"All of This and Nothing" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year, Portions For Foxes, or Better Things series. It alternates between Obscure and Famous songs; feel free to argue either way if you're so inclined. See the introduction for more.
I won't say this is the only great '70s song for a long car ride. But it's definitely up there. Some of you - especially if you're my age - might have heard it too many times already to like it anymore; that's always a danger with songs that get huge.
It's always a problem with things that other people like, frankly: they like it so much so soften so publicly that maybe you decide you don't like it as much as you thought you did.
It hasn't happened to me with Radar Love yet.
This is the Platonic song of that all-night drive, the one that turned a feeling into musical reality, the dream of endless American highways turned into a rock beat by a Dutch band. (Because we always need strangers to clearly see the things closest to us.)
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel
It's my baby callin', says I need you here
And it's half past four and I'm shifting gear
It's a mostly straightforward song: the singer is driving, probably too fast, to be with his baby, with whom he shares a near-psychic connection. (There's some argument that the last verse is the aftermath of his death in a car crash; every fast-driving song contains the seeds of its own death.)
And, again, it's the song that launched a thousand speeding tickets. If I was a traffic cop, I would absolutely hate this song. Good thing I'm not.
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