Arctic Monkeys - The Car (Official Audio)

Arctic Monkeys - "The Car" from the album 'The Car' out now on Domino Record Co.


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[ladyblue]

This song seems very sweet and nostalgic at first, but if you listen closely, you'll notice it's actually quite dark and depressing.
For me, this song is about social anxiety and not fitting in. It seems like a cutesy song about a holiday with friends at first glance, but the more you listen, the more the darker, subtler subtext starts to appear. "Thinking about how funny I must look" -- every introvert or socially anxious person has been there, not being able to really relax in social situations, feeling self-conscious, thinking all the time how awkward or ridiculous you must look to others, when in reality no one is even paying attention to you. "Trying to adjust to what's been there all along", it's the deeply uncomfortable situation of being somewhere you don't know anyone, but they all know each other and have inside jokes, and you just have to try to fit in this environment where you're the only one who hasn't been there all along. "They force you to make a wish", like he didn't really want to make a wish in a wishing well or something like that, but he's just doing it for the sake of not upsetting his friends. He wouldn't explicitly say they're "forcing" him if he was comfortable doing it. "And you pretend to fall asleep on your way back", I mean, this one is the most obvious, every introvert has been there lol. He didn't really know how to join the conversation, he didn't even want to be there in the first place, so he just pretended to fall asleep so he didn't have to face the fact he's constantly being left out of the conversation.

But for me, the most heartbreaking and sad verse is the chorus, "It ain't a holiday until you go to fetch something from the car". At first it seems innocent, like he just excused himself for a moment because he had to pick up something from the car. But is it though? I think the social anxiety got so bad, and he was feeling so left out of the conversation that he just needed to get out of there, no matter what. So he made up that he had to fetch something from the car, just to have a break from the anxiety and the self consciousness and everything else. Maybe he even went there to cry, or to have a drink. For me, the most heartbreaking part is that from the way he says it, "It ain't a holiday until", suggests that this is something so recurrent for him that he already expects it, as if this is every single holiday.
Alex is a genius. He adds these layers and layers of meaning to his songs, creating these beautiful and poetic masterpierces while keeping it so goddamn relatable and human. It's perfection.

[whoisjue]

Guess you guys aren't ready for that yet... but your kids are gonna love it.

[Alpha_]

This is like one of those cinematic spaghetti western ambient tunes. Love it. The production, arrangement is sublime. Ennio Morricone would smile.

[usernotfound]

Lyrics
Your grandfather's guitar
Thinking about how funny I must look
Trying to adjust to what's been there all along
With the boat kiosk lady and her sleepy amigos
But it ain't a holiday until
You go to fetch something from the car
A travel size champagne cork pops
And we're sweeping for bugs in some dusty apartment
The what's it called café
You can arrive at eleven and have lunch with the English
But it ain't a holiday until
They force you to make a wish
They say "climb up this"
And "jump off that"
And you pretend to fall asleep on the way back
No, it ain't a holiday until
You go to fetch something from the car

[nolansyers]

Sounds like an old western balland mixed with a sense of some Muse in the solo: with cinematic hopefulness. I love it

[denizecedeliaga]

wine would be ashamed of how little finely it has aged next to Arctic Monkeys

[ntmshy]

what a song to play while writing my essay, AM never disappoint me.

[nataliassvv]

I went to their concert last week and they played this song.... it was magestic. It makes me feel really nostalgic about my childhood. I will never forget how pretty it was to listen to that guitar live ;)

[itsnotyoulia]

pov: you’re listening to this song in your car while leaving your city to start a new chapter in your life somewhere else

[elinbroms]

Words can’t explain how great this album is

[jelenazugic]

I was just listening to this song with an open window. When Alex first sang "But it ain't a holiday until you go to fetch something from the car", I looked through the window, and just at that very moment, round the corner, behind the trees, into my street there came sliding a white car looking exactly like this one from the album cover! With this song in the background, it all looked somehow surreal and movie-like. And the last time he sang the same phrase, two birds were just joining in their flights under today's half-eclipsed sun - with this song played along to that, they seemed like some mystical Japanese letter in motion, imprinted on the sunlight.

See, that's precisely what I love the most about this new cinematic phase of Arctic Monkeys. They're showing us how much, in a dystopian world such as described throughout "Tranquility Base Hotel&Casino", we need something to impregnate even our small moments with some kind of magic. Give them weight, presence, make them real again, and at the same time surreal, dreamlike. A dreamlike but very real world where somehow everything eventually aligns, like the car in the song with the car in my street. And that's exactly what the band are doing lately, especially with this album: giving us a highly immersive soundtrack to our lives. For even our little slices of life, like fetching something from the car (or walking someone to the car), to feel like little pieces of dreamy magic - just like seemingly small moments in a movie do when they're enveloped by a wonderful music score!

[vittoriojuniorcapacchione]

È come una festa con Morricone, i Pink Floyd, i Queen, David Bowie, Frank Sinatra e gli Empire of the sun tutti insieme che suonano e tra una jam e l'altra parlano dei ricordi d'infanzia. Un capolavoro di atmosfere. Come un pomeriggio di sole di tanti anni fa

[Jolliaa]

Another masterpiece from Arctic Monkeys. What a song to listen at night watching rain slowly pour from the sky.

[sofiarodz]

El álbum que Arctic Monkeys han creado es maravilloso, demasiado relajante, lo amo

[HerosTheme]

Every Song on this album sounds like the end credits music of a really good movie

[ferwoodz]

Can't believe there's people that doesn't appreciate this new style. Man, change is good. They literally have 100+ songs with different genres you can feel in the mood, what's your problem with this tragic-film-type style that in my case makes me nostalgic and grateful about Alex's matureness and the sounds of more strings, so Bowie and Beatles type. When y'all get older you will enjoy this. I know that. Nevertheless, this was the best thing that happened in my 2022.

[isisbarrientos]

Vocals, instrumentals, everything is so captivating. love it ❤

[nickj]

Thanks Arctic Monkeys, your music helps me a lot in such difficult days.

[iamgigifrombrazil]

OMG!!! No words! bloody words, this is a modern masterpiece, I am so happy, delighted, dazzled, intoxicated (in the best sense of this word!) by the arrangements (he strings, the piano, the bass lines), by Al\s voice and the boys performance! This is too much way more than an early Xmas gift! Ahhh, my heart!!!

[brunacanzian]

such a Ennio Morricone vibes, totally love it