The Cars: Innuendo laced American new wave glory...

[Mister Obvious]

[Mister Obvious]

THAT'S RIGHT I SAID AHHHH AHHHH UHHHH HUH

[Mister Obvious]

1:47 check out that bitchin' Dean ML BFH Elliot's playing...

[Mister Obvious]

Whoever made that video is top notch.

[Mister Obvious]

They were so cool.

[Mister Obvious]

Greg is my guilty pleasure in all their videos though, he's always going full ham and cheese on the keyboards... I swear there's no one else who looks like that guy, lmao. Just livin' his best life.

[Mister Obvious]

Speaking of ham, Ric was such an attention hog... but only on the songs he actually sang. Whenever Ben sang, he stayed in the background and didn't try to steal the spotlight.

[Mister Obvious]

Those hidden innuendos just waiting to arrive...

[Guest]

I always thought they were saying 'buy my love'

[Mister Obvious]

Ahhh! I can't unhear it! Rofl! That's pretty funny.

[Mister Obvious]

Holy shit, lololol!

[Mister Obvious]

Cap'n Swing was organized by Ric Ocasek & Ben Orr immediately after the breakup of Milkwood and Rick & the Rabbits in 1975-1976. The demo recordings were made in 1974-1976. And in 1977, The Cars were founded.

[Mister Obvious]

Heartbeat City - The Cars



I remember the first time I ever heard 'Heartbeat City'... I was 15 or so.

My dad had been listening to 'The Dangerous Type' earlier and I thought it was such a great song. I became curious about whether or not The Cars had any other good songs, and I remembered we'd always had this CD in a stack on a forgotten shelf...

https://imgur.com/a/7lXx5kd

So I wasted no time retrieving it, put it in my portable CD player, turned the lights off and got in bed.

I started the CD from the beginning, and loved every song. When Heartbeat City came on, I thought to myself, "Wow, this song is lining up perfectly with my heartbeat."

Then I hear "Oh Heartbeat City, here we come"... and I couldn't believe it. It was absolutely magical, and in that moment, The Cars became my favorite band of all time.

Miraculously, I still have that very same CD.

[Mister Obvious]

Apparently back in the day when they first came out, it wasn't considered very masculine for dudes to like The Cars.

Just goes to show how much times have changed...

[Mister Obvious]

Their music was definitely targeting the ladiez though... for the most part.

My personal favorite band of all time. Even though I don't like EVERY song, they were all still perfectly recorded and produced... Ric had an unmistakable style and I think he was responsible for ensuring that perfection.

He produced Weezer's debut album, lending that touch of perfection even to the more chaotic parts of the music, like the opening and ending of Undone/The Sweater Song...

[Mister Obvious]

Fountains of Wayne gave a tip of the hat to Ric with the kid at 0:19 and the license plate on the car, but I don't think Ric had any actual production involvement with the song or the album.

It's a catchy song, but I think the video is all kinds of fucked up, lmao. I remember thinking the same thing when it came out and I was like 13.

The video also makes references to "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982) which apparently had a scene set to "Moving In Stereo" but I wouldn't know because I tried to watch the movie a long time ago and thought it sucked. I couldn't relate, I guess because I was homeschooled. Apparently the movie also had a character named Stacy, so maybe the whole song is based on that movie.

[Mister Obvious]

The early 2000s was the beginning of the end for popular music... a few good songs came out of the era, but mostly it was just crap and I tuned out around 2004 and went straight oldies.

[Mister Obvious]

I listened to old music almost exclusively and watched only classic TV. I wonder if it's just coincidence that pop culture took a massive nosedive after 2001? Probably not. It's been straight up degeneracy since then.

[Mister Obvious]

This whole memory of Salina sent me down a rabbit hole and I ended up finding footage of myself on the train parked outside Dodge City's Boot Hill Museum in 2019. It's a clip where the wind is blowing fierce and then someone on Wyatt Earp Blvd. passes by in their car with the windows down BLASTING "My Best Friend's Girl" by The Cars (my favorite band of all time)...



"Here she comes again."

It's always been my universal synchronistic cue when I'm somewhere in public and I hear ANY Cars song playing. I recognized the magic in the moment, but looking back... it's packed with even more meaning than I could have known at the time. The point of the story is to follow your soul's yearnings, whether they make logical sense at the time or not... when you get to where you were guided, there will be proof that you're doing the right thing.

[Mister Obvious]

Type O Negative also paid homage to The Cars...



TON were lovingly known as "The Best of the Worst" and were actually one of the only "newer" bands I listened to back in the day.

This crazy hot Canadian dude introduced me to them...

I lost touch with that guy along the way, but I still have his picture.