Cars – Let’s Go

With Ric Ocasek passing away on Sunday I’ve been listening to his music tonight. He wrote some of the most catchy songs of the late seventies to the mid-eighties. Ric Ocasek wrote this song, but their bass player Benjamin Orr sang lead on this one.

The song was on their second album release Candy-O. The song peaked at #14 on the Billboard 100, #5 in Canada, and #40 in New Zealand in 1979. The song’s inspiration was from the 1962 song called “Let’s Go” by the Routers.

Ric Ocasek on Candy-O that was produced by Roy Thomas Baker who also produced Queen.

“We were ready to [produce] our own album if we couldn’t have found a producer,” “But I never had a real producer before Roy; all I ever knew was what I stumbled on. So I was interested to have someone who’s been doing it for 15 years as opposed to my five. I didn’t particularly care for his productions, except on Queen. Now, Queen is not one of my favorite bands, but you can’t help noticing a production like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ the clarity and the way it’s put down. To me, it’s still an art form. I knew what I could do. I wanted to see what someone else could do. He turned out to be a great friend and taught us a lot about musical technique. He never infiltrated arrangements or musical ideas.”

A little off-topic but msjadeli was commenting with me and sent this great link to Ric’s artwork…

https://www.wentworthgallery.com/ocasek.html

 

Let’s Go

She’s driving away with the dim lights on
And she’s making a play, she can’t go wrong
She never waits too long

She’s winding them down on her clock machine
And she won’t give up ’cause she’s seventeen
She’s a frozen fire, she’s my one desire

I don’t want to hold her down
Don’t want to break her crown
When she says “let’s go
I like the nightlife baby”
She says, “I like the nightlife baby”
She says, “let’s go”

She’s laughing inside ’cause they can’t refuse
She’s so beautiful now, she doesn’t wear her shoes
She never likes to choose

She’s got wonderful eyes and a risqué mouth
And when I asked her before she said she’s holding out
She’s a frozen fire, she’s my one desire

I don’t want to hold her down
Don’t want to break her crown
When she says, “let’s go”
I like the nightlife baby”
She says, “I like the nightlife baby”
She says, “let’s go”

“I like the nightlife baby”
She says, “I like the nightlife baby”
She says, “let’s go”

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

23 thoughts on “Cars – Let’s Go”

  1. Ric and Benjamin are reunited now to drive in the same car that is moving in stereo. I saw The Cars in concert only once in May of 2011 for the Move Like This tour; it wasn’t the same band without Ben, his bass guitar, and vocals.🎸🚘🚖❤️😎

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    1. I agree the band wasn’t the same without Ben. I had a couple of chances of seeing them in the 80s but missed both of them. It’s great you got to see them then.

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  2. A bad week for rock n roll-with Daniel Johnston- Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek. He was always older than I thought he was- mid 30’s when The Cars first album came out. Sad to hear of his passing. I agree with you about Ben.

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  3. Such a shame. Let’s Go is a great track, I bought it on my first Californian holiday in the summer of ’79, it was big on radio and sounded great driving down highways in deserts and the like. The jewel in the crown in Drive. Impossible not to be moved by it.

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      2. I know! Yes…now they officially have come out with that. They switched between 70 and 75… now per the NYPD he was born in 1944.
        He was in his 30s with the Cars…at the beginning .

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  6. One of their under-rated songs. He was smart to get Baker in to produce; obviously he learned from him too since Ocasek would go on to be a decent producer for groups like Weezer later.
    Get the feeling it could be like 2016 all over again. Sadly, just a week or two ago a DJ/blogger I know had posted something like “How will people deal with fact a lot of beloved rock stars are going to die soon?”. I didn’t read it, but sad point is clear – most of the stars we listen to and feel a connection to are getting up there in years.

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  7. I heard earlier about Ric’s passing. It’s sad because The Cars was a band I discovered after I had graduated college and was starting to be a responsible adult. It’s like they’re catching up to me now…

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    1. It is something seeing these people who I have frozen in my mind at a certain time and age…to see them now just doesn’t seem right.

      Next year…John Lennon will have been dead 40 years…the same amount of time he was alive…

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