Emo music is full of references to car crashes. When you’ve listened to enough of this type of music or watched enough music videos for emo songs, it can become apparent how recurrent this theme is in the genre, similar to the theme of ‘getting out of this small town’, ambulances, or hospitals.
Examples of tracks with the car crash theme include:
- ‘Understanding in a Car Crash’ by Thursday
- ‘The Other Side of the Crash/Over And Out (Of Control)’ by Thursday
- ‘Underneath the Sycamore’ by Death Cab for Cutie
- ‘The Artist in the Ambulance’ by Thrice
- ‘Deadbolt’ by Thrice
- ‘Calling All Cars’ by Senses Fail
- ‘Yellow Angels’ by Senses Fail
- ‘Sunsets and Car Crashes’ by The Spill Canvas,
- ‘The Night I Drove Alone’ by Citizen
- ‘Epilogue of a Car Crash’ by Orchid
- ‘Seventy Times 7’ by Brand New
- ‘Limousine’ by Brand New
- ‘The No Seatbelt Song’ by Brand New
- ‘Failure By Design’ by Brand New
- ‘Handcuffs’ by Brand New
- ‘I Can Tell There Was an Accident Here Earlier’ by Saosin
- ‘Mookie’s Last Christmas’ by Saosin
- ‘Love Rhymes with a Hideous Wreck’ by The Blood Brothers
- ‘Car Underwater’ by Armor for Sleep
- ‘Yeah Yeah Utah’ by Marietta
- ‘Cinco De Mayo Shit Show’ by Marietta
- ‘face.’ by Static Dress
- ‘Broken Radio’ by Rainer Maria
- ‘I Want to Hear You Sad’ by The Early November
- ‘Helena’ by My Chemical Romance
- ‘Demolition Lovers’ by My Chemical Romance
- ‘Jet Black’ by Jawbreaker
- ‘Drive On To Me’ by Elliott
- ‘There’s No ‘I’ in Team’ by Taking Back Sunday
- ‘Guardrail’ by Bayside
- ‘Winter’ by Bayside
- ‘Please Drive Faster’ by Braid
- ‘That Car Came Out of Nowhere’ by Braid
- ‘Dui’ by Basement
- ‘Seven’ by Sunny Day Real Estate
- ‘Shoulder to the Wheel’ by Saves the Day
- ‘B is for Bethlehem’ by The Promise Ring
- ‘Me vs the Highway’ by The Wonder Years
- ‘Brakeless’ by The Wonder Years
- ‘Hear You Me’ by Jimmy Eat World
- ‘January 1979’ by mewithoutYou
- ‘Blonde Hair, Black Lungs’ by Sorority Noise
- ‘No Halo’ by Sorority Noise
- ‘FALTON STREET I’ by La Dispute
- ‘Until Morning’ by Dashboard Confessional
- ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow’ by Silverstein
- ‘Whiplash’ by Silverstein
- ‘Burdens’ by Balance and Composure
- ‘It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door’ by Underoath
- ‘Father’ by The Front Bottoms
- ‘Dispalcement’ by Touché Amoré
- ‘Napoleon Solo’ by At the Drive In
- ‘The Failure Of My Life Run On Self Will’ by Car Underwater
And emo tracks where the music video depicts a car crash include ‘Silver and Cold’ by AFI, ‘The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows’ by Brand New, ‘What It Is To Burn’ by Finch, and ‘The Reason’ by Hoobastank.
It seems that many emo bands can’t help but reference a car crash, often a fatal one. And we can see from the list above that several emo bands repeat this theme across different tracks. So what’s with this emo obsession with car crashes?
The theme is so common because it’s a potent metaphor for, as is expected with the genre, intense emotions – emotional trauma, self-destruction, loss of control, the volatility of young love, heartbreak, loss, grief, and emotional crises. The car crash is symbolic of a violent, irreversible moment; the imagery evokes a kind of morbid romanticism, harking back to the ‘teen tragedy songs’ of the 1950s and 1960s, where love ends in tragedy.
In this way, we can see how emo music follows a trend, albeit not a conscious or intended one, that connects love to tragedy, which, of course, is ancient and perennial: the theme of ‘tragic romance’ or ‘romantic tragedy’. This also reminds me of an interview with From First to Last at Warped Tour 2004, where the band members are naming older bands they consider ‘emo’, even though they aren’t widely considered as such, with examples including The Smiths, Goo Goo Dolls, and The Cars.
In a Reddit post on the recurrence of car accident imagery in post-hardcore music, one commenter said:
Car accidents are one of the leading cause of deaths for younger people. A lot of PHC [post-hardcore] is raw and emotional and covers hurt/loss, so would make sense that so many songs are about those impacted by it and this is their* outlet.
Another said:
The immediate nature as well – everything going normally completely upended in a moment. Which is a good analogy to how a lot of young love relationships end (well – I guess also relationships at any age, but an impulsive self destructive decision is definitely considered an immature action regardless of age).
The list of emo tracks above featuring car crash imagery shows how central this metaphor is to the genre – it’s present in early screamo bands like Orchid as well as modern emo/post-hardcore bands like Car Underwater. So, as we can see, emo’s fascination with car crashes isn’t going away any time soon.
