Drivers Seat - Sniff 'n' the Tears (1979)

YouTube ^

[SamAdams76]

The summer of 1979 was a very hot and steamy summer in New England. I can almost still smell the fried food from the clam shacks as we cruised up and down the beaches in our Pontiacs, our Dodges and if we were lucky enough to have one, our Chevy Camaros. Always with the windows rolled down and the top down too if we had a convertible.

Car radios blaring, of course. A lot of us had the local FM rock stations dialed in on our five presets. Or we had our tape players, either cassette or 8-track, but the cassette format was gaining traction. Compact discs were still a few years away.

There were a lot of popular songs from that summer of 1979, with the big one being that "My Sharona" song by The Knack. Rock music was making a big comeback and pushing disco off to the side. That was also the summer that some Chicago radio DJ had a disco record burning event at Comiskey Park between games at a doubleheader and caused a riot which forced the White Sox to forfeit the second game. I believe that is still the last time a complete game was forfeited in the Major Leagues. (There was a forfeit in 1995 but that occurred in the 7th inning of that game.)

A lot of great summer songs from that summer but there is one song in particular, a classic example of a "one-hit wonder" that just defined the summer of 1979. And that would be "Driver's Seat" by an obscure British band called Sniff 'n' the Tears. For a period of about 8 weeks that summer, this song was blaring out of just about every car radio in America.

This song is a perfect time capsule from 1979. A sizable hit at the time that everybody knew but by the time the leaves started turning and kids went back to school, it disappeared from radio playlists and Sniff 'n' the Tears were never heard from again. Which was a shame because you would think that a band that could put out a song that catchy and that good would stick around for a while and put together a string of hits.

For me, this song brings back memories of Hampton Beach in NH, where we used to hang out on hot summer nights and walk up and down the "boardwalk" where we would order up fried clam plates for about $5.95 (very expensive for those times) and then as it got dark, we'd drag a cooler of iced beer and a boombox down to the water line (we were just 16 or 17, going into our senior year at high school) and hang out until either the beer ran out or until some cops came snooping around (which never failed to spook us and send us on our way).

[ChildOfThe60s]

Catchy tune for sure. One hit wonders.

But I really dislike lip synced videos. It’s funny, after growing up in the 60s where everything was lip synced, I was so glad when they started having bands really play. Then along comes music videos and it was the same drivel all over again.

[Windflier]

It got airplay into the late eighties in the central prairie states.

I looked it up on YouTube, and yeah, I remember it now. Sorta pablum rock. Nothing I ever would have spent money on.

[Gil4]

The photo reminds me of New London, CT, near Ocean Beach, which was one of our regular cruising areas (a couple of years later - got my license in 1981).

I remember the song, but I’m not sure I would have placed the year within +/- 5. It got a lot of pop/top 40 type radio play. I remember The Knack, and My Sharona still makes it onto my playlist occasionally. (Their other hit that summer doesn’t.)

I was neve a big Smokey Robinson fan, but I always liked this song from the same year: https://youtu.be/WlzY6cWpoMQ

[Gil4]

And by the way, this is one of those songs that it's highly inadvisable to listen to when you're in your car and there's a long, empty straight ahead. Radar Love is another. So is Steppin' Into The Twilight Zone. And LA Woman. And If You Don't Start Drinkin'.

I'd replace LA Woman and If You Don't Start Drinkin' with Roadhouse Blues and I Drink Alone (and maybe scrap this song), but I would definitely keep the to Golden Earring songs. (To this day I have to fight the urge to weave back and forth to the music when Roadhouse Blues is on while I'm driving.)

[Still Thinking]

Yeah, I was trying to remember and 78 seemed right.

[Pelham]

I know a lot of us had cars in the 60s that we sure wish we owned now. We didn’t realize what we had at the time.

[Fiji Hill]

I was also on the East Coast in the summer of 1979--in Washington, DC. But the music I listened to was somewhat different. I would stay up late on weekends to hear a program--I believe it was over WAMU--that played songs such as these:

• The Gleam in Your Eyes--The Channels

• Wonderful Girl--The Five Satins

• Florence--the Paragons

[Fiji Hill]

I know a lot of us had cars in the 60s that we sure wish we owned now. We didn’t realize what we had at the time.

I had a '65 Chevy Impala that I bought in 1973. I fully appreciated what I had--it was like a Rolls Royce compared to the Volkswagens that my parents had owned for the previous decade--and I drove it for a quarter-million miles before it finally died.

[21twelve]

“Radar Love is another.”

I was probably about 14. Went on the train by myself (parents approved) to visit my buddy that had just left our neighborhood (Mpls.) and moved to Kansas City.

He had an older sister that was about 17 or 18. The sister’s boyfriend picked her up, and then we all went somewhere. Maybe it was just to ride in his cool muscle car.

He had Radar Love playing the whole time it seemed. And me and my buddy holding on for dear life in the back seat as the guy drove like a crazy man trying to impress the sister. I thought we were going to die.

[21twelve]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78D00dYOBrM

I had to see what the boys were doing in 1979.

Above is Rush live, playing “La Villa Strangiato”. I suppose that may have caused a few car wrecks for those that had the cassette tape. (I doubt it made the radio back then).

[Eccl 10:2]

Because it’s quite possibly the worst song ever recorded.

[princeofdarkness]

Ha. Around that same time I was listening to the same type of songs every Sunday night on WCBS-FM in NYC. That was on the Don K. Reed show, “The Doo-Wop Shop”. Good times.

[Bikkuri]

Believe it, or not, I had that LP ;^)

[Hot Tabasco]

Never knew the name of the band. In recent years whenever I heard it I thought it was Dire Straits.......

[greenishness]

Listened to the song back in the day as a highschooler, and also enjoyed it’s reemergence on the soundtrack to the 1997 movie Boogie Nights. Great movie with period music. Boogie Nights was a breakout film for Mark Wahlberg and a comeback film for Burt Reynolds (Oscar nomination)

[ETL]

Lots of LOL in your post. :)

[ETL]

Re: "Driver's Seat" by an obscure British band called Sniff 'n' the Tears.

I was 26 at the time, and a huge rock fan, but I don't remember this song at all.

I was 22 and never heard of it or them either. From the headline, I thought it might be a song about someone who goes around sniffing smelly driver's seats.

[ETL]

Above is Rush live, playing “La Villa Strangiato”. I suppose that may have caused a few car wrecks for those that had the cassette tape.

Not nearly as many as Born to be Wild (Steppenwolf) or Highway Star (Deep Purple).

[islander-11]

WBCN - the ROCK of Boston!!

[21twelve]

I must admit, the “Driver’s Seat” song was in my head this morning while making coffee - and it still is. Funny how some songs can do that. (And become “one hit wonders” in the process.)

I’m guessing that studies have been done with regard to the chords, vibration frequencies, or something with regard to music. Although I’m a bit of a geek, so perhaps it’s just a good song!