“Back Of A Car” by Big Star

"Back of a Car" rides shotgun on Radio City, Big Star's 1974 album, and it's one of the oldest songs on the record, worked up by Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel and Chris Bell before Bell left the band. The credit names only Chilton and Hummel, though. When Chilton and Bell split up the songs they had been writing together, this one went to Chilton, and Hummel later admitted Bell was its main author; Bell asked for his name to be added once it was out, and the answer was no.

Hummel tied the words to teenage cruising around Memphis: hamburger joints and hangouts, a father's Lincoln, a Led Zeppelin tape at full blast. It's power pop with the windows rolled down, Chilton on guitar, Hummel on bass, Jody Stephens drumming and singing alongside Chilton, and John Fry engineering.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.