THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

232-Gary Numan-Cars.

1979-Number 1 single.

Best Bit-At 2.22. In Britain 33.3 million people hold a driving licence, but there are only 30,000 active pilots, one of which is Gary Numan.

Gary Numan (see also best songs 772 and 177) was born Gary Anthony James Webb on March 8th, 1958, in London, England, he has written around 400 songs, and sold in excess of 10 million records.

‘Cars’ was written and produced by Gary Numan, and was the first of two singles released from his Album ‘The Pleasure Principle’ from 1979, the other single release was ‘Complex’ which reached Number 6 on the UK top 40, also in 1979. ‘The Pleasure Principle’ is considered to be the first solo studio Album release from Gary Numan, although there were two previous releases in 1978, (‘Tubeway Army’) and in 1979 (‘Replicas’) which although credited to the band ‘Tubeway Army,’ were in fact both written and produced by Numan, and has a similar line up of musicians on all three Albums.

Gary Numan has said that his inspiration for the songs lyrics were inspired by an incident of road rage, Numan said,’I was in traffic in London once, and had a problem with some people in front. They tried to beat me up and get me out of the car. I locked the doors and eventually drove up on the pavement and got away from them. It’s kind of to do with that, it explains how you can feel safe inside a car in the modern world… When you’re in it, your whole mentality is different… It’s like your own little personal empire with four wheels on it.’ As far as the music is concerned Numan has said,’I have only written two songs on bass guitar, and the first one was ‘Cars.’ I had just been to London to buy a bass and when I got home the first thing I played was that intro riff. I thought, ‘Hey, that’s not bad!’ In 10 minutes, I had the whole song. The quickest one I ever wrote. And the most famous one I’d ever written. More people should learn from that.’

In America Gary Numan is known as a ‘one hit wonder’ as ‘Cars’ remains his only Billboard Hot 100 hit, when reaching Number 9. In the UK ‘Cars’ went to Number 1, giving Numan his second, and consecutive chart topper, following on from ‘Are Friends Electric’ from earlier on in 1979. In 1987 ‘Cars’ was remixed and titled ‘Cars (E Reg Model’) and became a hit all over again, this time reaching Number 16. The song became a hit for a third decade running when making Number 17 in 1996, following it’s use in an advertisement for ‘Carling Premier’ beer.

‘Here in my car I feel safest of all, I can lock all my doors, it’s the only way to live in cars. Here in my car I can only receive, I can listen to you, it keeps me stable for days in cars.’