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The Cars – Good Times Roll Lyrics 13 years ago
Thunder grabs your attention...it hold a certain type of appeal in that upon hearing it, one waits for the lightning.

The lyric describes an illusion grabbing and holding your attention.

submissions
The Cars – Good Times Roll Lyrics 13 years ago
Thunder grabs your attention...it hold a certain type of appeal in that upon hearing it, one waits for the lightning.

The lyric describes an illusion grabbing and holding your attention.

submissions
The Cars – Good Times Roll Lyrics 13 years ago
Sorry. It is "Old".

Go to the live 1978 performance uploaded on YT by yuffenough and you can see an up-close of Ric singing the lyric. It's obvious that the word he sings is old.

submissions
The Cars – Good Times Roll Lyrics 13 years ago
Good Times Roll:
Though you would think by the name of this song it's about happy things, it's actually not. The title is sarcastic. The song is about bad things happening in a person's life. I'll break it down to explain.

Let the good times roll
Let them knock you around
Let the good times roll
Let them make you a clown

Good times don't knock you around, bad times do. A clown is often seen crying or sad.

Let them leave you up in the air
Let them brush your rock and roll hair

Bad times leave a person feeling out of control of their life-"up in the air".
"Rock and Roll hair" is an euphemism for happiness here, and "brush your rock and roll hair" means to sober you.

Let the stories be told
They can say what they want
Let the photos be old
Let them show what they want

This part is leading up to the following stanza, "if the illusion is real"...in other words, you can have wonderful happy stories and old photos showing smiling happy people, but it may all be an illusion.

If the illusion is real
Let them give you a ride
If they got thunder appeal
Let them be on your side

If the illusion is real, let the "good times" shown by photos and told in stories hold your attention, and may you not be disabused of that illusion. Very cynical, I know. Just what you would feel if, for example, after a break-up you looked at an old photo of a lover and you on a sunny day smiling and having fun...but unknown to you then, they were cheating. The photo of the "good time" is an illusion then, isn't it?

To make my case further that my interpretation of this song is correct, just watch the band's 1978 live performance uploaded on YT by yuffenough...you'll see at the very end a shot of drummer Robinson with tears rolling down his cheek. The tears(good times)roll.

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