Terje Gravdal has graced us with his presence on numerous occasions and has that ability to come up with new themes for his songs every time.
Some of them, like this one, are both personal and obscure but he has the knack of turning them into something that is meaningful for everyone.
‘One foot’ is about an American power car, a Trans Am Pontiac Firebird 1979 T-model with over 400 horsepower. I used to follow Formula 1 Stock Car Racing and that’s some monster. Anyway it was owned by his brother, to whom it was a dream car.
He sent it to a stylist to fix it up. Unfortunately, he got back a wreck; a nightmare. Terje doesn’t say how it happened but it sounds pretty disastrous.
Even more so because his brother is on social benefits and is struggling to get his car to shine again. The objective is to make a music video of his brother and the car, which hopefully by then will be all shiny again.
The song is called ‘One foot’ because that was the name of a big black Toyota Crown, 1974 model owned by a friend of Terje. He used to sing along to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ ‘Rebels’ while driving the car to and from work.
One of the lyrics became the name of his car: “Yeah with one foot in the grave and one foot on the pedal”. No pressing that pedal to the metal now, we espouse road safety in NMC.
Anyway, the idea behind this song is both to highlight ‘the dream’ in the verses and the dangers of these revved up supercars in the choruses.
He sounds like he expects the next ride to take him to his final destination. “One step closer to my grave” is the predominant line. However, you do have that feeling he will survive to race another day.
I’m happy to report that because I just did a count of all the songs about car race crashes and general road traffic accidents. There are – are you ready for this? – 199 of them before Terje’s effort (he brings up the 200), including four just called ‘Car Crash’ and classics from Bowie, The Beach Boys, Meat Loaf (‘Bat out of Hell’), Taylor Swift (probably having an argument with her boyfriend), Charli XCX, The Beatles (x2) and Metallica!
He’s certainly in good company.
It’s got more of an Americana feel than I recall from the past and if you try hard enough you can almost hear Tom Petty.
I’m reminded too of a big British TV Sitcom favourite from the 1990s, One Foot in the Grave, about a curmudgeonly old moaner and his wife and their suburban ‘adventures’. Victor Meldrew was his name. And do you know how he met his fate and got his second foot in the grave? He was knocked down crossing the road by a speeding car in the final episode.
Terje’s song should have played that out.
Terje has some help on this song from David Michelsen & Marius Bergseth, who also helped with songwriting, composition, backing vocals and they played all the instruments.
I see he’s doing his own PR now through VikingCowboyMusic. A great name.
This single is the fifth of his seven country/folk releases for 2025, and it will be part of his fourth EP (‘The Dreamer’) planned to be released in 2025.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terjegravdalmusic
