Gary Numan - Cars

I spent my Independence Day evening in DC alone by myself and watching “Donnie Darko”, my self-proclaimed favorite movie, a fact which I have decided still holds true.

I think this night is best represented in a homage to amazing 80’s music. “Donnie Darko” honestly blows me away with the top-notch collection of songs it features, all at just the right moments and filmed in just the right ways. And the instrumental score is gorgeous as well. I have fantasies (don’t laugh) of being in charge of the soundtracks for films. Can you imagine having that job and getting paid for it? Maybe that’s a reason I always adore Sofia Coppola movies (I actually watched the “Marie Antoinette” trailer over and over for months on my desktop before it came out, the version that featured “Age of Consent” by New Order). I have a mental stash of songs like “Here Comes Everybody” by Autolux and “Utopia” by Goldfrapp that would be perfect in these little vague, yet dramatic, montages I’ve concocted. The idea of setting music to visuals is like a dream.

But away from my tangent, lots of great 80’s music in the movie because it is set in 1988, so here is one of my favorite new wave songs from that era, “Cars” by Gary Numan. And no, I still don’t actually drive (but I’ve decided that if I ever do my dream car is a Porsche, an automative crush that has slowly been fermenting over the years…who knew I’d be so cliche?). The synths here are to die for, and I love the way they are laid out in the intro chorus as one long steady note while the “background” instrumentation shifts around behind it, and then it catches up a bit afterwards. I hope that makes sense. And I can’t ever escape the visual from the music video of Numan looking in random directions dramatically at all the intervals of all the important slaps and then being freeze-framed for dramatic purposes. Corny yes, but kinda cute, also yes.

Tags: cars, gary numan, song of the day