevy Van”….
“Legs”- ZZ Top…that red ’33 Ford Eliminator car, and the Eliminator girls, of course
From Wikipedia…”Mercury Blues” is the title of song written by K. C. Douglas and Robert Geddins in 1949. The song, originally titled “Mercury Boogie,” pays homage to the American automobile, which ended production in 2010.