Vehicle - Ideas of March (1970) 11/6/22

We continue our third anniversary celebration of "Great Songs of the '70s" with another song we covered back in the early days of my blog.

In this case, 12/19/19.

In 1970, Jim Peterik was in love with a girl named Karen. She was always asking him for rides to modeling school (in his souped up plymouth Valiant), but never showed him an ounce of romantic interest. In a moment of clarity, Jim realized that he was "just her vehicle" and dejected, sat down and wrote a song.

Jim just happened to be the lead singer for a band called The Ides of March, so he gathered the group together and recorded one of the "Great Songs of the '70s."

"Vehicle" sounded like a cross between "Blood, Sweat and Tears" and "Chicago," and it went to #2 in the U.S. and #3 in Canada.

It almost never got released, however, because during a studio playback of the master tape, the recording engineer accidently hit the "ERASE" button, and they lost 14 seconds of the guitar solo before they could figure out what happened!

Luckily, the were able to splice in an alternate take of the solo, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief!

Unfortunately, The Ides of March ended up a one-hit wonder. But Jim? No worries. He wrote dozens of other songs for everyone from The Doobie Brothers to Cheap Trick to the Beach Boys. And in 1983, with his later group, Survivor, he wrote and sang a little tune called "Eye of the Tiger."

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Karen eventually took notice and married him!

"Vehicle" by The Ides of March: A "Great Song of 1970!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq95nZBbNHI

"Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor (1983): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxxfQ7-aMrE