The Rest of My Life I Will Always Drive and Drive

Since I posted back in April 2008 about a certain mystery track I’ve had on my computer since early college — it’s labeled as “Autobahn” by the band Karate, yet it’s not by the band most often associated with that name and it seems to have no relation to the Kraftwerk album Autobahn — this blog has received a hit or two a month from people trying to find “karate autobahn” or “karate autobahn mislabeled” or some such thing. However, no one arriving here seems to know who actually performed the song in question or what it’s actually called. And at least one other person has posted online about not knowing the truth about this song. Recently, someone who like me downloaded this mislabeled song back in the days of Audiogalaxy arrived here, and, lacking any answers, he emailed me:

Drew, As a fan of Geoff Farina and Karate, I too downloaded this song, labeled as Autobahn by Karate. Its been driving me crazy for years that I cannot find the correct artist who performs this. I was wondering if you had any luck...google, shazam, friends have all come up empty.

This prompted me to finally post the song on my blog and see if anyone else can listen to it and tell me if it sounds familiar. Please do, music experts. And, even better, please send to your music expert friends and see if they can recognize it. I actually like the song and would like to give proper credit to whoever made it.

As you can tell from the singer’s vowels, he either has a British-sounding pronunciation or is trying to sound like he does. I can tell you literally nothing else about the track other than that it would have been available on Audiogalaxy and Napster back in 2000, 2001, or 2002 — back in the days when MP3s ran wild and free through college dorm rooms. And Googling about for it has so far turned up nothing. In hopes that this may help my cause, I’m also posting the lyrics — or at least how I’ve best been able to interpret the lyrics. The combination of the singer’s accent and the music itself make it difficult to hear certain parts, and if you think you can do better than I did, please fire off a comment pointing out what might replace some of these [inaudible] markers. My best shot:

I put up to my shoulders every now and thenNo matter how I try I’m always halfway thereThe roads are emptyTrying to avoid myselfNo matter what I do I’m always halfway thereI am [inaudible] before I have a shotThe blissful ignorance will [inaudible]

{Chorus: Why would I need another day?I try to find another wayIt’s just I don’t know what to do and no one else seems to know itI’m not yourself and that’s more frustrating than knowing you’re undead}

[Inaudible] play for keeps are rolling under meAll this distance, still I’m always halfway thereYes I had a bad dayThey know I can do betterA safe return foreverFrom now on this is downhill

{Chorus}

I’ll be alone when it’s cold [a wild guess on this line] Yeah, I’ll be here to here when it’s cold[Inaudible] [Inaudible] The rest of my life I will always drive and driveThe rest of my life I will always drive and driveThe rest of my life I will always drive and driveThe rest of my life I will always drive and driveThe rest of my life I will always die and die

So... Anyone? Anyone?