Let the Stories Be Told

April 1, 2026

It’s the fall of 1981. Specifically it’s October — or, “Rocktober” in the lingo of the big local rock station, WCOZ, a monthlong event highlighting a different band each day.

Today is “Cars Day,” and I’ve set my alarm extra early. I’m yet to own a stereo, so next to the radio I’ve placed a cheap old cassette player, my finger ready on the RECORD button. The instant I hear the opening of a Cars song, I’ll press.

I’ll do this multiple times, and by the end of the day I’ll have a muffled analog catalog of my favorite tunes, all with the first two seconds missing.

Long before Husker Du and the Jazz Butcher, my big musical infatuation was the Cars, the Boston-based quintet fronted by co-singers Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr. I can’t recall when or why, exactly, I got hooked on their music, but the Cars were my soundtrack through my first two years of high school.

According to the desks at St. John’s Prep, vandalized by bored tenth-graders like me, the most popular bands in the world were Rush and maybe Van Halen. I’d leave Cars graffiti, adding a little prog-rock flourish. I’d draw a checkered flag, like the one on the Panorama album.

I mention all of this because of a new book, “The Cars: Let the Stories be Told”, authored by Bill Janovitz, himself a musician from Boston.

The title borrows from “Let the Good Times Roll,” the unforgettable kickoff cut from the group’s eponymous debut, released in 1978.

The author had to be from Boston. Nothing else would be right, or fair. And if one person in the world was gonna read his book, if only for old times’ sake, well that would have to be me.

I seldom read music biographies from start to finish. Often they’re too too bogged down, hyper-detailed and meandering (Chris Salewicz’s bio of Joe Strummer runs for 650 pages). So I pick around for the good parts. This one, though, I took in cover-to-cover, straight through.

It’s exhaustive, comprehensive, painstakingly researched… all the things good music journalism should be. It’s unpolished in parts, but luckily for us Janovitz is a decent writer as much as a thorough historian, bringing us not just a chronicle, but one that’s fun to read.

Sadly neither Ric Ocasek nor Ben Orr are still with us. The surviving three bandmembers, however, are generous and gracious with their contributions.

The author reintroduced me to a band that, as a young teenager, I thought I’d known so well. Turns out there was plenty I missed. Some of it basic, but much of it those nuance-y sort of details that, as youngster, were bound to go over my head. I knew what I liked, but my knowledge and understanding of music was, let’s be honest, pretty unsophisticated.

I’d never appreciated the brilliance of Elliot Easton’s song-within-a-song guitar solos, for example, or the fire of his rockabilly-style leads in the song “My Best Friend’s Girl.” I’d never noticed those bass licks at the beginning of “Bye Bye Love.” And I had no clue that when Ben Orr repeats the word “time” during that verse in “Just What I Needed,” it’s a nod to the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.”

Of course it is, but at fifteen it skipped right past me. All these things did. Heck, I was into my 20s before I knew, or cared, that David Robinson had been the drummer in the Modern Lovers.

As I read, I found myself highlighting pages, then throwing on my headphones, listening and re-listening to this or that highlight that Janovitz points out. In doing so, I rediscovered my love for the Cars.

Their first two albums, anyway: the self-titled debut and its follow-up, Candy-O. That aforementioned Panorama, while its checkered flag motif looked cool on a desk, never did much for me, and neither did anything afterward. If the author fails at one thing, perhaps, it’s helping me realize, all these years later, that the Cars’ hadn’t, in fact, jumped the shark. But save for a song or two, I can’t agree.

That first pair of records, though, is unmatchable. There will never be music like that again.

To what decade this music belongs is open to argument. The second album, Candy-O — the one with the famous pin-up girl by Alberto Vargas — was released in 1979. But to consider it a 70s record (or to call the Cars a “70s band”) would be ridiculous. Stylistically it was way ahead of their time. If 80s music ever needed a formal introduction, let it be the opening 25 second of the song “Let’s Go.”

The dropoff following Candy-O is part of the reason my obsession with the group waned. By late 1982 I’d left the Cars behind, drifting away from mainstream music altogether.

Funny, a bit later on, during my punk rock years, I would often see Ric Ocasek, mantis-like and unmistakable, perusing the record bins in Newbury Comics. He was still a giant to me, but I was too shy ever to say hello.

This book, and the memories it brings back, makes me wish I had.

Related Stories:

ZEN ARCADE, FOUR DECADES ON
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE (SECOND) GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME
KEEPING THE CURTAINS CLOSED