Saturday Morning CarTune: Red Barchetta

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For MCG’s final CarTune of the year, here’s a crisp 2007 stage performance of “Red Barchetta” by Canadian rock giants Rush. 

 

Drummer and lyricist Neal Peart based the band’s classic song on a short story by Richard Foster, “A Nice Morning Drive,” that appeared in the November 1973 issue of Road & Track magazine. In Foster’s dystopian melodrama about a brave new world where sports cars are outlawed, the protagonist is a green MGB, which Peart upgraded to a vintage Ferrari roadster. 

 

I strip away the old debris 
That hides a shining car 
A brilliant red Barchetta 
From a better, vanished time
I fire up the willing engine  
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel 
I commit my weekly crime

 

Released in 1981 on the album Moving Pictures, “Red Barchetta” has become a staple of classic rock radio. The performance below is from the band’s 2008 video, Snakes and Arrows Live. 

 

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9 thoughts on “Saturday Morning CarTune: Red Barchetta”

  1. I’ve never been a big Rush fan and was frankly disappointed at their election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before other, more deserving groups, but that’s a discussion for a different forum.

    To focus on the positive here, “Red Barchetta” has to be one of the coolest names for a car tune ever. Also, Alex Lifeson has an uncanny resemblance to Craig Jackson, especially in the photo above. There, I said two nice things about Rush.

    • Not a fan myself. I was over prog rock by the time Rush came along. But they do have an extremely devoted audience and I do get why people like them.

      And then there is this.

  3. Not really a fan either. But that’s OK, as the owner of two dogs named Eric and Buddy I’ll let you off on account of last weeks tune.

  4. I try not to let my own personal preferences narrow the scope of the CarTune department —or the rest of the website, for that matter. Rush has a very devoted following and I do get why they love the band even if I don’t myself.

    • Look that’s fair enough but there has to be limits. I mean if you’re going to cater to these Rush weirdos what’s next? Bagpipes? Piano accordians? Adolescent boy bands? It doesn’t bear thinking about…

      • If nothing else, we can appreciate that the lyrics were inspired by an old issue of Road & Track. You know, rock stars do read car magazines. Example: George Harrison had a stack of Autosports and Autocars sitting on his coffee table. Tom Petty and Bob Dylan picked them up and started leafing through them, pulling out random phrases—and that’s where the lyrics to “Dirty World” on Traveling Wilburys Vol. I come from… or so the story goes.

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