It seems like I’ve been hearing about the pathetic state of the American auto industry my entire life. Detroit’s been in decay since before I could walk, and no one (not even Michael Moore) has been able to prevent scores of Rust Belt workers from punching out forever and fading away into a penniless oblivion. The blame for this can probably be placed on Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman revamp. You saw that sleek, rocket-fueled, Anime-lookin’ thing Keaton was cruising around in. No way did any part of that behemoth roll off a GM assembly line in Flint, Michigan. Bruce Wayne had to be outsourcing to Japan. Hence, a whole generation of drivers after that movie opted for white-hot rice burners instead of the boxy US tanks they should have been piloting.

One group you can’t point fingers at is Sugar Ray, who most people remember from their 1997 pool party hit, “Fly.” Two years earlier, this band of frosted-tipped Californians, originally known as the Shrinky Dinks, turned in the last great slice of 20th century rock ‘n’ roll dedicated to just cruisin’ around and burning up gas in an American bucket of bolts: The epochal “Mean Machine” from their 1995 debut, Lemonade and Brownies. In addition to a musical bed of heart-pounding, head-banging proto-metal that makes you wanna slam down the accelerator and tear out of your high school parking lot from the explosive opening drum roll, “Mean Machine” throws down the gauntlet regarding four-wheel supremacy. From the first couplet, there’s no question that imports are not the way Sugar Ray rolls:

“The only good thing that’s creeping in the city, Elvis had 50 but this one’s mine / Japanese cars, man, such a pity, AM radio suits me fine!”

Teens from Carson City to the Bronx know exactly what Mark McGrath is talking about when he sticks up for his less than perfect sound system. This is a matter of pride. It doesn’t matter that the interior’s falling apart, the antenna only gets a low-wattage salsa station, and the engine leaks more oil than the Exxon Valdez. This tank was born from the ground up in the heartland and could crush any tricked-out stereo-on-wheels from the Land of the Rising Sun. Sugar Ray are careful not to get too specific about the car in question; usually they just stick to the shout-and-response chorus that came to define “Mean Machine”:

“Don’t you dare mess with my mean machine / It’s long and slick and olive green!”

Those last three adjectives work together to conjure up images of the ultimate boat-sized pimpmobiles that many of our parents drove when we were just out of the stroller. Indeed, it is eventually confirmed that Sugar Ray are busting rhymes about a 1968 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, a vehicle that, for a brief period, transcended class and race barriers to be the pinnacle of retro cool. Rappers turned them into low riders, ’70s revivalists restored them to their disco-era glory, and old people continued to drive them to pick up their pills at Walgreen’s, oblivious to the fact they were causing chrome-hungry kids’ jaws to drop and shatter on the asphalt below. How can you hate on a vehicle that unifies so many different types of people?

Sugar Ray also make “Mean Machine” pop by peppering the song with corny pop culture references, including Eddie Murphy’s Buckwheat impression, Revenge of the Nerds, and one of the great cruising songs of the 1950s, Charlie Ryan’s “Hot Rod Lincoln.” Per that last one, the Sugar Rays fake a gruff baritone when reciting “Lincoln’s” chorus to pay vocal tribute to Commander Cody, who released a whiskey-soaked version in 1971 with His Lost Planet Airmen that became the most well-known take of that heart-pounding race track anthem. This move failed to kick off a Commander Cody revival, but it did make “Mean Machine” that much more delectable to those in the know. On a side note, Commander Cody looked a lot like head Butthole Surfers weirdo Gibby Haynes in his prime. Are the two related? Maybe not in this dimension, but somewhere…

Also in another dimension, I’m 100 percent sure every version of Batman drives a black Caddy with a giant snarling bat face on the front à la Rat Fink. The back fins look like hunched-up shoulders, the engine roars louder than 12 Hiroshimas, and small children get caught between the tire treads. It doesn’t have that ridiculous monster truck, paramilitary vibe of the Batmobile in the new movies—it doesn’t need it. Criminals hear the Bat Caddy a few miles away and they start shitting their pants. By the time the Dark Knight rolls up, the Joker’s died of shock and the Penguin is crying. They know better than to even think about trying to mess with Batman’s mean machine. It’s American-made, from the stadium-sized trunk to the cup holder big enough for a bowl of clam chowder.

The best part about this alternate Earth (Earth 143?) is that the US auto industry is thriving, thanks mostly to Sugar Ray’s “Mean Machine”, which was adopted as our new national anthem by President Dennis Kucinich after Francis Scott Key was revealed to be an ancient astronaut and British sympathizer. History is fascinating when you make it up.

Watch: “Mean Machine” [at spike.com]

Tags:Sugar Ray, Commander Cody

Read more from Lyrical Communique:

Elliott Smith: “Pitseleh”

Mr. T Experience: Self Pity

Heart of Weirdness: Neil Young, “Revolution Blues”