An Ode to the Backseat

The warm beating of spring air rushes through the car around me as my parents' car drives down the road.

Cars whizz past as my brother and I sit in the backseat, after arguing over who got to sit where.

My mom interrupts my train of thought: ‘What song is this?’

It’s a question which was a staple of every childhood car ride, for as long as I can remember.

It persists when I sit in the backseat of my parent’s car after picking me up from my 9 hour flight home from London.

The back of my mom’s car, my dad’s truck, whichever vehicle we were all piled into saw my siblings and I ruthlessly quizzed on the song name, artist, album. We got bonus points if we guessed the release year of the song playing on the radio.

‘The Girl is Mine!’ my brother guesses, before I get a word in edgewise.

‘And who sings it?’ My mom teases him.

‘Michael Jackson… and…’

‘Paul McCartney!’ I blurt out.

My mom looks up at me through the rearview mirror, cocking one eyebrow in surprise.

‘Very good, Sarah.’

My music training began when I was young. I was around four years old when my dad told me he looked in the rearview mirror to see me in my car seat, pumping my fist to AC DC's Hells Bells with my face scrunched up.

Music has always been a common thread connecting our family. My mom never went out to do yard work without bringing our beat up battery powered radio from the garage as company.

Dad once told me he had always hoped he would influence his kid’s music taste - and had faith even when my sister and I went through our boy band phases.

I recall he turned down the radio once when I was about 11 years old, looked at me dead in the eyes as I sat in the backseat, listening to Roger Waters crooning 'Money'.

'You have to listen to ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ in a dark room, sitting on the floor with headphones on when you get older. It’ll change your life.'

Car rides with my dad - even if they were just nipping around the corner for something - had music playing for the short ride. 

When my sister was old enough to drive, she wouldn’t quiz me on the songs she played - but I still took note. Third Eye Blind. Goo Goo Dolls. The Doors. Panic! At The Disco.

One song stands out - Summer Girls, by LFO. A really shitty song from 1999 that still reminds me of the hot gray seats in my sister’s Honda.

She would lock herself in her room and burn CDs for herself and her friends, all labeled with colorful sharpie.

One CD name stands out - 'Songs so hot they make you wanna slap yo mama!'

I can’t recall a single quiet car ride in my childhood. The day my grandpa died and my dad and I got in the car to drive and get my brother from college, a Journey song played as we sat in silence.

Later as my brother began driving, his car was filled with different music. The most reserved out of us three kids, music always seemed to be an escape for Matt.

The Head And The Heart, The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, a bit of punk and some folk mixed in. Years later we bonded over our shared love of Anderson .Paak.

After my siblings went to college, I had a few years of just myself and mom and dad - a period when the incessant questioning about music became a bit of a game.

Even when I knew that I knew the song name, sometimes I’d pretend I didn’t so they could tell me about the song or artist.

'They sing ___, you love that song! How don’t you know this?’ 

The soundtrack of my life was shaped almost single-handedly by parents' influence.

Every trip to my grandparent’s house in the Outer Banks wasn’t made complete without hearing ‘Message in a Bottle’ by the Police.

For a week in seventh grade, I listened to nothing but Rod Stewart’s album, ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’. That was followed by a week-long Elton John deep dive, then Billy Joel.

My parents - the classic rock purists they are - only disliked country, rap or heavy metal music. For a brief period in early high school, they suffered in silence while I listened to Ryan Seacrest’s voice narrating the Top 40 pop songs each Sunday on the way to church.

By the end of the 10 minute car ride to church, the radio was often switched to 102.9 to hear Casey Kasem’s old Top 40 countdowns to purify their ears from the early 2010s pop hellscape I subjected them to.

Rod Stewart may have said 'Every Picture Tells a Story', but my life has been told by the songs played in my parents' cars.

During my senior photos in high school, Hall and Oates were playing in the background. My mom laughed and asked the woman if she’d play ‘Sara Smile’ for me - they did.

‘Sunglasses At Night’ by Corey Hart takes me back to driving on I-40 at dusk during the summer between high school and college.

‘Neighbors’ by J Cole reminds me of my sophomore year in college, driving down 10th Street with my then boyfriend.

I still listen to 'Jet Airliner' by the Steve Miller Band each time I get on a plane to visit home, or, very fittingly, Leon Bridges' 'Coming Home'.

Over the course of my 24 years on earth, I’ve become suspiciously good at identifying a song, the artist and the album - often within the first few chords of a song - thanks to my parents.

My music taste has changed as I’ve grown over the years. I’ve been through punk phases, deep dives into old school rap, eighties love ballads, German hypertechno. Right now I've been on a kick of rock and 'girly pop' music. Odd mix, but still, the music that I’ve never grown tired of are the songs I fell asleep to as a kid in my parent’s backseat.

I can’t remember the quadratic formula, but I can tell you that Mick Jagger did the backup vocals for Carly Simon’s ‘You’re so Vain’. 

I can tell you the story behind The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ vocalist (which is debated, but still - I know the tale).

When did Lynyrd Skynyrd die in the plane crash? 

Who was Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ written about? 

Is this song before or after Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship?

All questions I know the answer to. And all because my parents forced their kids - sometimes begrudgingly - to guess the song, artist and year. 

There was no reward for our correct answers, but we didn’t need one.

Sitting smugly next to my siblings after beating them to guess the correct answer, paired with an approving glance from my parents in the rearview mirror was more than enough.