The Cardigans – Daddy’s Car

The Cardigans debut English album Life was made up of wonderful songs mixing jazz, lounge & pop – songs like Daddy’s Car…

The Cardigans – Daddy’s Car (Rather crackly accoustic version from Swedish TV)

The Manic Street Preachers new single Your Love Alone Is Not Enough includes an amazing vocal contribution from the lovely Nina Persson of The Cardigans. And because of this, as I often do for a variety of reasons, I dug out Life, the first album they released in the UK. It’s a strange thing, blending 60s pop, jazz, even evoking a sort of loungey vibe.

Apart from Carnival (probably the most well known track on the album), my favourite song is Daddy’s Car. Nina Persson’s vocals are so delicious they sound like they could be a milk-shake flavour, whilst the band manage to evoke a nostalgic sound; like the soundtrack to the coolest 60s film never made.

And the lyrics? So stupid they’re cool. They’re a tale of some nouveau rich kids having a jaunt round Europe in, you guessed it… Daddy’s Car. They’re so kitschly cute I’ve reproduced them all here – but I do have to add that this isn’t an ironically good song – it’s just a great pop song, and one that I have repeatedly warmed to over the last 12 years.

We took off that sunny day
Packed our things and went away
Me and friends in daddy’s car
To find out how summers are
Found a card to send from wherever we wentFrom Luxembourg to Rome
From Berlin to the moon
From Paris to Lausanne
From Athens to the sun
Our car became a spacecraft
Flashing through the world
Crashed down in Amsterdam
We’ll take off some rainy day
Pack our things and go away
Families and hotelbars
To find out how summers are
Find a card to send to some really old friends

From Luxembourg to Rome
From Berlin to the moon
From Paris to Lausanne
From Athens to the sun
Our car became a spacecraft
Flashing through the world
Crashed down in Amsterdam

About Ciaran

30-something English web & music geek, currently in Sydney Google