33. Heartbeat City by The Cars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXpJ0bM5zbM&list=OLAK5uy_l8zCHgq3Utr7f1dAf9jqop3lbCzugN2Dc
Released in March of 1984, Heartbeat City showed up just in time for senior year track and band tour. From the moment I first heard "You Might Think," I couldn't get enough of this album. And when I went to the state track meet and ended up rooming with Darin Woolstenthume from Bear Lake High School, my former track nemesis turned into an immediate friend when he agreed with me that Heartbeat City was an excellent album.
But with "Breakaway" being a B-side release, plus it having some pretty obvious references to heroin in the lyrics, it was kind of doomed to not get the radio play it deserved. Still, I think it's a better song than the title track "Heartbeat City," which apparently made it onto the low end of the charts in September of 1985, but I was in Sweden by that time, so I don't remember ever hearing it on the radio.
Listening to this album always makes me remember that last year of running track in high school, the summer of lifeguarding after that, and my first semester at Ricks. I had sworn off dating by then, and I stuck to that oath for over a year, so this album doesn't have any associated memories of any particular girls. I was just too depressed to want to risk dating anyone again. So, the major slow-dance song "Drive" only reminds me of living in the dorms and watching MTV late at night in the foyer while most of the other guys were out on dates. Chris also went home a lot during that first semester, so I was alone on quite a few weekends at the beginning of school. But that was actually a good thing, because I needed that time to do homework. And after leaving Arimo for college, I was determined to apply that self-discipline I'd learned from running track to change my life and prepare for my future, which is exactly what I did for that whole first year of college as I prepared for my mission. So by the time I got my call to Sweden in February of 1985, I felt ready to face whatever might come my way.
Of course, I was completely wrong about that, and my first two months in Sweden nearly broke me. And it was hard. So hard to take. There's no escape without a scrape. But I kept it goin' till the sun went down. I kept it...goin'.
When I got back off my mission, Heartbreak City was one of the albums that I pirated from my brother-in-law and played while driving around in the Black step-side Chevy, so I have some good memories of the album during my summer after Sweden and my sophomore year at Ricks, too. But it's definitely an album that I mostly associate with that time around when I turned 18, which mentally wasn't the best time for me, but physically I was in the best shape of my life. Oh, how I wish I could still run a mile in under five minutes like I did back then! And when I listen to this album now, I am able to feel just a little bit of that 18-year-old long-distance runner determination to change my life and make it better. And when that happens, it makes me say to that 18-year-old that still lives inside my head, "Hello! Hello again!"
Nardo
#33: Cars—Heartbeat City. Much like “Sports” by Huey Lewis and the News before it, this is another album I inexplicably originally purchased on record instead of cassette. And, much like “Sports,” when it came time to upgrade my music collection to cd, I didn’t get “Heartbeat City,” mostly because the best songs from it were already on the greatest hits album. (Although I was more than a bit annoyed that The Greatest Hits album featured the song “Heartbeat City” instead of “Hello Again.”
ReplyDeleteI gave this album very serious consideration for my Top 60 list based on the merits of the four hits, “You Might Think,” “Drive,” “Magic,” and “Hello Again,” plus the funky-fun album cut “I Refuse.” But, in the end I left it off mostly because I didn’t really listen to it as an album, just as a collection of songs.
But, dang, they’re really good songs, aren’t they?
And whenever I see the video to “You Might Think,” I’m reminded, much like “Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top, of those nights staying up late to watch “Friday Night Videos” on NBC. Good times.