My Best Friend's Girl - The Cars (1978) 5/14/22

When we highlighted The Cars' debut single, "Just What I Needed," back on February 22nd, I mentioned that it became a hit after Boston radio DJ Maxanne Sartori started playing the demo on her midday show. You can read about it here: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelCuuuk/posts/497874261686026

Well, the same thing happened with the follow-up single, today's "Great Song of 1978:" "My Best Friend's Girl."

Actually, Maxanne had played BOTH songs on her show, and BOTH received an incredible amount of requests. It led to The Cars signing a record contract...and scoring some BIG hits--although chart positions didn't really reflect just how popular the songs really were.

The reason: Both were regional hits first, and by the time they went national, they had already peaked in Boston and other areas in the Northeast. That sort of thing will almost always affect final chart positions.

For the record, the song stalled at #35 in the US and #55 in Canada.

Fun fact: After Ric Ocasek finished writing the lyrics, he realized he hadn't included the TITLE in the song, so he grabbed the lyric sheet, scribbled "My Best Friend's Girlfriend, and she used to be mine" in the margin, and then worked it into the tune.

That little afterthought--along with some fun vocals, hand claps, chunky guitar, and bubbling organ, helped make "My Best Friend's Girl" by the Cars a "Great Song of 1978!"