Cars

Cars – “Heartbeat City”

(from the LP “Heartbeat City”, 1984)

Few songs have managed to capture the most intimate, profound spirit of the 1980s quite like “Heartbeat City”. A hazy, melancholy urban vision that closed out the most successful album by the Cars and, perhaps, an entire era, forever wrapped in its mysterious heartbeat — alienating, yes, but also vital, feverish. With its enigmatic lyrics adding even more allure to a magnetic, sweeping track. One of those songs that could go on forever.

It was chosen only as the sixth single — despite, among other things, boasting an excellent B-side in “Why Can’t I Have You” — and yet it remained the quintessential track of an album that quickly became a landmark of the decade.

But let's rewind the tape (the cassette tape, of course, since this is 1984) to try to unpick the threads of this disarming epilogue to an album that, up to that point, had been an illuminating display of pop-rock applied science.

Metropolitan panorama

Urban chaos, the frantic, disordered rhythms of a metropolis. Any city in that North America which in 1984 was gearing up to bless the long-awaited Los Angeles Olympic Games. A Panorama that's smiling yet tense, sick, but also very cool, like a good chilled Martini to sip with a blonde bombshell by your side. And then those shoulder pads, almost an ideal armor, useful for looking tougher. An intellectual well versed in disposable consumption, a postmodern artist who doesn't reject the avant-garde but prefers the charts, Ric Ocasek is a new prototype of yuppie, moving nostalgically through the hardships of the contemporary age. With his four friends, under the name The Cars, he spent just over five years updating the canons of 1950s pop-rock, spicing them up with glam temptations, disco rhythms, and new wave allusions. A smart songbook, at times almost a caricature, but always carrying a dramatic aura on its fragile shoulders. Ric is an artist tout court, a Warholian disciple, and not just one of the many, thanks to the sheer charisma that makes all the difference. And after a string of album covers with ambiguous smiles and a solo outing that felt very much like a warm-up, here he is with his playmates, aiming for the big target: namely, showing up the British invasion crowd, but also the Midas touch of Michael Jackson.

“Heartbeat City”, the fifth album by the Cars, marks the Bostonians' definitive embrace of the synth-pop formula, a plastic sound that can and should appeal to everyone, without abandoning the weapons that had made the band's trademark distinctive over the previous five years. Not just a container for songs — ten of them, to be precise — but a genuine status symbol, an object to proudly display at a party, a romantic date, or a business dinner. Good for all seasons and all occasions. Ocasek brought in the now-legendary Robert John Lange, Mutt to his friends, the man behind the worldwide explosion of AC/DC, effectively the sixth member of Def Leppard, with whom he'd shaken up the American charts in 1983 thanks to “Pyromania”, a bold and successful attempt to merge heavy metal with pop through the use of sampling and deluxe production.

There are those who applaud and those who turn up their nose, the typical reactions professional craftsmen have to put up with. But Ric has an intellectual air about him that gives him an extra edge.

Everything's in place on “Heartbeat City”. A fine album, functional, intelligent, well-tuned, perfect to enjoy in the car, to savor slowly at the club, to use as a morning alarm clock. Except that the last, title track, blows everything apart: 1984, the industry, pop music itself. A new peak reached by the seven notes, a breathless ballad, a mysterious urban tale, poetic and allegorical. A song in which even Ocasek's typical interpretive key — syncopated and jittery — changes register, becoming soft, pacified, subdued.

From dawn to dusk

It starts with a thunderclap tearing through the horizon, while faint synthetic breezes blow in the distance: sinister industrial synths, soon joined by a pulsing, reverb-drenched guitar line. The sound then expands with a powerful, hypnotic drumming, backed by a hammering bassline, gorgeous jangling guitar notes and layers of atmospheric synths, while that pulsing guitar line keeps running through the entire track. It's precisely the backdrop, the melodic-harmonic fabric, that astonishes: a predominantly electronic architecture, shaped in terms of texture by the skillful use of the Fairlight, a groundbreaking digital machine capable of sampling and reproducing a myriad of sounds, painting soundscapes that are warm and blazing one moment, icy and frightening the next. Everything works together to create an enchanting sonic landscape for the unmistakable voice of Ric Ocasek.

Who is Jacki, the one who defeats the city's frenzy, who lights up the metropolitan night, who turns the sun golden, who becomes home for those most in need, who is missed so badly, to the point of sickness, when she's gone? “I’m glad you made it. I can’t complain. I missed you so badly when you jumped that train. Oh Jacki, what took you so long, on just a holiday. I thought you knew the way”. The toxic ghost of the Velvet Underground makes itself heard once again: according to one well-regarded interpretation, the song tells the story of a friend of Ric's who died of an overdose, complete with a nod to Lou Reed and co.'s “Heroin” in the line “It’s my life”. Ocasek's voice too, deliberately detached and dry, is almost a Reed-like spoken delivery: like an observer, he immerses himself in the urban din, revealing its pulses, lights and emotions “under Heartbeat City’s golden sun”, while hushed backing vocals, delicious guitar touches and swirling synths accompany him in an ever more hazy, irresistibly melancholic atmosphere. The production lets the sounds breathe, exploring reverbs and shifts in timbre rather than chasing aggressive riffs or extended solos.

A hypnotic farewell, an impressionistic landscape, in which the city becomes an inner place, a heartbeat, quite literally. Five minutes in which pop turns into ambient, with subtle synthetic horns peeking through, filling the spaces with orchestral depth. A nightmare that becomes paradise, amid the uncertainty of tomorrow. It is the definitive triumph of The Cars and of Ocasek himself. When the last fires die out, when the city's heart stops beating and night falls, everything vanishes, as in a fairy tale. Forever.

Oh Heartbeat City, here we come

And happy days count on thumbs

And nothin’ really gets us down

As long as Jacki’s back in town

I’m glad you made it

I can’t complain

Oh Jacki, what took you so long?

On just a holiday

Oh Jacki, what took you so long?

I thought you knew the way?

(Heartbeat City)

The noise electric, never stops

And all you need is what you got

And there’s a place for everyone

Under Heartbeat City’s golden sun

(Jacki)

Oh Jacki

(What took you so long)

What took you so long

On just a holiday

Oh Jacki

(What took you so long)

What took you so long

(So long)

I thought you knew the way

Oh, yeah yeah yeah

You know

I’m glad you made it

I can’t complain

I missed you so badly

When you jumped that train

(Jacki)

Oh Jacki

(What took you so long)

What took you so long

On just a holiday

Oh Jacki

(What took you so long)

What took you so long

(So long)

(I thought you knew the way)

I thought you knew the way

(Heartbeat City)

Oh Heartbeat City, lights at night

(Heartbeat City)

It’s getting closer, out of sight

(Heartbeat City)

Heartbeat City’s on the loose

(Heartbeat City)

Better catch the blue caboose

Oh, huh, Heartbeat City

It’s my life

(Heartbeat City)

(Heartbeat City)

(Heartbeat City)

In memory of Richard Theodore Otcasek, “Ric Ocasek” (Baltimore, March 23, 1944 – New York, September 15, 2019)

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28/04/2026