I can tell you exactly when and where I was the first time I heard Deftones: a warm late-spring day in Washington State, laying in the grass underneath the window of my room, with 107.7 The End playing. I hate to dive into the teenage angst section of life for a story, but there I was, fourteen years old, sick of school, sick of home, ready to go be anything else except who I was at the moment. When this song started to play, it snapped me out of my normal daydreaming like that: hearing Chino Moreno’s oddly hypnotic blend of unorthodox but melodic crooning and screaming grabbed my attention, but the song title alone sold me on it: be quiet and drive. To put it into perspective, this is when all young teenaged McTag could think about was having that license in his hand…it wasn’t just a focal point, it was the point, period. The cars came and went with ease…I believe I still had the green 1979 Olds Cutlass at this time…but legally getting out onto the road and just rolling seemed miles away from reality. It’s been twenty years since I first heard the lyrics that spurred on what has become a wild-assed trip into adulthood. No one song is more responsible for kicking off my actions than this one. When I heard the lyric, “I don’t care where just FAR, away…” all I could picture were places I hadn’t seen, either in years or forever: prairie fields, mountains, deserts, oceans, other countries.

Driving meant being free to travel. It meant that the only thing between me and where I wanted to be was gas money. It meant that I would need to work to get the money to make that happen. And that moment in time, I wanted to get to work so damn bad it hurt. I wanted the cash to get my car running, to save up for the moment where I would say my goodbyes, roll the windows down and leave the land of the Douglas firs for wherever the hell enticed me at that moment. Whether I was screaming along with the original version (the one below) with a couple of friends as we left school for the day or was enjoying the much moodier acoustic version that came out on the B-Sides and Rarities album in 2005 as I cruised under streetlights in the middle of the morning hours while cities slept, Be Quiet and Drive is one of those lifetime songs that has stuck and will remain important as the years go on.

Thank you for indulging my random memories, and enjoy the song.