My Top 2000 Songs #1112: Car Song

Elastica's eponymous 1995 debut seemed to be everywhere for a moment or two, one of the few bands within the loosely-defined Britpop stable to get much traction here in the US. Though personally, I never really thought of them that way, owing less to the likes of, say, Oasis or Blur than as a sort of mid-point between the women-fronted indie pop bands of the late 80s (Primitives, Darling Buds) and the harder-edged guitar-driven sound of mid-90s post-Nirvana alternative rock.

While I don't spin it up much these days, when I do it's always a reminder of what a surprisingly strong debut it was, full of bangers. (Even the delayed 2000 follow-up, all but invisible at the time, is pretty decent.) And while the Wire-indebted "Connection" was the track that got the most attention on the radio & MTV, I was always partial to "Car Song." It's a little catchier, an ode to vehicular love not far behind Neil Young's "Long May You Run," with some clever hooks that sound fresh even today.

Live on Jools Holland 1994:

Live 2000:

As heard on Gilmore Girls: