OK, we know that rock n roll started in the good old You Ess Of A and that the good old boys had a head start on songs about cars. They seemed obsessed!
You can go back to Chuck Berry, motorvatin' over the hill. "I saw Maybelline in a coup de ville.".
You can go back to the birth of rock'n'roll - to Ike Turner saxophone player Jackie Brenson and the immortal 'Rocket 88' (no-one would dare write about an Oldsmobile these days).
You can back even further to the black and white era. George Gershwin's car horns feature in his 1928 classic "An American In Paris".
The car song is a staple of rock and roll. It's a part of our lives. The car song has poured out of car radios the world over for as long as anyone can remember.
And all that Cadillac stuff doesn't stop there.
"Pink Cadillac". "Little Red Corvette". "Mustang Sally". "Red
Barchetta". Rihanna's "Shut Up And Drive". There's even a slacker anthem: "Bitchin' Camaro" by the Dead Milkmen, which takes Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" as inspiration and gets seriously stupid.
Even
the rappers get in on the act - Check Ice Cube's "Chrome and Paint" as
a starter for ten. Eminem's "Stan" takes it to the bridge, but mostly the hip hoppers just drape then in women and stand about a bit, spinning their wheels, or making them dance about, lowrider style.
So why haven't songs about BMW made it into the popular consciousness?
Is there a song about a BMW worth a second of our attention??
Let's investigate...
We have to start with George Michael's "Fast Love", the moment that
the BMW became a sex object.
Back then George was as cool as it gets,
with a straight eye for the supermodels. You genuinely believed that he
was busy in the back seat with Cindy, Naomi, Christy and Linda. "Make a little room in my BMW, babe"
says George... I can't imagine he'd have found much room in an 850 so
he must have been a 750 sedan man. As we all know from news reports
he's still a beemerhead, though he's more likely to fall asleep in one
than get laid.
There's the Sheffield / Manchester axis of course. The Snake Pass BMW Owners Club. Slacker rockers Gomez were "Tryin' to Get Myself Arrested" in what we presume to be an '88 323i convertible. The Gallagher brothers meanwhile must have been picking up yuppie chicks when they wrote Supersonic - She must have had a 740iL or something equally cool - though Liam might have gone with a gal with a rusty old 325 if the beer goggles had kicked in.
Let's face it, rappers rule when it comes to name checking beemers. It's all about the bling.
Where do we start: The B.I.G. guy, of course, in Hypnotize . "Shooting three at a cherry M3" no less. (The '97 4 door automatic probably, just out in the US).
Puffy stepped up with his west coast shorty - whatever that is - who "pushed the chrome 740" in "All About The Benjamins" , though that's hardly a recommendation.
Nas put it better on "If I Ruled The World" when he rapped about " Purple M3's and jet skis, Feel the wind breeze in West Indies". Much more like it.
There's the Outkast song "Benz or Beamer" from the days before Andre 3000 could afford a shirt, though it's a song thats more concerned with TWOCing and car jacking than legitimate ownership.
Any more for any more?
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