Tag: Gary Numan

Car Songs…Part 3

It’s a lot of fun doing these Car Songs…I could probably do one on just Cadillac songs alone! I hope you enjoy these. I try to pick songs with a car title in them. That is why I haven’t done Drive My Car and others. But I’m breaking that today…I am including a bonus.

Blasters – Long White Cadillac

A perfect road trip song from the 1983 album Non-Fiction. You’ll want to go out and buy a long white Cadillac and drive it on a long-lost highway. Dave Alvin wrote this song….The song is about the night Hank Williams died in back of a car. He died somewhere between Bristol, Tenn., and Oak Hill on the way to a New Year’s Day 1953 show in Canton, Ohio.

Dwight Yoakum recorded a version of this song in 1989 for his first greatest hits package Just Lookin’ for a Hit.

The Tom Robinson Band – Grey Cortina

This song was on his fantastic album Power In The Darkness. If you want to know a little more about him…I posted a song by the singer-activist a few months ago with the song Up Against The Wall. He has some great music and this album is great through and through.

Tom DID get his Grey Cortina in real life but… unfortunately, he said: “I bought the Cortina and it lasted 1 day before somebody ran into it and wrote it off (my fault) :-(“

Clash – Long Black Cadillac

This was a great cover by The Clash. It was on the London Calling album released in 1979. They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could really play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He was probably the best pure musician in the band.

The song was originally by Vince Taylor and released in 1959. It was the B side to a song called Pledging My Love. Taylor wrote the song but Tony Sheridan is credited with the cool guitar riff running through the song. The song’s riff reminds me of the original Batman riff…or really the other way around.

Wilson Pickett – Mustang Sally

The music is in groove mode, but Pickett’s explosive voice drives it home. Mustang Sally was recorded at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The studio had a unique sound plus some of the best musicians anywhere. It started to get the attention of Atlantic Records and they sent Pickett to record there. Later on, a guitar player known as Duane Allman would end up as a studio musician and talked Pickett into recording Hey Jude.

As soon as they finished this take… the tape flew off the reel and broke into pieces everywhere. Producer Tom Dowd cleared the room and told everyone to return in half an hour. Dowd pieced the tape back together and saved what became one of the coolest songs of the decade.

Quiet Riot – Slick Black Cadillac

This one is for my friend Deke. The song originally appeared on Quiet Riot’s second album, Quiet Riot II, released in 1978. This album was only released in Japan. A re-recorded version of Slick Black Cadillac was included on their more widely known album, Metal Health, released in 1983.

In high school, this album was played and played by our local rock station.

Bonus today…

Cars – Gary Numan

This was suggested by glyn40wilton… This song was released in 1979  was one of many signs a change was coming in music. The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100,  #1 in the UK and #1 in Canada. The song was keyboard-driven with a synth riff.

Gary Numan on the inspiration of the song. “A couple of blokes started peering in the window and for whatever reason took a dislike to me, so I had to take evasive action. I swerved up the pavement, scattering pedestrians everywhere. After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society.”

Numan has stated that he has Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but until he was diagnosed, he had a lot of trouble relating to other people.

Max Picks …songs from 1979

1979

I hate that it’s the last year of the seventies. A great decade for music and a lot of cool things. Now the eighties are coming…

A masterpiece. I was 12 when this was released and it sounded timeless even then. It was a great song in 1979 and will be great in 2079. Not only are the words inventive but this was most people’s introduction to Mark Knopfler. I wasn’t a guitar player when I was 12 but I knew he was something special.

I’ve heard this one at what seems like a thousand times but I’ll always turn it up when it comes on the radio.

Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote the first version of this song in early 1974, shortly after they first met. They didn’t have a proper title for the song, and would refer to it as “The Disco Song.”

Evidently finding words to rhyme to “glass” that fit in a song were… a pain in the ass. American radio at that time frowned on that rhyme. To ensure airplay stations were sent an edited version with the offending line replaced with “soon turned out I had a heart of glass.”

This was the first song I ever knew by the Clash when I heard it on the radio in 1980. The song is credited to Mick Jones and Joe Strummer like most Clash songs. Mick Jones takes the lead vocals in this one.

They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could really play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He is was probably the best pure musician in the band.

This song was released in 1979  was one of many signs a change was coming in music.  Gary Numan on the inspiration of the song. “A couple of blokes started peering in the window and for whatever reason took a dislike to me, so I had to take evasive action. I swerved up the pavement, scattering pedestrians everywhere. After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society.”

Numan has stated that he has Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but until he was diagnosed, he had a lot of trouble relating to other people.

I was never a huge disco fan but this song always meant a lot to me. I’m a huge baseball fan and my Dodgers really sucked in 1979. The Pirates on the other hand had a 39-year-old Willie Stargell leading them to a World Series championship and this is the song that will be forever linked to that year, team, and World Series. Here’s to Pops…Willie Stargell.

…

Gary Numan – Cars

This song was released in 1979  was one of many signs a change was coming in music. The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100,  #1 in the UK and #1 in Canada. The song was keyboard driven with a synth riff.

Gary Numan on the inspiration of the song. “A couple of blokes started peering in the window and for whatever reason took a dislike to me, so I had to take evasive action. I swerved up the pavement, scattering pedestrians everywhere. After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society.”

Numan has stated that he has Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but until he was diagnosed, he had a lot of trouble relating to other people.

From Songfacts.

Even though the message of this song is that cars lead to a mechanical society devoid of personal interaction, it didn’t stop automakers from using it in commercials. Both Nissan and Oldsmobile have used it in ads.

A more clever approach came from Diehard, who created a commercial where Numan played the song on 24 car horns powered by just one of their batteries. Numan has no problem with his song being used in commercials, telling us, “I’m up for that, actually. I think any use of it at all. It would be great if it happened again.”

In the UK, this was used in an American Express commercial in the ’80s, as well as an ad for Carling beer that ran in 1996. The beer commercial gave the song new life in the UK.

TV series that have used this song in some form include The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and Two and a Half Men.

Numan made a video for this with special effects that look ridiculous now, but were cutting edge in 1979. When MTV went on the air in 1981, it was one of about 200 videos they had, so they played it over and over. This made the song a hit in the US.

Numan explained to Rolling Stone how he came up with this song’s synthesizer hook: “I have only written two songs on bass guitar and the first one was ‘Cars.’ I had just been to London to buy a bass and when I got home the first thing I played was that intro riff. I thought, ‘Hey, that’s not bad!’ In 10 minutes, I had the whole song. The quickest one I ever wrote. And the most famous one I’d ever written. More people should learn from that.”

Numan took his surname from a plumber in the telephone directory called Neumann Kitchen Appliances. He told NME he tried to find a two-syllable name, “because my real name Webb didn’t seem very cool.”

Cars

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live in cars.

Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days in cars.

Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please
If I open my door in cars

Here in my car
You know I’ve started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right in cars.