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From The Desk Of Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws: Citroën 2CV And DS

Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws isn’t big on organized religion, but when the spirit does move him, it always has a soundtrack. And that soundtrack has come a long way over the last 16 years. You’d be hard-pressed to discern so much as a whiff of snarky 1996 hit “Popular” amid the bracing, impeccably crafted power pop the trio hammers out with breathless efficiency on its new release, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy (Barsuk). The transportive power of music is something Caws touches on quite frequently on Astronomy—that is, when he can tear himself away from more pressing concerns for our fucked-up planet. Caws will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him, and check out our cover story on Nada Surf in last month’s issue of MAGNET.

Caws: One of the cars we had growing up was a lightweight lemon-yellow marvel with huge front fenders, the French version of a Volkswagen Bug. My mom, who is from North Carolina, took a year abroad in college and became a hardcore Francophile. We lived in France for two of my school years and every one of my summers (in a house they bought for $2,000, no electricity, no running water). The car was a Citroën 2CV. It was basically just a thin shell on wheels. The doors were hollow and about an inch thick. Your trip would take longer if there was a headwind. 2CV stands for “deux chevaux,” the first model being just two horse-power. The body was shaped like a box and contained nothing more than the two bench seats, steering wheel and pedals. The gearshift stuck out from the dash. The windshield wipers were small (as was the front window) and had a single speed. The back windows didn’t open. The front windows opened half-way. They were hinged and you would fold them up and sometimes they would fall back down if you hadn’t fastened them tight enough. The engine had a sound different from all others; you could tell if one was approaching. The 2CV, one of the cheapest and best designs ever. You could take the backseat out and because it was so flat and it was so easy to reach the corners, you could carry almost anything, even sand or gravel. The canvas and plastic roof rolled back like the lid of a sardine can. If we’d been good, we were allowed “le grand debout”: “the big stand-up,” where we’d stand on the couches and hold onto the lone metal bar that crossed the open roof. I have no memory of seatbelts. My favorite car ever was made by the same company. The DS, nicknamed “The Shark,” had a unique shape and hydraulics (you could lower the car for the highway, raise it for off-road). The steering wheel had the coolest shape.

Video after the jump.

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