Take A Drive On The Wild Side

I've discovered the perfect old-truck music. Let me explain.

I own an early seventies Chevy truck that I affectionately refer to as my "American Machine" (a title it shares with an as-yet unpublished story of mine). I love it for several reasons, not the least of which is that I can actually comprehend what I'm looking at when I open the hood. My favorite thing about it, though, is the tape deck.

I don't have any tapes, but that's not the point. It's got a 1/8" line in for a portable CD player (a clear indicator of when it was the previous owner decided to upgrade the factory stereo) which I love, because it means I can plug my iPod into it and listen to all my favorite music while I'm driving my favorite vehicle. Sounds great, don't it? Sadly, it's not quite the four-wheeled utopia it might appear to be at first glance. The fact is, most music sounds like a cold poo when I play it on that system.

There's only one speaker in my truck. Well, one working speaker, that is. It's mounted inside my glove box and points straight down into the footwell. It has a bass range so inaudible as to be nonexistent, and it's the right speaker, so any instrument panned to the left is automatically lost. Further, all the buttons on my "stereo" (ha-ha) have been worn smooth with use, so I have no idea what they do. All of these factors working together have conspired to ruin most of my favorite music. The main guitar line in The Stooges' Gimmie Danger is nowhere to be heard. Half the rhythm section in Tom Waits's Clap Hands is inaudible. But fear not! All is not lost my friends! As I said at the beginning of this little brain-puke vignette, I have found the perfect musical solution to my auditory dilemma:

Lou Reed.

Lou Reed is perfect old-truck music.

Obviously, I didn't just discover Lou Reed. The discovery was that all of his songs sound great on my system. I don't know if that's because Lou connects me on a spiritual level to the seventies, thereby connecting me more with my truck, or if it's because Lou's voice just sounds better in low-fi; but whether it's the pre-Giuliani New York sax over the pre-Cobain three chord repetition of Billy; the brass blasts of Sally Can't Dance; or the colored girls going "Do, Do-Do, Do-Do, Do-Do-Do"; nothing else sounds as good coming out of that one downturned, broken stereo, no-bass speaker as Lou does.

The best part, though, is the way I feel when Lou's reptile voice is slithering out of that speaker and the wind is blowing across my back, the way it does when I have both windows down. In those moments, with the sun flashing in at me through the outstretched branches of late-summer trees, and Lou singing "Ride Sally, ride," in that atonal way that should sound like crap, but somehow manages to sound like truth - in those moments, everything just feels right. I feel like I'm just where I'm supposed to be, doing just what I'm supposed to do. Being unpublished doesn't matter. Being in debt up to my eyeballs doesn't matter. Being tired and irritable and on my way to work, knowing full-well that I'll have a raging backache by the end of my shift doesn't matter. In those moments, everything's cool. Even me.

Thanks Lou.