Tape Deck Confessional: An Ode to Parents' Cars
The impact of parents cars on our musical taste
Welcome back!
Welcome back! I’ve moved my weekly substack to Tuesdays. This is the space where I’m gonna be jotting down some accompanying musings that’ll see my diving down rabbit holes and riffing on topics that come up in conversations on the pod.
Last week, Deb Grant - DJ on BBC 6 Music - joined to talk through her amazing ‘What Song?’ playlist. The song that reminded her of a scene from her childhood was The Who’s ‘My Generation’ - while the songs use in a Calippo ad was what caught a young Deb’s attention, it was also on rotation in her parent’s Gold Ford Fiesta. “They had a tape deck and that was the most important thing,” she noted.
The week before, during my chat with Nick from youbet, they recalled ‘Malibu’ by Hole being a mainstay on the tapedeck of their Dad’s black Ford F-150. “I would say that driving with my Dad was one of the greatest, most influential experiences of my musical development,” Nick reflected.
The throughlines between these two conversations were consistent with my own experience which got me thinking about the profound impact of parents’ cars on one’s musical tastes.
Dino dans le Astra
I have a vivid memory of My parents Vauxhall Astra chugging into a service station on a long drive. No idea where I picked it up from but my 7-year old self thought it’d be grand old time to make use of a new word I had learnt.
“Mum and Dad, I really need a piss,” I declared.
Daggers shot through the rear view mirror even though I had heard my Dad utter much worse during DIY jobs and the odd time I was in his office at work while he was trying to get his business off the ground. Hypocrite.
Plus, he took me to Stamford Bridge where over a thermos of steaming bovril watching Chelsea, I caught every curse word under the sun delivered with an accompanying explosion of saliva and pukka pie flakes. Like little sweary pastry fireworks.
In all honesty, I didn’t know what the pissing hoo-ha was all about.
I’m certain the source that softened the atmosphere after that exchange in the car were the dulcet tones of Dean Martin. Be it the striking no-nonsense fanfare of ‘Ain’t That A Kick In The Head’ or the charming shuffle of his take on ‘Gentle on my Mind’.
Somehow you can hear Dino’s smile on every recording. It transports me directly to the baby-boosted backseat of my family’s Vauxhall.
A smart mate of mine (Alan!) who values robust efficiency swears by the car brand which got him through the heinous seasons the almighty weather gods threw at Toronto, Canada while he lived there. It also got us through many a trip scaling the south-westerly tip of the UK when my sister and I were kids.
Strangely, I can still remember the jitters and slices of songs bleeding between tracks - a result of my Mum cutting the tune a little too late as she ripped them from CD to tape.
Now that’s what I call my Mum’s Nissan Primera
Born just before the CD became commonplace, my Mum’s Nissan boasted a tape deck. She purchased a bunch of blanks and snagged selections from our CD collection once in a while. There was one with a collection of West-end standards while my sister went to theatre school. I can still remember all the words to most of ‘Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat’ and ‘Les Miserables’ as a result. ‘Master of the House’ is an overlooked banger though.
There was another cassette with a weird mash of old wartime songs like ‘Run Rabbit Run’ (forever demonised by the opening of Get Out), the James Bond theme and snags from that quarter’s Now That’s What I Call Music 48 CD. There seemed to be no logical order to the track lists on these tapes but the unique binding of songs render the memory crystal clear.
My Mum favours the melancholy, something she’s definitely passed on to me, hence why Nelly Furtado’s ‘I’m Like A Bird’ was ripped to tape and not Modjo’s ‘Chillin’’ from Now 48. Early 00s was an eclectic mix in retrospect - stick this thing on shuffle and you’ll get ‘Clint Eastwood’ by Gorillaz segueing into Bob The Builder’s ‘Can We Fix It?’.
In fact, ‘I’m Like A Bird’ still gives me a strange aura of intense melancholy blended with a heavy dose of nostalgia. Not that it was sad times, but it was a perfect accompaniment to that warm and overcast summer - I have a clear memory of this song playing as a plane lifted up into a dense cloud while looking out the window. Strange how songs can revive those little snags of memory so vividly.
Some years later, I eventually got given the keys to the Nissan after passing my driving test in 2011. I remember Glasvegas’ Euphoric Heartbreak came out the day I passed my test. I was put on a shared insurance under the Orwellian watchful eye of a black box which meant essentially if I went over the speed limit, the A-team would swing in and plaster a heightened insurance cost on my windshield.
To sweeten the deal, Mum bought me a cassette with an aux lead allowing me to plug my iPod Touch into the tape deck. The 21st century via 80s technology which meant I finally had full control over what was played. I’d sit there carefully pondering and queuing up all the tunes I wanted to hear way overcooking the length of a five minute journey.
It was tradition among my friendship group to drive up to Box Hill once you’d passed your test; the place that hosted the cycling events of the London Olympics 2012. All intricate hairpin turns and winding roads, ideal for a 17-year old who’s just passed their test under the spell of peer pressure.
That Spring, The Strokes’ Angles was unleashed - the first Strokes album cycle I was cognisant of, having been in the clutch of emo and pop-punk during their domination throughout the early 00s. At some point between First Impressions of Earth and Angles, I shed my My Chemical Romance merch and replaced it with yellow cardigans, skinny jeans and Converse. Hard to pinpoint when that quite drastic change in look occurred.
Anyways, the album opener ‘Machu Picchu’ became my driving jam that summer and reminds me of cautiously approaching those Box Hill roads with my mates clinging on for dear life in the passenger seat.
That Nissan was a beast and still impacts my spatial awareness when I’m behind a wheel to this day - haunting me way beyond its scrapyard grave. Other tunes that bring that blue wagon back to life are Lykke Li’s ‘Get Some’ which pounded magnificently through the speakers that once played host to the dulcet tones of Donny Osmond’s ‘Any Dream Will Do’.
…and the anthemic (and way overlooked) song ‘Lots Sometimes’ by Glasvegas. Driving that car with several different versions of myself littered in the backseats reminds me of that halcyon summer before shooting off to university; the end of childhood in a way. It’s a feeling that James Allan’s lyrics so beautifully summarise as he navigates the twisted logic of loss and nostalgia: “It makes me sad when I think about you lots sometimes / It makes me laugh out loud when I think of you lots sometimes”.
Which songs remind you of your parents cars? Let us know in the comments or over at Instagram or TikTok.
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