Music Blog

Ides of March

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

This week at Glyn Wilton’s Mixed Music Bag,
he’s asking us to write about a song in which
the title or a line mentions the current month. 
Here’s my featured March artists and their song.

© Freepik

The Ides of March is a day in the ancient Roman calendar that falls on March 15 and is associated with misfortune and doom. It became renowned as the date on which Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. and was further immortalized in the tragedy Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

So what does my song choice have to do with Julius Caesar and the fateful Ides of March? Absolutely nothing! In fact, the only mention of March is in the name of the band. This is my final post for Glyn’s March theme so why not shove this long, gloomy, wintry month out the door and welcome April with a rousing number? Here’s the bottom line, my friends: it’s a kick-ass song. I like it so I played it.

Ides of March is an American jazz rock band that had one major North American and minor UK hit song in 1970. The group began in a suburb of Chicago in October 1964 as a four-piece band called the Shon-Dels. In 1966 they changed their name to the Ides of March and for the next few years released some songs that were struggling hits played on local radio stations. Having secured a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records in 1970, the band released the track “Vehicle”; it became the fastest-selling single in Warner’s history! The song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #6 on the Cash Box listings, and #3 in Canada. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc in 1972. The album Vehicle reached #55 nationally.

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Written by vocalist and frontman Jim Peterik, “Vehicle” is about a girl that often used him for her mode of transportation, leading Peterik to surmise that he was little more than her vehicle. The arrangement includes a distinctive horn section riff, which caused some listeners to mistake the band for Blood, Sweat & Tears, who were also popular at the time. Despite its great commercial success, Ides of March never had another hit single, leaving them one-hit wonders. Peterik, however, was no one trick pony. He went on to form the rock group Survivor and become a very successful songwriter. After going on hiatus in 1973, the band returned with their original line-up in 1990 and has been active since then.

This is “Vehicle” by Ides of March. You can look at the lyrics all you want; the only reference to the month of March or even the word march is in the name of the band.

LYRICS

Hey, well, I’m the friendly stranger in the black sedan
Oh, won’t you hop inside my car
I got pictures, got candy, I am a lovable man
I’d like to take you to the nearest star

I’m your vehicle baby
I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go
I’m your vehicle woman
By now, I’m sure you know
That I love ya (love you)
I need ya (need you)
I want to, got to have you child
Great God in Heaven, you know I love you

Well, if you want to be a movie star
I got the ticket to Hollywood
Well, if you want to stay just like you are
You know I think you really should

I’m your vehicle baby
I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go
I’m your vehicle woman
By now, I’m sure you know
That I love ya (love you)
I need ya (need you)
I want to, got to have you child
Great God in Heaven, you know I love you
Oh, you know I do

Well, I’m the friendly stranger in the black sedan
Oh, won’t you hop inside my car
I got pictures, candy, I am a lovable man
I’d like to take you to the nearest star

I’m your vehicle babe
I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go
I’m your vehicle woman
By now, I’m sure you know
That I love ya (love you)
I need ya (need you)
I want to, I got to have ya
Great God in Heaven, you know I love you
And I’m your vehicle babe

You know I love ya (love you)
I need ya (need you)
I want to, got to have you child
Great God in Heaven, you know I love you

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: James Peterik
Vehicle lyrics © Peermusic Musikverlag G.m.b.h., Ides Music, Bald Medusa Company

Was I right or was I right? It’s a kickass song!

Big thanks to Glyn Wilton for hosting Mixed Music Bag each week. Please be sure to follow the link and check out Glyn’s site.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, and The Rhythm Section, et. al., and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

24 thoughts on “Ides of March”

    1. Hahaha! I know what you mean, dear Keith! They sound a lot like BS&T and we’ve probably heard the song in adverts, too. I also hear a bit of Survivor (Eye of the Tiger) which isn’t too far off track considering the lead singer of Ides of March went on to form Survivor and wrote many popular hit songs.

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  6. I’m still glad every year when the Idea of March is over. I don’t know if it’s the lasting karmic tremors of the Romans rising up to murder their leader/God or just the end of winter, but I feel like people are really crabby that day. And then it’s spring!😜Good tune. I didn’t know he started Survivor! Eye of the Tiger, Rocky!

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    1. Cosmic bad vibes reaching you from the bloody tombs of ancient Rome? Hey, it could happen! I wonder if there’s a special name regarding a fear of the Ides of March. Interesting. I was also in the dark about Jim Peterik forming Survivor. He’s quite an enterprising (and energetic) guy, isn’t he? Thanks for a great comment!

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  9. “Ides of March”, not a band that I am familiar with, Nancy … here’s a “March” band from Aussie land, called, Augie March

    Lyrics, “One Crowded Hour”.

    Now should you expect to see something that you hadn’t seen
    In somebody you’ve known since you were sixteen
    If love is a bolt from the blue
    Then what is a bolt but a glorified screw
    And that doesn’t hold nothing together

    Far from these nonsense bars and their nowhere music
    It’s making me sick and I know it’s making you sick
    There’s nothing there it’s like eating air
    It’s like drinking gin with nothing else in
    And that doesn’t hold me together…

    But for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
    I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
    I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
    But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

    And I know you like your boys who take their medicine from the bowl of their silver spoon
    Who run away with the dish and scale the fish by the silvery light of the moon
    Who were taught from the womb to believe till the tomb that as far as their bleeding eyes see
    Is a pleasure pen meant for them, builded and rent for them, not for the likes of me
    No not for the likes of you and me…

    And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
    But I sailed around all those bumps in the night into your beacon in the gloom
    I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
    But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

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    O but the green-eyed harpy of the salt land
    She takes into hers my hand
    And she says “Boy, I know you’re lying… O but then so am I!”
    And to this I said
    “O well.”

    Well put me in a cage full of lions I’ll learn to speak lion, in fact I know the language well
    I picked it up while I was versing myself in the languages they speak in hell
    That night that silence gave birth to a baby
    But they took it away to her silent dismay and they raised it to be a lady…
    Now she can’t keep her mouth shut…

    And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
    But I sailed around all those bumps in the night into your beacon in the gloom
    I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
    But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

    And yes and one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
    I played a few songs for those bumps in the night, in fact I played this very tune
    But you said “What is this six stringed instrument but an adolescent loom?”
    And one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin
    Yes and one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin
    Oh and one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

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    1. Dear Ivor – sorry it’s taken so long for me to reply; your comment somehow landed in my ‘pending’ file and I just saw it there. Thank you for this lovely video and song by Augie March. The lyrics are poetry. I love this beautiful new serenade from Australia! 🌏💙

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