Songs About Cars Are Cast Into Music History’s Dustbin

Back before cars became utilitarian things — Point A-to-Point B conveyances with computerized everythings powered by $4-a-gallon gas — they were objects of lust, symbols of liberation and power, the center of the youth movement’s sexual universe in post-World War II America. (What happens in the back seat stays in the back seat!)

Cars and rock-and-roll defined youth culture, screaming power and freedom and individuality. Cars were celebrated in cinema and on TV, but they were most at home in rock-and-roll.

Loud music and loud machines in which young people listened to that loud music: Of course the twain would meet.

“The whole obsession of cars in rock music was a reflection of teenage culture,” says Bob Merlis, a music publicist and automotive journalist who curated two “Cars and Guitars” exhibits for the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. “The car was a very exotic thing that gave the teenager a place of his own, or her own. It’s where you’d go to escape your parents. . . . It was a refuge from square culture and repressive attitudes. It was your own universe where you could have your own social life.”

du Lac points out that cars are still celebrated in song, but they’re not the focus of anthems as much as they are ways to get to a greater point (“I’m rich,” usually). The point about cars serving as a refuge and a place to define individuality, though, makes me wonder if “the car song” has been replaced in the pop pantheon by “the Internet song,” complete with all the narcissistic implications.

Rollin’ On Empty [WP] Elastica – Car Song [YouTube]