Burning Car

"Burning Car" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in 1980. It was his third solo single, following "Underpass" and "No-One Driving" earlier in the year. The track was not included on Foxx's debut solo album Metamatic, post-dating its January 1980 release, but has been included as a bonus track on the 2001 and 2007 CD reissues. It was Foxx's last 1980s record in a hard-edged electronica style (his next single, "Miles Away", featured acoustic drums and a somewhat warmer production).

"Burning Car" developed Metamatic's futurist style and was pacier than most of the album's material. Its staccato introduction was reminiscent of the metallic guitar notes that kicked off the track "Some of Them" from Systems of Romance, Foxx's last album with former band Ultravox. The title came from a chapter in J.G. Ballard's SF novel Concrete Island and its automobile reference was shared by a number of tracks on Metamatic. The B-side, "20th Century", was used as the theme for the London Weekend Television arts and music show 20th Century Box.

The songs were recorded in the same "eight-track cupboard in Islington"^[1] as Metamatic, and again engineered by Gareth Jones. No instrumental credits appeared on the original single, however Foxx's studio equipment at the time included ARP Odyssey and Minimoog synthesizers, an Elka 'String Machine', a Roland CR-78 drum machine, an ARP Analog Sequencer and various phasing and flanger units. The recording of "Burning Car" features a prominent use of the "metal beat" hi-hat sound from the CR-78; Foxx used the name MetalBeat for his own record label. A heavily-flanged bass guitar may also be providing some component of the bass line on the song, but it is hard to be certain as the resulting timbre is very similar to a synthesizer in any case.

The single made #35 in the UK charts and was also released in picture disc form with a different image to the original cover. "Burning Car" appears on the John Foxx compilations Assembly (1992) and Modern Art (2001), and both the A- and B-sides are included on the 2001 and 2007 reissue of Metamatic (the 1993 edition had featured only "20th Century"). Extended live versions of both songs appear on Foxx's album Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour (1998) with Louis Gordon (reissued in 2002 as the second of a 2-disc set, The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour). "Burning Car"'s style and subject matter have been echoed in Foxx's recent original albums with Louis Gordon: Shifting City, Pleasures of Electricity and Crash and Burn.