"Headlights" is a song by American singer-songwriter

Cat Power Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and model. Cat Power was originally the name of her first band, but has become her stage name as a ...

, released as her debut single in 1993 by The Making of Americans. The song is a

first-person narrative A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller, ...

that tells of a girl dying on the road after a car accident. The photograph featured on the front cover of the single was taken by photographer

Emmet Gowin Emmet Gowin (born 1941) is an American photographer. He first gained attention in the 1970s with his intimate portraits of his wife, Edith, and her family. Later he turned his attention to the landscapes of the American West, taking aerial photogr ...

Danville, Virginia Danville is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States, located in the Southside Virginia region and on the fall line of the Dan River. It was a center of tobacco production and was an area of Confederate activity ...

in 1969, titled "Nancy." The single received a limited 500 pressings on 7-inch vinyl.

Composition

The song was written by Marshall, with the addition of Bob Bannister (guitar, violin) and Glen Thrasher (drums). The lyrics are a

about a young woman dying on the side of a road after a car accident. It alternates between the scene of the woman dying as her friend stands over her, and the conversation that took place moments prior to the accident. Marshall later revealed that she wrote the song about a friend of hers who had died.Marshall, Chan. Interview with KCRW (2003)
YouTube
/ref> The song was re-recorded by Cat Power in December 1994 with guitarist Tim Foljahn and drummer

Steve Shelley Steven Jay Shelley (born June 23, 1962) is an American drummer. He is best known as the longtime drummer of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, for whom he played from 1985 until their 2011 disbandment. Biography Shelley was born in Midland, ...

, and was placed on her debut album, ''

Dear Sir ''Dear Sir'' is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Chan Marshall, also known as Cat Power, released in October 1995 on Runt Records. Recorded in New York City in December 1994 during studio sessions with Tim Foljahn and Stev ...

'' (1995). The version of the song featured on the single includes an untuned

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

in addition to guitar and drums, whereas the later version of the song that appeared on ''Dear Sir'' was recorded with guitar and drums only, and featured more

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

Track listing

Personnel

*Chan Marshall -

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

*Bob Bannister - guitar,

*Glenn Thrasher -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

*Craig Flanagin - producer *Don Fury -

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

References

{{authority control 1993 songs Cat Power songs Songs written by Cat Power