The 8-track tape case that lived on the back seat of my 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was always full. Full to the point that I had to rotate different cartridges in and out to be able to listen to the variety my buddy’s and my teenage brain required.

“What exactly is a Doobie Brother?” my dad asked once.

“I have no idea,” I answered. Which was a lie. However, admitting that I knew what that was would’ve been instantly incriminating.

Our house on Locust Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, was built by my parents in 1974. I’m unsure if my dad would’ve built there if he’d known that it was smack dab in the middle of the area in which my friends lived. They lived on the peripheral. Our house was in the center.

Which made it the perfect location to stop and see what new music I had. To stop and grab something to eat or to play pool or ping-pong in the game room my parents created when they enclosed the garage.

Mostly, my buddies stopped by to hear or play new music. Most of us not only considered ourselves connoisseurs of tunes, we were also musicians. Hearing new music was meant to not only be enjoyable; it was also for us to learn how to play it in one of the many garage bands we’d formed.

To avoid hearing my dad yell, “Turn that racket down!” we’d often climb into my Cutlass and push in the latest 8-track of Boston, Eagles, David Allan Coe, Foreigner, Hank Williams, Jr., or other artist of the day. Many of us learned the words and chords to the songs while sitting on the comfortable seats of my cutlass.

Each of us had our own 8-track tape collections and we’d borrow from each other to avoid having to spend more than necessary. Owning duplicates of tapes made little sense when all you had to do was flag someone down on a Friday night, pull up next to each other in the Pizza Hut parking lot, and trade 8-tracks through the driver-side windows.

“Hey, man. Let me borrow your new Zeppelin,” someone would say.

“Only if you’ll let me use your latest Journey,” was the reply.

“OK. But I want it back before the end of the night. I just got that from Audio Center,” was the conditional, temporary trade.

The phenomenon of 8-track tapes is almost completely uniquely American, and didn’t last as long as you might think it did. About 10 years.

Created by the guy who made Lear Jets, the 8-track system was appealing because it was a continuous loop that didn’t require rewinding, and was placed inside a durable, plastic cartridge, which helped the tapes to last.

This held true as long as you didn’t leave them on the dash or out of the case and on the seat of your car. Southern summers are brutal and can consume a box of 8-tracks in a matter of hours. More than one of us found that out the hard way.

But it was nighttime back in the 1970s that seemed to best suit consuming the latest music. Either driving down a dark, country road, or old highway with all of the windows down and the under-dash 8-track player cranked as loud as the 6×9 speakers in the back deck would allow was about as close to nirvana as we could get.

Most of us had either inherited our vehicles or had bought what we could afford. Virtually none of them had come from the factory with anything other than an AM radio or an FM radio if we were very lucky. So, picking up an aftermarket deck from Gibson’s or other discount store was how we were able to carry our tunes with us.

And if you didn’t know how to install a new 8-track deck, there was always someone in your group of friends who did and was happy to help show you how to pull up the carpet and run the speaker wire from the unit to the back speakers. Almost all of the car manufacturers left prefabricated holes in the dash and the back deck, but only the Cadillacs and other high-dollar vehicles actually had complete sound systems in them when they left the factory.

That was one of the great things about the 70s. You could, and often had to, work on your own vehicle. Ford, GM, Chrysler, and other manufacturers still made them so that you could work on them.

That is what allowed us the common experience of having an 8-track deck, and the buffet of tapes in the case in each of our back seats.

We all listened to music so much that most of us knew not only exactly what each person had in their tape case, they knew where each tape was kept. Heaven forbid if you didn’t put tapes back where they were supposed to go. How else would you know how to pull the tape everyone wanted to listen to in the dark?

I ran across an 8-track tape case at an antique shop. Process that. An antique shop.

There, I found that person’s favorites. All in their rightful place, I suspect.

No way to know whether the tape case was there because the person is no longer with us, or if it was due to them leaving it behind when they went off to college and their mom finally selling it all at a garage sale at some point.

My tape case is long gone, as is the Olds Cutlass. But I still say that regardless of what other generations claim regarding their era being the best, I’ll say until the end that ours had the best 8-tracks.

 

©2025 John Moore

John’s books, Puns for Groan People and Write of Passage: A Southerner’s View of Then and Now Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, are available on his website TheCountryWriter.com, where you can also send him a message.