10FTW: Songs From The Backseat

"I like the peace

In the backseat

I don't have to drive

I don't have to speak

I can watch the countryside

And I can fall asleep"

- "In the Backseat" by Arcade Fire

Some of my best childhood moments are centered around music. Songs that elicited pure joy when, by chance, they'd come on the car radio while riding around town with my folks. It seems like forever ago - I'm acutely aware of just how cyclical generational perceptions are - but I can't resist the urge to become my parents for a moment and say, "When I was a kid, things were different." Because they were. There weren't a lot of options to entertain a kid in a car back then and music was most definitely not on-demand. If you had good reception, you'd get whatever tunes the local radio DJs served up. Some songs were played more than others, but by and large, you'd be treated to a pretty random mix of current songs, along with 'oldies' from the decade before.

If I was in the car with my parents, the radio was usually on. It's just how it always was. Looking back, there were a handful (maybe armload) of songs that sound-tracked that blissful moment when all I knew were the storefronts, green spaces, and neighborhoods around town that shaped the limited reality of my five - nine-year-old self. I still hear these songs from time-to-time, though it's rarely a random occasion anymore. I put on these little aural bites of comfort food and reflect on those mostly extinct hometown images from my most innocent of days. Many of the stores no longer stand and roads exist where fields once extended seemingly forever. New freeways have been constructed. Generations have come and gone, though Facebook tells me many folks I knew have hung around there for the long haul. The very few parts of town that still possess a sense of familiarity within their appearance are personal treasures of mine and keep me connected to my history, much like the 20 songs in the two playlists that follow.

The time spent in the backseat of my parents' cars as we went to the store, the drive-in, the beach...wherever the day happened to take us, is responsible for some of my fondest memories. The view from the backseat was a carefree one; one without bad drivers or clueless pedestrians. A view accompanied by some great songs that have become ingrained in my fiber, serving as mileposts in the story of my life. A view free from the constrictions of a seat belt - we didn't have much use for those things in the '70s. It was a view experienced from the bucket seat of a turd-brown Ford Pinto and the luxurious expanse of our Cadillac or Grenada's leather (or was it pleather) bench seat.

These are not my favorite songs from my childhood, nor are they what I consider the 'best' songs of the 70s. They're simply the songs that, for a few minutes, remove the chaos of adulthood and slow the constant churn of reality to a crawl.

Some, like "Sir Duke," "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," and "Still The One" bring back the innocence of youth. Others remind me just how far removed from that innocence I am. "Just The Way You Are," "Reminiscing," and "Silly Love Songs" were favorites of my mother; songs that made her light up from ear to ear. I haven't had the fortune of seeing her smile in over 12 years so those songs, painful as they can be to hear sometimes, are nostalgic as much as they're therapeutic. My dad has been gone for much longer - this December will mark 25 years without him. I can't hear "The Gambler," "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," or "Rhinestone Cowboy" and think of anything other than being in the car with my pops while we sang the choruses of those classics together.

"Dream Weaver," was unlike anything else I heard on the radio at the time, so it was always a treat when it would come on. That doesn't mean I can listen to more than 30 seconds of it now, but man...I really loved that song back then. "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" was just fun wordplay that was easy to remember. Thanks for that one, Mr. Rhymin' Simon. Like the aforementioned signature tune of Kenny Rogers, "Take The Money and Run" and "American Pie" unfolded their stories as the songs played on. Cinematic sequences correlating with the songs' lyrical journeys played out in the movie theater of my mind. I had a pretty good imagination as an only child and it was fun for me to close my eyes and envision how what I was hearing might look like on the big screen.

In the backseat, I discovered how funky music could be, courtesy of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." It's still one of the funkiest damn things I've ever heard. I internalized the words of Henley, Frey, and JD Souther's "The Best Of My Love" before I really knew how devastating they actually were. "You see it your way. I see it mine. But we both see it slipping away." I just got goosebumps typing that. Dang. Those words, much like others from the best Eagles songs, are lyrical daggers that cut through the bullshit and serve up a reality most would prefer to brush aside with a pained, yet blissful, ignorance. Those words moved me then, though in a way I couldn't understand as a child who was focused on far more important things (what the new Saturday morning cartoons would be once Fall came around, who would win Battle of the Network Stars, or when I might get to go to Skipper's next) than a relationship's impending implosion. And...this was a big one, the backseat was where I found a loophole that allowed me to 'innocently' sing along to a popular song and get away with saying a bad word. It felt like I was breaking the law without anyone around me being the wiser. Thanks, "Rich Girl."

I always had a great bedroom filled with toys from parents who really didn't have the means, but always found the way, to give me most of what they knew I wanted. I'd eventually have a bike that would take me on adventures around my part of town. Later on, I'd experience the 'joy' of what people dealt with in the front seat; insanely slow stoplights, rush-hour traffic, flat tires. None of it ever matched the weightlessness I felt while in the backseat. Such levity came with brevity, but these songs keep that magical time alive.