The Cars - Hello! Hello Again!

🙋🏻‍♂️(Re)Introducing myself and EW&SL to those new, forgetful and everyone in-between. Plus a musical earworm from The Cars 🚘, and a bonus playlist! 🎁

Photo by Alex Devera on Unsplash. Not me, but he looks like how I imagine I might, if I were trying to impersonate a Russian novelist waving to his fans.

They say it’s never too late to make a first impression. Or a second impression. Or 50th.

For most of 2025, I’ve posted new stuff here as regularly and often as a bagel addict has a bowel movement. It’s my duty (pun intended) to insert at least one poop joke into every essay, so I’m getting it out of my system first thing.

Song fragments and loopy lyrics are my jam, whether I like it or not, so I figure I might as well share them with you, my adoring, extremely good-looking readers. That’s what I’ve done for the past 3-plus years — explore the intersection of earworm and personal essay. If you haven’t been here long, I have more than 150 essays in the archive, free to read at your leisure. I have no paywalls or filters, both in terms of access and content. Humor is a key component here, though I do like to tug at some heartstrings too.

There are plenty of super-knowledgable music historians here, who write in-depth explorations on artists known and lesser-known. I am not one of them. I might accidentally provide some intriguing factoids, but my angle is more personal — digging into what a song or a band meant to me as a kid, as a young adult, or as an older adult. All tied to an earworm that won’t let go.

Like today’s earworm, many of the songs and jingles I write about are from the ‘80s, which were my formative years. But I also feature tunes from the '50s through the music of today.

To mix things up, I also write lists of favorite songs, usually around a theme. For example, I wrote a series of ‘number’ song posts featuring tunes with numbers Zero, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Sixteen. You can click those words to go straight to those essays.

I also collaborate with other fantastic writers here on Substack. I recently appeared as a guest on

Brad Kyle

’s super-popular Tune Tag series. You can check that out below.

Tune Tag #110 with Steve Goldberg of Earworms & Song Loops, Pt. 4: Eddie Murphy, 10cc, Melissa Manchester, Nick Mason, Joe Piscopo, Jennifer Love Hewitt

Next month, I’ll be sharing my annual “best albums of the year” collaborative post, along with several other writers here. And sometimes I will write about other forms of media — books, TV shows, films, or live performances that have left a strong impression on me.

That pretty much sums up what you can expect as a reader of Earworms and Song Loops.

I’m planning to write some more shorter-form pieces for 2026, posts I’m calling TWEETs. It’s an acronym for This Week’s Embedded Earworm Tune. Though if you know me at all, or have looked through the archive, short is a word that best describes my stature, not my essay writing style. I wrote about my height and how it connects to a Randy Newman classic in a post a couple of years ago, which you can check out here.

Okay, enough about the past, let’s get worming into the present!

Heartbeat City

The idea for writing a re/introduction essay was borne from my most recent earworm.

It’s a song by Boston’s best export, The Cars (sorry, Aerosmith and Pixies).

This track is from my least favorite (but most commercially successful) Cars’ record, Heartbeat City (1985). Okay, the follow-up, Door To Door, was worse, but I’d choose to play the band’s first four LPs—the self-titled debut in 1978, Candy-O (‘79), Panarama (‘80), and Shake It Up (‘81)—over Heartbeat City most every time.

It’s mostly Mutt Lange’s over-the-top, dated production that ruins the album for me. The compressed-to-hell, mid-80s bombast is apparent from the start, with the album’s opener, “Hello Again.”

The song begins with heavily effected group vocals singing, “Hello-hello again,” followed by some goofy keyboard accents (think Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart”) and a repeat of the opening greeting.

If this is your first experience with the record, you might think (pun intended) you’d accidentally hit play on the latest single from Def Leppard, whose multi-platinum selling Pyromania, Mutt Lange had just finished over-producing. I half-expect to be asked to pour some sugar on Ric Ocasek whenever I hear those iconic first three words.

Although the production continues to attempt to strangle the life out of “Hello Again” with distracting post-production mayhem, the deceptively simple melody of the song is too invincible to fall prey to Lange’s oxygen deprivation techniques.

The melodic line (hit play on the bar above) is what comes next in the song. It’s the bit that has become my latest earworm. It’s essentially four ascending notes followed by four descending notes. It’s super simple, but like simple syrup, so sweet and tasty. It’s Greg Hawkes’ keys, plus (I think) Ben Orr’s bass keyboard, that make it impossible to get out of your head, or at least my head.

I don’t play any melodic instruments, but I’m pretty sure I could figure out how to play this on the keyboard if given about five minutes. Coming up with concise, earwormy melodies like this is not an easy task, but The Cars had perfected it ever since their ‘78 debut.

“Hello Again,” and, really, all the songs on Heartbeat City, are no exception. It’s probably my second favorite track on the album, behind the self-titled closing track, which, thankfully, is devoid of excess flourishes. It’s another song that has an addictive ascending/descending keyboard melody, but the mood here is more reflective, with a strong nostalgic vibe.

Most of you will know the hits from Heartbeat City, “You Might Think,” “Drive,” and “Magic.” And, though dated sounding to me, all are worthy steps on The Cars’ throne.

I was surprised that I didn’t remember the music video for “Hello Again,” as it’s quite, um, bodacious. Maybe it didn’t get the MTV airplay because of the extended intro? It’s worth checking out (again), as it’s a great reminder of how lavish and expensive (and excessive) the videos of the mid-80s were.

Hello!

Lastly, I wanted to share a playlist of my 10 favorite songs with the word “Hello” in the title. I know there are several others that you would include in your top-10 playlist, so I welcome your suggestions in the comments.

If you don’t have Spotify (and I’m transitioning away from it in 2026), I’ll add a YouTube playlist in the comments shortly.

Thanks for reading! I so appreciate it!

• Are you new to EW&SL or a veteran? If you’ve been here a while, did I describe what I do accurately?

• What are your thoughts on The Cars’ Heartbeat City?

• Which “Hello” songs would you add to the playlist I’ve shared above?

• I’m always open to collaborations and guest earworm writers, so send me a note if that sounds like something you’d be interested in.