Car Songs/Jan and Dean & The Beach Boys
If you lived at the end of Commercial Road in Pittsburgh you knew all too well about Dead Man’s Curve. Especially in the winter. The way I saw it–if a boy wanted to come and pick up you for a date and you lived at the end of Commercial Road and it was winter–you could measure his devotion by the way he responded to that particular situation. One terrible winter night there was a lot of ice and snow everywhere and I was howling because Commercial Road was really too awful for my boyfriend to come and get me–SO MY MOTHER DROVE ME TO SQUIRREL HILL to see my boyfriend and we had fun and then I spent the night on the third floor of my Aunt Esther’s house.
I am wondering how the car culture came to be on the West Coast. There probably isn’t any particular reason. But from where I sat it seemed that every teenager had a car there. In the movie American Grafitti everyone had a car. I didn’t even get my drivers’ license until I was 18.
Brian Wilson and his Boys sang so beautifully about cars–with passion and tenderness. It was something so new and mesmerizing, almost. I didn’t know what a pink slip was until I asked Peter; I had no idea of the meaning of “tach it up” either. “Shut him down…” I didn’t know that at all. There’s actually a whole album of Beach Boys’ car songs. But I loved listening to them singing. Bombarded from the West with car songs, bombarded from the East with the British Invasion…and here was sad little Pittsburgh, just soaking it all in.
Favorite car songs: Little Old Lady from Pasadena/Jan and Dean
Don’t Worry Baby/Beach Boys
You might think that Don’t Worry Baby isn’t a car song but listen to the lyrics:
I guess I know I should have kept my mouth shut when I started to brag about my car
But it’s too late to back down now because I pushed the other guy too far..
She said now when you go and race today you take all my love with you
And if you knew how much I love you baby nothing could go wrong with you..
lgmwriting 