Template talk:The Cars

"Touch and Go"
"Touch and Go", which went to #37 on the U.S. charts (according to our own Panorama article), does not have its own article, and wasn't listed in the template until now. And it really should. It's one of their more interesting singles, due to its polyrhythmic (or do I mean polymetric?) nature: While the choruses are in a normal 4/4, the three verses and the intro are not. The bass and drums play in 5/4 throughout the verses, while the vocals, guitar, and keyboards play in 4/4, but off-beat (like reggae). For those who don't understand what that means, suffice it to say: It's really difficult to play. And for that kind of crazy, intellectual music to get into the Top Forty is pretty impressive!

Of course, it will be miserable for a time, watching the deletionists remove that material from the article (stripping it to almost nothing), on the grounds that there's no source, or - worse - that the sheet music book stupidly, wrongly, notates the bass clef nonsensically in 4/4♥ (and doesn't have to take responsibility for the drums).

But then, I'll come swooping in with my Guitar Player interview with Elliot Easton, in which he sets the record nice and straight, and I'll save the day! Yeah! Let's get it started!

--Ben Culture (talk) 09:13, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

♥ For those who enjoy stupid sheet-music tricks: I also have an early sheet-music book of Dark Side of the Moon in which "Money" is notated in 4/4, with a change to 3/4 and back, every other measure! (It's mostly in 7/4.)


 * Templates such as this are designed as navigation boxes, not to represent an artist's complete discography. Since there is no article for the song, it shouldn't be in the template. If you think it should have one, feel free to create it. -- Star cheers peaks news lost wars Talk to me 20:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Nobody's talking about representing an artist's "complete discography". The template has a section called "Singles", and it appears "Touch and Go" is the only single which does not appear in it.
 * I don't know how to start an article, and I have no desire to learn, since almost anything done in good faith by a single editor on Wikipedia gets deleted before it has a chance to get knocked into shape. The article will be created when there is some consensus that the article should be created. Until that time, I'm not putting in the effort!
 * --Ben Culture (talk) 07:56, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, some kind soul created a nice article for the song, so that solves the whole problem!
 * --Ben Culture (talk) 09:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Re: Persons of Note, new section in the Cars template
I imagine such a move as to change the template requires some consensus, but we can always vote after the fact, and if I lose, we take it down. Okay?

I added three names to this section: Jules Shear, who not only sang backup on Ric Ocasek's Beatitude, but would soon go on to write HALF if not ALL of Elliot Easton's solo album Change/No Change (and sing backup on that as well.) Meanwhile, with the Cars were on their indefinite, "hot diarrhea" hiatus, Elliot found time to play on Shear's records as well (most prominently in Shear's Healing Bones.

Roy Thomas Baker -- should be obvious. Produced their first four albums, which was a major boost towards their multiplatinum future.

John "Mutt" Lange -- Produced Heartbeat City, the album we've all grown to hate, but let's face it, by 1984 standards it's pretty fucking good. (I just miss David Robinson's real drumming, as well as the harder-rock edge Baker gave them.)

So if you have any problems with this, do what you must -- but PLEASE talk to me about it first, okay? Thank you.

--Ben Culture (talk) 09:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)