Five Song Friday: An Ode to Back Seat Music

This Week: Brazen Bootleggers, Absorbent Towels and the Largest of the Golden Isles

Pete Humes

Jun 24, 2022

I don’t do much riding in the back seat these days.

That sounds like a weird brag, but it’s not a flex. It’s just a fact.

Back seats are for toddlers, very big dogs and Jessica Tandy.

I am none of those things, so I sit in the driver’s seat like a middle-aged, non-Oscar-winning, adult human man.

But damnit, I do miss that back seat.

The back seat is like the cool uncle of car seats.

Those seats up front are so uptight and square with their airbags and responsibility.

The back seat is fun-loving and laid back. And way more loosey-goosey with the rules.

Buckle up? I guess so. If you feel the need, go for it. Or you could just lie sideways with your bare feet out the window. Either way is cool. Back seat don’t judge.

Yes, the back seat does have a bit of a naughty reputation.

The back seat is where all the frivolity, fondling and “French-kissing” goes on. The back seat is always down for a good time. Back seat says there ain’t no party like a pants-off party.

Clearly, the back seat loves its “bad boy” image as a cheap hotel room on wheels.

But I’m not here to talk about the gross stuff that people do to each other in parked cars.

I’m here to talk about music, specifically Back Seat Music.

What is Back Seat Music? Well, it’s definitely NOT the heavy breathing and wet mouth sounds of two consenting adults making out like they’ve both been poisoned and the antidote is lodged deep in the other person’s windpipe.

I’m not talking about that. Not ever.

No, Back Seat Music is the good stuff that gets into your ears when you’re just along for the ride. It’s the music you hear when you have no control over the radio, the CD binder or the shoebox of cassettes under the passenger seat.

The roots of Back Seat Music go back to childhood road trips that were soundtracked by easy-listening, classic rock and mom and dad’s cringey doo-wop duets.

People of a certain age will remember that as a time before portable music players and headphones. There was no escaping to your own playlist on a Walkman or a DiscMan. Back then, “Beats by Dre” was just what we called it when that mean kid Andre kidney-punched people on the school bus.

On those trips, your parents were the DJ and you had no choice.

Back Seat Music was the only option.

All we could do was lean our foreheads against the window glass, watch the world roll by and pretend to hate brilliantly catchy songs by ABBA, Neil Diamond and Looking Glass.

But that was just the beginning.

Back Seat Music showed up in high school when you bummed rides and had no choice but to endure jam-band bootlegs, goth weirdness and headbanger metal.

“Did he just say he loved her each weekday, each velvety cheekday?”

Then it followed you to college where there was even more jam-bands, migraine-inducing art rock, ironic pop nostalgia and… contemporary country.

“You want a ride home for Thanksgiving? Hop in! I hope you like Clint Black!”

Today, Back Seat Music is heard in taxis and Ubers. It pops up in a co-workers car on the way to lunch at Subway. It can even show up when you find it in your heart to let your teenage daughter connect her iPhone to the bluetooth in your car.

Back Seat Music can be uncomfortable and terrible. It can be something you just have to endure.

But sometimes? It’s not the worst.

And a funny thing can happen when you surrender control and put your ears in someone else’s hands…

You can find stuff you like in places you would have never looked.

Back Seat Music was how I fell hard for the Violent Femmes first album.

It’s how I was introduced to Public Enemy and Metallica.

And I’m pretty sure I’ve nodded along to more than one Olivia Rodrigo song in the last year.

So there’s that.

Enjoy the songs and thanks for reading!

DJ CrankyPete

Five Song Friday 019

“1977” - Ana Tijoux

The internet says that Ana Tijoux first became famous as MC of the hip-hop group Makiza during the late 1990s. I don’t know Makiza, so I will add the band to my “Listen Soon List” and take the internet’s word for it.

The internet also told me that Tijoux is Chilean-French and her parents fled to Paris after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. I don’t know about the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, so I will add that to my “Learn World History List.”

“1977” is from Ana’s second solo album (also called 1977) released in 2010.

I was hoping that she called it 1977 to honor the year that Smokey and the Bandit was released. No such luck. It’s called 1977 because she was born in 1977. The songs on the album are autobiographical and have nothing to do with bootlegging rascals running an 18-wheeler full of Coors to Atlanta.

Oh well. I’ll just add that to my “Examples That Not Everybody Loves Smokey and the Bandit As Much As I Do List” and get on with my life.

