After a 23-year detour, the Cars are back. And from the sound of 'Sad Song,' the first single off the band's new album, 'Move Like This,' it's as if the group never drove away.

Despite it's name, 'Sad Song' should bring smiles to Cars fans who've waited more than two decades to hear Ric Ocasek's nasal musings and the band's signature brand of power-pop. The tune is a throwback to to the Cars' late '70s/early '80s heyday, thanks to the full reunion of the original band's surviving members.

'Sad Song' is powered by the rock guitar of Elliot Easton, the synthesized keyboards of Greg Hawkes and the new wave drums of David Robinson. With the absence of singer-bassist Benjamin Orr, who passed away in 2000, Hawkes also handled the low-end on the tune.

Lyrically, 'Sad Song' boasts a catchy chorus and slightly enigmatic verses that predominantly deal with the media's influence on the masses. Ocasek paints a colorful picture with lines like, "Too many heartaches / Waiting to strike / Too many clowns / Saying everything's all right."

With 'Sad Song,' the Cars aren't reinventing the wheel. Instead, the track proves that a slight tune-up is just what the band needed to recapture the magic they left behind many years ago.

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Listen to the Cars' 'Sad Song'

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