Some people want to be the lead singer for a rock band. Others want to write and play the licks and hooks that catch and reel you into the lyrics of the rock anthems. Still others want to play the drums because they like to bang things. But not me.
No, I want to play the careening cars for the band.
Take, for instance, the virtuoso who plays the careening cars on the track for this song by Dan Hartman (you can hear them about 3:20 into the song):
I mean, listen to the screeching of those wheels. That guy’s got chops.
I say “guy” knowing that the feminists out there would like to point out that a woman can play the careening car as well as a man, and thousands of jokes from the 1940s and 1950s that the same feminists deplore might suggest a woman naturally plays the careening car better than a man. But it’s still a male-dominated instrument, the careening car.
Now, a well-trained careening car enthusiast can listen to that particular riff in the song, and he (again, it’s mostly men who think careening cars in songs are awesome, and by “men” I mean one certain blogger who shall remain nameless by eponymous hereabouts who is masculine enough to deserve the plural even when he’s parentheting about himself) might detect the speed, car make, tires, and angle of careering from that bit of audio (Buick LeSabre, Pirelli P6 Four Seasons Plus, 34-38 miles per hour, 110 degrees).
I only wish I could play the careening car like that.
Granted, there’s not much call in these days of autotune to actually play a careening car in the studio or on the road. So the wise careening car player should branch out. Perhaps into playing the buzzing airplane:
I wore out a Fisher Price record player playing Snoopy vs The Red Baron when I was a toddler. Somehow, I took the player apart and my parents never found one of the springs.