Under our Constitutional form of rock government, every person or persons has the inalienable right to cast a vote for the greatest soft rock song of all time. Seals and Crofts’ “Summer Breeze” is the usual winner. Perpetual also-rans include Christopher Cross’ “Sailing,” England Dan and John Ford Coley’s “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” Bread’s “Baby I’m-a Want You,” and every single song performed by The Carpenters.
Me, my vote goes to Sammy Johns’ 1973 hit “Chevy Van.” Why? Because the song is the epic tale of a heroic seventies archetype, namely the hip dude in the 1971 Chevy Van with an airbrushed pink and blue sunset on its side and plush baby blue carpeting in the back.
Everybody knows Sammy’s type. You can count on him to have the best pot, the coolest 8-track player and best chick magnet facial hair. You love to chill out with him but he’s generally in the wind, a one-man peaceful easy feeling generator. You’ll never catch him on an interstate or in a major metropolitan area. They harsh his buzz. At heart he’s a small town guy.
When it comes to automotive-oriented soft rock songs “Chevy Van” has no equal. Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” is too “hard rock” and a bummer to boot. Lobo’s “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” is a no-brainer because Sammy would never do forced labor for a guy named Old McDonald.
And you can forget about the Eagles’ “Take It Easy,” because despite its archetypal soft rock title, Glenn Frey’s basic message is that the sound of car wheels can be injurious to your mental health. As for America’s “Ventura Highway,” there are no cars in it. Not one. It’s like the “alligator lizards in the air” picked them up and flew off with them, screaming passengers inside.
The storyline of “Chevy Van” is s heterosexual male’s wet dream. Sammy picks up a beautiful girl in his “wagon.” She crawls in, and Johns suggests she “Get some sleep and dream of rock and roll.” While she’s asleep Sammy describes her angelic physical attributes.
And when she wakes up not only does she not view Sammy with healthy suspicion, she leads him to the plush baby carpeting in the back of the van and makes groovy love to him. Sammy then drops her off in a “town so small you could throw a rock from end to end,” this despite the fact she’s barefoot. The hook-up is no big deal to either of them. It’s free love, baby, and they’re big believers in the one van stand.
Perhaps I’ve watched too much true crime TV, but looked at from a darker angle, “Chevy Van” is one creepy song. In the morbid true crime alternative, a lone drifter haunts the back roads of rural America, picking up nubile hitchhikers in his van and killing them, before burying their bodies in shallow graves or dumping them in the nearest river.
I mean, what do we really know about this Sammy Johns, other than he’s a personable guy with a trustworthy face? You could say the same about Ted Bundy. Has anybody checked Sammy’s criminal record? Or matched him up with the FBI profile of the “Chevy Van Killer”?
Nah. It’s Sammy Johns’ “Chevy Van” for me, because Sammy’s a righteous dude in a righteous van who symbolizes every guy’s right to get poor gas mileage and have sex with blazing hot chicks. In short, “Chevy Van” is a song about American Freedom at its best. If this van’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
