I’ve been thinking a lot about the music of Ric Ocasek and Robert Hunter, who both passed away in the last week. In the 80s it was impossible to escape the catchy, melodic pop of The Cars, not that anyone wanted to. Like many young teens I learned of them on MTV and the goofy, fun video where Ric followed around his muse, to her annoyance. At the time, I was about 12, and when I delved a bit deeper I loved every song I heard. The Cars didn’t do half-measures. Every album is total commitment to their visionary music, with beautifully crafted songs that you hum for hours after you hear them. The quality of those records was stunning to me, as I listened to many of them again in the past week. The only other band I can think of with such consistently great and catchy songs is maybe Creedence. I have read a few critics comparing them to the Beach Boys in recent days, and that seems an apt comparison; both groups have obsessions with teen love and angst, and created uniquely American sounds that wove these interests into a tapestry of glorious pop rarely equaled. If you want to know what the late 70s and 80s was like as a teenager in America, you should probably start by listening to the Cars. Like so many others, I was sad to hear that Ric had passed away. Though I never saw the band, he seemed in interviews and his public persona to be a thoughtful, gentle soul, one of the good guys.

It would be hard to imagine a band more different from the Cars than The Grateful Dead. Robert Hunter’s lyrics were inseparable from the spaced out, hippy image they had, and it is impossible to envision the band without his poetic contributions. I discovered the Dead in college and always enjoyed their music. I remember being surprised that the lyricist was not Jerry or any of the members of the band, but Hunter.  Soulful, thoughtful, often sad and funny, his words transported you to another world just as much as Garcia’s meandering guitar did. I was sorry to hear of his passing, as well.

Both The Cars and The Dead inspired so many; The Dead of course had more longevity, and had a whole other level of devotion which was hard to understand for outsiders like me. But at the heart of things, I think, there is a lot of truth in the music of both bands that speaks directly to the listener, be they heartsick teens or old reminiscing hippies. Ric’s straightforward lyrics belie the complexity of his songs. When he or his bandmate Benjamin Orr sing, for example, “I don’t mind you comin here, wastin’ all my time,” it’s language we all understand, certainly. No one who has ever had a crush could mistake what he means, I don’t think.  The music is so well crafted and energetic that it’s hard not to sing along, tap your feet and feel like you’re speeding along the highway with Ric and the rest of the guys.  Ocasek’s delivery on songs like ‘Good Times Roll,’ is so cool, self assured and laconic it’s contagious. There is so much joy in their music that you can’t listen for long without smiling.

Hunter’s lyrics are a different kind of puzzle. For my ears, at times he got a bit too precious, or tried perhaps too hard to sound like an old weird folk tune. But when they worked, man it could stir your soul. “What I want to know is, are you kind?” “If I knew the way, I would take you home.” Now that can give you chills, especially when delivered by Garcia and his mates, full of soul and wisdom. They could be funny, too: “On the day that I was born, daddy sat down and cried.”

I feel lucky to have grown up and come of age listening to such fine music. Fare Thee Well, Robert. Ric, It was Magic.