I never had a Cars record. They were always on the radio, from 1977, when “My Best Friend’s Girl” made listeners laugh and dance at the same time, through the ‘80s, when “Shake It Up,” “You Might Think” and “Drive” left us gyrating on the line with their irresistible hooks.
Ric Ocasek’s passing this week at 75 has rightfully made music lovers take a moment to remember and properly appreciate the Cars as the alpha and omega of New Wave. Like the nebulous genre – Was it a beat or a hairstyle, a skinny-tie style or a synth sound? – the Cars were tricky, hard to pin down. Their songs, nearly all penned by Ocasek, are so catchy in melody, but so dark or diffident in sentiment.
If you, like me, were oblivious to Ocasek’s sneaky subtext, take a serious listen to almost any of the Cars hits. On tap of the bouncy beat, neither he nor the other lead singer Benjamin Orr are singing, “I love you. You love me.”
I always go for a moody number, so let’s celebrate “Touch and Go,” the taut lament with the propulsive drumbeat from the band’s third album Panorama. In his reedy yelp, Ocasek aches over the letdown of being told the relationship is touch and go. But if the relationship leaves something to be desired, the rhythms are oh so satisfying. That bass and rhythm guitar stab out a staccato fandango. In a video, the band are all pure new wave in their dress, hair and dark glasses, but guitarist Elliot Easton rips out showy solos that would make Jimmy Page proud.
