Performer: Billy Idol
Songwriters: Billy Idol, Steve Stevens
Original Release: Rebel Yell
Year: 1983
Definitive Version: None
After my sophomore year in college, it was evident that I needed a new car. The Fart, my mom’s 1971 VW squareback (she bought a new car in 1980), was struggling to make those commutes from Wabash to home, so in May 1984, I got through the Bank of Dad a Mazda GLC.
I was really proud to get it. I had researched exactly what kind of car to get and the GLC seemed right: cheap, solid, good. I dubbed it the Magic Mazda, and it was magic all right: It constantly made my money magically disappear. I replaced the alternator twice and went through three, count’em THREE, transmission replacements before I mercifully took it out back and shot it, so to speak. It was in fact a lemon.
But in the summer of 1984, when this song was everywhere on the radio, I loved it. But what to do with the VW? There seemed only one reasonable solution—give it to my sister, who had turned 16 in January. I concocted a treasure hunt where we drove all over town to get various clues before we ultimately cruised down the street to my grandparents’ house, where the treasure was parked in the driveway, red and gleaming with a bow on top and a Happy Birthday sign on the side.
“I’m getting The Fart?!” she exclaimed. Yup. No give backs.
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