“Can I Speak to a Manager?” - The Clockworks

I need your help here.

The British music mag NME described this Irish punk foursome as “sh**-hot.” For the life of me, I can’t figure out what that first word is and why it’s bleeped out.

Shoe-hot? Like their music gets you up and dancing so much that your feet get warm?

Show-hot? Like they put on an entertaining live show with lots of pyrotechnics?

Or maybe Sham-hot? Like they have some sort of sponsorship deal with ShamWow, the versatile cleaning cloth that’s like a towel, chamois and sponge all in one except they’re extremely absorbent and can be used over and over?

That must be why the NME bleeped it out. Because if they didn’t, they would be giving free advertising for those towels, which are machine washable and bleachable, will not scratch surfaces, and last for more than 10 years.

Sham-hot. Makes sense to me!

I don’t need your help anymore.

“Errbody Up” - Shakiah

I’m sure you have a perfectly good excuse for sleeping on Shakiah.

I get it. The world has been crazy lately and not everybody has time to seek out the music of an independent Seattle hip-hop artist. You’re busy. How can anyone expect you to fit a five-song, self-released EP from 2018 into your hectic schedule?

You have a job and a family. Yard work and soccer practices and hot yoga.

And now you have to go to Whole Foods AGAIN because Joel can’t live without that 365 Ginger Sparkling Water. Fuck all the way off, Joel.

I have good news! You can play the music in your car. On the way to soccer yoga or BASEketball practice or Alcoholics Anonymous or whatever. It’s easy to do with technology. All it takes is some buttons and knobs and WHOOP there it is!

“Errbody Up” is a motivational song and we could all use a good one of those these days, right?

“Errbody Up!” Except you Joel. You sit back down and drink your stupid sparkling water.

“Do Me Right” - Ruby the RabbitFoot

Folks, there is nothing better than a good old-fashioned Wikipedia rabbit hole (pun unintended) to make you reconsider everything you know about the world.

Let me talk you through this one.

FIRST I read that Ruby Kendrick (aka Ruby the RabbitFoot) grew up on St. Simon’s Island off the coast of Georgia. That makes me think that I can find something cheeky to say about the island, because it’s a huge tourist destination with all the stuff that white people love like beaches, resorts, golf course and lighthouses.

THEN I read that St. Simon’s is the largest of the state’s Golden Isles. Snore. Big deal. Who cares.

THEN I scroll down to the “Notable People” and find that cartoonist Jack Davis died there and I’m all excited like, “It’s where the Garfield guy died!”

THEN I realize that’s Jim Davis. JACK is another guy altogether. Jack worked on MAD Magazine and was awesome and helped me learn how to draw. RIP playa.

Where was I? Oh yeah, notable people.

THEN… I see Alton Brown from Good Eats. I click through to his bio, but there isn’t any mention of St. Simon’s Island. What I DO find though is that Alton studied film at the University of Georgia and worked as a cinematographer on music videos including “The One I Love” by REM! Whaaaat?

Crazy, right? The Good Eats guy! So wild. I love Wikipedia SO much (but not enough to give them money when they ask).

Speaking of segues, please enjoy Ruby the RabbitFoot and this delightfully sweet and simple piece of pop from her 2011 album No Weight, No Chain.

“Sweetness” - Pearl and the Beard

Pearl and the Beard was a folk-pop trio from New York City.

I say WAS because they broke up in 2015. I’m not sure the reason behind the split but it must have been messy sorting out all of their stuff.

They were famous for their 3-part vocal harmonies, so once things went sideways, that shit was the first to go.

Is there anything sadder than a one-part harmony? How about one of those one-part harmonies walking down a dark street, looking glum and kicking and an old tin can while it rains. That’s pretty sad, right?

Now picture one of them pulling a wagon filled with a cello, a ukulele and drums. Suddenly, one of the wagon’s wheels falls off and this person runs after it and gets hit by a bus. For no reason, the lonely wagon bursts into flames.

Think that was sad? Imagine another one of them under a bridge, wearing a clown wig and holding a cardboard sign that reads: “I used to folkin’ BE somebody!”

It makes you wonder why Pearl and the Beard called it quits because clearly they had everything and now they have nothing because one of them is dead, one is a circus-themed panhandler and the other one is wet and aimless.

It’s even more tragic when you listen to “Sweetness” and realize that these crazy mixed-up kids sang like goddamned angels.