The Cars

(Muletown Coffee - Columbia, TN)

It's Monday morning and I'm having a cup of coffee at Muletown Coffee on the Square in Columbia, TN, before a mediation.  Mid-September and still dreadfully, unseasonably hot.  High 90's again today.  Awful.

On the drive down this morning, I listened to The Cars in honor of lead singer and frontman Ric Ocasek, who died yesterday at age 75.  The Cars had a run from 1978 - 1990, which means they would for sure place a few songs on the soundtrack of my youth.  Several, actually.  

As I thought about it, The Cars might have been the quintessential (I love that word) '80's band.  A bit new wave or punk but not too much so.  Synthesizers.  Big hair a new wave look, especially Ric Ocasek - at 6'4" he seemed like he was 6'7" because he was so skinny.  Easily accessible sound.  More pop than punk, really, with three and half minute songs with catchy hooks.

I played Heartbeat City, released by the band in 1984, a million times my senior hear of high school.  I played it again this morning on my drive and reminisced about high school, the '80's, my mom, my friends, my 1966 Mustang and my 1983 Honda Civic 1500S (w/black tinted windows), Steve Jeroutek, spring break in Daytona Beach, a certain kind of innocence lost, youth, life and how it all passes by so quickly.

And it does.

R.I.P. Ric Ocasek