Synth Single Review: “The Car Ride Home” by The Highway Club

by Karl Magi

The Highway Club’s “The Car Ride Home” is animated by a theme that flies outward with galvanizing motion as the drums come in with vibrant energy and Ben Wilson’s voice generates pure feeling, transmitting the melody’s aching passion. As the strong underpinnings create flow, the vocals embody desire and deep love while a synth emits the glow of headlights on an open road. John Bell’s production brings home the emotional core of the music, full of richness.

All of the earnest, honest depth to Ben Wilson’s voice grabs me while the melody calls to mind adventure, the open road and an intense connection between two people. Echoing with fierce affection, the chorus trembles and the drums cascade with irrepressible liveliness. Ben Wilson’s guitar solo pierces with intricacy, capturing all of the song’s fervent feelings within, as the beat rebounds. All of the unalloyed emotion exploding from Ben Wilson permeates the music and carries the song to an end

"We were never meant to cross that line, different worlds and different lives” but, for the narrator, something about how the song’s subject said his name "made all the rules just fade away." He feels like he's falling as he never has before and "now there's no holding back, every little doubt is out of view" as it's just him and the other person now. He points out that they "don't need forever if we've got tonight like this."

If he's dreaming, our storyteller never wants to wake up. He adds "I never want this car ride home to end, just us and this open road” and he doesn't want to have to fall in love again. As they find themselves "driving through the dark with open eyes, chasing all the lights," each mile adds "distance to our past."

In conclusion, the narrator says "maybe we can leave the world outside behind, we can lose all sense of time, maybe we can make this moment never end."