LISTEN LIVE

Everybody Loved Ric Ocasek and So Did I

The death of Ric Ocasek of The Cars on Sunday afternoon was a heartbreaker that brought forth an outpouring of fond remembrances. Here’s mine. Christmas, 1984. I was seven-going-on-eight and…

The death of Ric Ocasek of The Cars on Sunday afternoon was a heartbreaker that brought forth an outpouring of fond remembrances. Here's mine.

Christmas, 1984. I was seven-going-on-eight and just starting to be old enough to form my own opinions on music. These opinions usually involved asking my parents to put a certain record on or change the station on the car radio; Mom and Dad were the gatekeepers of all things musical. Then Christmas came around and the gates were thrown open.

My Uncle Michael, ever the tech-and-gadget-guy, gave me a Sony Walkman for Christmas. And it was the model that had a radio tuner AND a cassette player. Freedom! I could listen to what I wanted to, when I wanted to. It would be bad form, of course, to give a child such a gift and not give them a cassette to play; Uncle Michael chose Heartbeat City by The Cars.

I can remember sliding the cassette into the deck and pressing play. I knew these songs! They'd been on the radio all year. And there was the song with the video on MTV where the singer turned into a fly and buzzed around. I was in heaven, flipping from one side of the tape to the other and back again.

And that, I think, is a prime example of the brilliance of Ric Ocasek and The Cars. If you're writing songs that are catchy enough for a seven-year-old to put your albums on a loop and keep coming back those albums as a teen and a young adult and a middle-aged man, then you're writing damn good songs. It's no surprise they're enshrined in Cleveland.

Heartbroken to have lost Ric Ocasek, but my heart is full each time I listen to Heartbeat City.

adam12Writer
Adam 12 is the Program Director of Boston's ROCK 92.9, heard weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. He's been flexing his encyclopedic rock knowledge in New England for over 2 decades, both on-air and online, at WBCN, WFNX, Boston.com, and indie617. At ROCK 92.9, he keeps you in the know on the big stories from the Boston music scene and writes about great places to eat, drink (beer), and to spend time outdoors in and around Boston.