The cost of a song, the price of a rivian
We live by a main road that connects east and west Colorado Springs. I go for a lot of walks, so I’m always passing cars. And I’m often listening to music on my walks, so perhaps it was unavoidable that cars and songs would converge in my thoughts.
On my little sojourns, I pay attention to well-designed cars. The futuristic bubble look of a Tesla 3 (the reek of Elon’s affiliation be damned). The rugged adventurism of a Jeep Renegade. The Pixar-esque headlights of a Rivian. I like admiring the convergence of artistry and functionality in an automobile.
When you consider that the average price of a new car is $50K—a hefty commitment over 5+ years—it seems, if not exactly reasonable, at least digestible. We need transportation, yes. But even more than function, we’re paying for how our car makes us feel.
I like when dust kicks up and cakes the rear window when I’m driving a winding dirt road to go hiking. I like hitting 100 when I’m crossing New Mexico back to Colorado, Blanca Peak dominating the northern horizon. Some of my favorite moments have been in a car: evening giving way to twilight as we drove through the dust-ridden hopelessness that is Tuba City on to the rolling, rocky wilderness of the San Juans and into Durango.
The thing about driving is how often our travels are accompanied by music. I’ll always associate The Flaming Lips’ ‘The W.A.N.D.’ with Oklahoma City because I was stuck in traffic leaving Tennessee toward OKC when I first heard it. Or John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ as we were literally driving home country roads from the Shenandoah Valley. Or The Cult’s ‘Sanctuary’ as we rode the wild road along the Rio Grande toward Santa Fe at night, with no street light anywhere, and the possibility of wildlife or a rogue driver ever-present.
Music helps define the mileposts of our lives. Nirvana in my teens. Dandy Warhols in my 20s. The Brian Jonestown Massacre (BJM) since then. The song that started our wedding day (Cake’s ‘I Want to Love You Madly’) and the song that concluded the night (Blur’s ‘Tender’). I know that scent is the sense most connected with memory but I think that sound—music in particular—is right behind it.
My question(s) is this: what is your favorite song worth to you? And how much have you actually paid for it?
Forced to choose between my car or BJM’s ‘If Love is the Drug then I want to OD,’ I’d find a way to get by without my EV. But while I have another three years to go on paying off my car, I’ve paid next to nothing for a song that I can’t imagine living without.
Yes, a car costs a lot to make. And yes we need transportation. And music might seem like a luxury.
But Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s ‘Stop’ is worth more than any Audi, a Porsche, or a Rivian.