A few years ago I wrote a song called motorway song. You can listen to a recording of it whilst you read the rest of this story using the player below.
It was initially written about a car I used to have, a Fiat Panda. It was like a tin box on wheels with just four gears so going anywhere long distance was a noisy experience. You felt like you were travelling at 110mph when in fact you were just doing 50mph.
In the song I sing about travelling to lots of nice places, but I travelled to more festivals and gigs in the little car that followed that, a 1998 Nissan Micra. This had a similar feel to it whenever you tried to go slighter faster than it wanted to. But it had five gears, making it much more practical when driving to all the different festivals I played at across the country.
It was also just great fun to drive, especially on your own without too many passengers weighing the car down. At some smaller festivals I even ended up sleeping in it. I curled myself up on the back seat, either to escape the snoring or loud drunken talking/singing coming from the tents around my own or just because I was only there for one night and didn’t feel it was worth putting a tent up for such a short stay.
During those times that little red metal box on wheels felt like a little refuge, safe and secure away from the crazy world outside.
A couple of weeks ago I had to say goodbye to that car and sell it for scrap. It needed work on it to past the MOT that was going to cost far in excess of its monetary value. I’ve also hardly used it this past year, it being not so well suited to family life.
So farewell little car. It’s the end of an era, but also a sign of changing times and a new chapter in life.