Red Barchetta

This brilliant, powerful song, from Rush's 1981 album "Moving Pictures", is set in a future totalitarian society where cars have been completely banned, but their memory is still kept alive....

RED BARCHETTA

Inspired by "A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard S. Foster
Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, lyrics by Neal Peart
© 1981 CORE Music Publishing

My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about.
He says it used to be a farm,
Before the Motor Law.
And on Sundays I elude the Eyes,
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire,
Where my white-haired uncle waits.

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the Borderline.
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine.
Down in his barn,
My uncle preserved for me an old machine,
For fifty-odd years.
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream.

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...

Wind in my hair-
Shifting and drifting-
Mechanical music-
Adrenalin surge...

Well-weathered leather,
Hot metal and oil,
The scented country air.
Sunlight on chrome,
The blur of the landscape,
Every nerve aware.

Suddenly ahead of me,
Across the mountainside,
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide.
I spin around with shrieking tires,
To run the deadly race,
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase.

Drive like the wind,
Straining the limits of machine and man.
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan.
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside.
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle at the fireside.

I had always assumed that "A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard S. Foster was a science-fiction short story telling a tale similar to that in the song.

But, on further investigation, it turns out that it was a slightly more prosaic, but still fascinating, article that appeared in "Road and Track" magazine in 1973 looking at the possible future implications of heavy-handed car safety legislation, and which foreshadows the current situation with SUVs in America.

The text of the original article can be found here

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