You're only human, you have to slow down and take a look as you drive past this week's list of songs...
20. James - Crash (From 'Millionaires'.)
Probably isn't actually about a car crash, which is why I placed it at number 20. Who can tell with Tim Booth's lyrics? Great song anyway.
19. Half Man Half Biscuit - Tour Jacket With Detachable Sleeves (From 'Some Call It Godcore'.)
On his way back from seeing a night of terrible tribute acts (including I Can't Believe Its Not Focus and the Identical Cocteau Twins), Nigel Blackwell and his girlfriend Helen, in her eponymous tour jacket, take the last bus home...
As we boarded, I immediately felt a little uneasy, as the driver didn’t seem to know the required fare for our intended destination. As we made our way to the upper deck front seat, I felt the vehicle swing round to the left, as if to go along Bridge Street. “He really doesn’t know the route”, I thought, with increasing alarm. “Better go downstairs and help him out. Wait a minute. Bridge Street? The overhead railway Bridge Street? Oh my God – HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLENNNNNNNNNN…!!!”
Ten years later, Blackwell is driving the same bus route... and has a spooky encounter... with that very same black tour jacket (with detachable sleeves).
18. Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm (From 'God Shuffled His Feet'.)
Once, there was this kid who got into an accident and couldn't come to school...
A true outcast's love story... and it all begins with a car crash. The boy was OK though - he was a Crash Test Dummy.
17. Ferlin Husky - The Drunk Driver (From 'Ferlin Huskey'.)
The maudlin and moralistic story of two small children killed by a drunk driver... with an awful twist.
This one will either break your heart or crack your funny bone.
Also by the same artist: I Dug My Daddy's Grave, Draggin' The River, Born To Lose (you get the picture)...
16. The Candyskins - Car Crash (From 'Sunday Morning Fever'.)
Britpop also-rans who broke up in 1998... have amazingly got back together. It seems there's even money in the reunion circuit for bands nobody can remember. Good on 'em.
15. Eminem - Stan (From 'Curtain Call - The Hits'.)
You know, the one with Dido wailing about her tea going cold. You may not remember, but it ends with Stan sticking his girlfriend in the boot of his car and driving it off a bridge. Like so many Eminem songs do.
14. Suede - Daddy's Speeding (From 'Dog Man Star'.)
Bret Anderson muses on how James Dean's car crash granted him immortality...
Whiplash caught the silver son
Took the film to No. I
Crashed the car and left us here
Broken glass for teenage boys trapped in steel and celluloid
Crashed the car and left us here.
13. Meat Loaf - Objects In The Rear View Mirror (From 'Bat Out of Hell Vol.2: Back Into Hell'.)
You'd be forgiven for thinking that every Jim Steinman song involves a car crash of some kind. Bat Out Of Hell has been described as "the ultimate car crash song" but much as I love that record (and I love it more than is healthy for a 39 year-old man), Objects... seems even more focused on the tragedy of a "fatac". Whereas BooH escapes the crash - and Hell itself - on a silver Black Phantom bike, Objects... stays with the accident, the death of Meat Loaf's teenage friend Kenny ("Oh my god, they killed..." etc.) and the way it's haunted him throughout his life.
There are times I think I see him peeling out of the dark
I think he's right behind me now and he's gaining ground
The video was directed by Michael Bay. Because, damn, who else could do this song justice?
12. Twinkle - Terry (From 'Golden Lights: Special Edition'.)
Though there has been much death and destruction in this list so far, this is the first actual death disc, an actual genre in its own right back in the 50s and 60s, wherein teenage girl (and occasionally boy) singers told tragic tales of young love cut short by driving too fast without paying due care and attention to the road.
I guess nobody ever took heed of the message in these songs because they just kept happening... as you'll see below.
11. Radiohead - Airbag (From 'OK Computer'.)
One of my absolute faves from grumpy Thom and the gang.
In a fast german car
I'm amazed that I survived
An airbag saved my life
10. Jan & Dean - Dead Man's Curve (From 'The Very Best Of Jan & Dean'.)
Every other early Beach Boys song was about coasting round town in your dad's character with a surfboard on the roof and bird-dogging chicks. Over on the other side of town, Jan & Dean were driving their cars a little more recklessly...
Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve...
9. Bruce Springsteen - Wreck On The Highway (From 'The River'.)
Another artist who spends much of his time writing car songs, so you'd imagine we'd come across more pile-ups in his repertoire than we actually do. Where many of the records on this list go for melodrama, Bruce strips away the pomp to give us a more personal reaction...
An ambulance finally came and took him to Riverside
I watched as they drove him away
And I thought of a girlfriend or a young wife
And a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night
To say your baby died in a wreck on the highway
Special mention must go to another Bruce song, Cadillac Ranch, dedicated to the place where smart wrecks go when they die...
8. Pearl Jam - Last Kiss (From 'Rearview Mirror: The Best of Pearl Jam'.)
Another death disc, originally recorded by Wayne Cochran back in 1961. I'm not a huge Pearl Jam fan, but this may well be Eddie Vedder's finest moment.
7. The Hours - Car Crash (From 'See The Light'.)
Me and you were just a car crash, baby
Everybody slowed down to take a look
The Hours - criminally ignored songwriters.
6. Black Box Recorder - Girl Singing In The Wreckage (From 'England Made Me'.)
Sarah Nixey crashes with her boyfriend on the way back from a New Year's party and gets stuck there for hour after hour after hour... or does she? It's a Luke Haines song, so who knows if she's telling the truth?
5. Ricky Valance - Tell Laura I Love Her (From 'The Very Best of Ricky Valance'.)
One of the all-time classic death discs ('bom bom bom bom'), originally recorded by Ray Peterson ('bom bom bom bom') though it was Ricky Valance who took it to Number One in the UK ('bom bom bom bom'). Tommy enters a stock car race to win money for his bride to be, loses his life in a crash, then comes back to haunt Laura forever, thereby ensuring her misery...
4. Dave Edmunds - Crawling From The Wreckage (From 'The Many Sides Of Dave Edmunds: The Greatest Hits And More'.)
It's a Graham Parker song, but the Dave Edmunds version was always mine. Despite the fact that "bits of me are scattered in the trees and on the hedges", the narrator of this song refuses to let one little accident prevent him "crawling from the wreckage... and into a brand new car". I hope he has good car insurance.
3. Shangri-Las - Leader Of The Pack (From 'The Best Of'.)
I love the Shangri-Las. So many of their songs end in teenage tragedy. Though this is their most famous record, there's similar automotive disaster in their Give Us Your Blessings, a song so woeful it makes Leader Of The Pack sound like an uplifting Jackanory story.
Sadly I can't listen to Leader Of The Pack anymore without hearing Julian Clary's spoof version, from his old identity as The Joan Collins Fanclub.
"Julian - is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?"
No, it's not, it's my ring.
"Gee, it must be great riding with him... is he picking you up after school today?"
No, I don't go to school anymore - I'm 28 now.
Watch out for that great big lorry, Jimmy...
Oh... too late.
This wasn't actually the first Leader Of The Pack parody. Back in the 60s, The Detergents gave us the other side of the story... The Leader Of The Laundromat. (You'll have to hunt that one down yourself.)
2. The Primitives - Crash (From 'Best Of'.)
Another band back on the reunion circuit after nearly 20 years in retirement. Hope Tracy Tracy's vocal chords are still up for it.
Hands up if you thought this would be Number One?
Good guess... but look what you forgot...
1. The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (From 'The Queen Is Dead'.)
It could only be Morrissey & Marr's finest moment. The song that finally convinced me to love the Smiths. I haven't ever looked back.
And if a double-decker bus crashes into us...
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck kills the both of us
To die by your side - well, the pleasure and the privilege is mine
But... lest you feeling I'm celebrating the car crash, I'll let the final word go to Tony Christie...
Drive safely darlin',
There's a long long road ahead,
And the weatherman says the freezing rain may turn to snow,
Mind how you go,
Drive safely darlin'
Mind how you go,
Drive safely darlin'
Do please take care on the roads… I need every reader I can get!
(Lyrics used for review purposes only. Copyright the respective songwriters. Removable on request.)
