Songwriters Corner

Behind The Song: Vehicle Part 1

I found through the years that the quality of the finished song often depends on the quality of the inspiration and the urgency of its motivation-combined with good timing, good fortune, and a whole lotta help from upstairs. I was 18 trying to earn enough money to buy my first sports car in order to win back the love of my life. That's some motivation of the highest order and some pretty fertile soil for a good song, if you ask me. But I never imagined that this song would have the drive to take me "Anywhere I wanted to go" in my life. Here's the story behind my first million seller "Vehicle" by my band "The Ides of March".

On April 9, 1968 while I was waiting to see one of my favorite groups, "The Turtles", at Riverside Brookfield High School in the Chicago Suburb of Riverside, my eyes wandered to the girl standing in front of me-she was a vision in knee socks and orange culottes-long silky hair and Huge blue eyes. As I was trying to screw up the courage to say hello, she turned to me and said, "Aren't you Peterik?" Turns out she had seen the Ides of March a month previously when we opened for the New Colony Six at Morton West High School. I said, "Yeah", and from there the conversation just seemed to flow. Never had I met a girl I had so much in common with. Karen & I sat together at the show, and by "Happy Together" she had placed her leg on top of mine (A very positive sign for a first date).

After about six months of great dates, good times, meadows, making out and serenades, Karen informed me that it was over between us, that she wanted to "See other people" that I was getting too serious-you know the drill. Naturally I was thoroughly heartbroken. I spent the next few months writing sad songs, depressive melodies, introspective garbage, and forcing the Ides to do long blues jams for our show encores (as the audience streamed out of the Grand Ballroom at State Pier). I was also on a mission to find another Karen. There was a girl who looked a lot like her, but when we started dating, I realized that personality was 9/10's of the law. I guess I had to somehow win her back!

One day I got a call from Karen. My heart jumped into my throat. She asked me if I could drive her to modeling school (she knew I had a pristine white '64 Valiant with mag wheel covers). Instead of playing it cool, I found myself saying, "I'll be right over". I figured our proximity would remind her how much she really loved me. It was great riding next to her again, though I had to make sure I controlled my hands and my heart. This pattern continued for a few weeks with Karen asking me to drive her to various appointments and functions. We even sang at a few coffee houses as a duo (we called ourselves "Genesis" pre-dating the famous group by about 3 years). Though it was great to be with her, the newly platonic nature of our relationship was bummin' me out.

One day in a fit of frustration, I heard myself blurt out to her "You know, all I am to you is your "Vehicle" (The word baby was added later). Just then the light bulb popped up on top of my head and I thought about all the guys like me who don't mind being taken for a ride by a beautiful girl. I said "See you later" and started writing the song.

I started with the title "Vehicle". I've always loved one word titles because of their strong impact. I wrote down the first line "I got a set of wheels pretty baby, won't you hop inside my car?" Musically I was working on a very simple minor key progression E minor to B minor. Rhythmically, I was doing the kind of choppy thing I first heard on the first Blood Sweat and Tears album. (The Ides were huge BS&T fans having seen them at the Kinetic Playground with Jethro Tull a few months earlier.) By the end of the day, I had morphed my emotion into a pretty slick 2 minute and 51 second song.

I played the Ides the work in progress at rehearsal the next day. We used to rehearse in Larry Millas' parent's basement. The acoustics there were tight and things sounded great. Together we worked up the arrangement to "Vehicle" with the horn players-Chuck Soumar, John Larson & Bob Bergland, taking my initial line and harmonizing and embellishing it. I still remember the look on our neighborhood friend Tommy's face when he heard us play the opening horn riff. In his dazed expression and dropped jaw, I saw our top 40 future. Honestly, whenever we played the song live or at rehearsal, we knew that something was astir. The power was unmistakable.

I was still fiddling with the lyrics. My senior year chemistry lab partner Bill Griner was a great guy and an all-day stoner. He played electric guitar until his father (Honest to God) broke his Gibson Firebird over his head. I still remember Bill showing up at my door with a sheepish grin and a shopping bag full of pick ups, knobs and splinters. One day Bill brought to school a government issued anti-drug pamphlet. It explained the perils of drug use and was illustrated with a little drawing of an undesirable type cruising along the curb looking for easy targets. The caption read "I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan, won't you hop inside my car?" Sounded a whole lot better than what I had. (I also learned a lot right there about the importance of the rhythm of the words in a song. The lyrics that followed, about the picture and candy, went back to the warning my mother used to give me about walking home from school. The "Great God in Heaven" part must have been a throw back to my Catholic upbringing. It just kind of came out of my mouth spontaneously.

We had the song, we had the arrangement. We felt we might have something. But we really didn't have a clue just how big a something we really had. Tune in next time for the next installment of Behind the Song-the recording of "Vehicle".

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