"No Cars Go" is a song by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Arcade Fire Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. The band's current touring line-up also includes former core member S ...

. It is the fourth

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

released from the band's second full-length album, ''

Neon Bible ''Neon Bible'' is the second studio album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire. It was first released on March 5, 2007, in Europe and a day later in North America by Merge Records. Originally announced on December 16, 2006, through the band's ...

''. The release date was due to be July 23, 2007 but the release was delayed to August 6, 2007.

Overview

The song title is taken from the solo project of former

member

Brendan Reed Brendan Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, artist, and film-maker from Williamsburg, Virginia known for his short films, recordings, compositions, and performances with numerous bands from Montreal, Quebec and Williamsburg, ...

. It first appeared on the band's self-released debut EP ''

'' and was re-recorded for ''

''. Some pressings of the single list the B-side as "Surf City Eastern Block" and some list it as "Surf City

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

Appearances

The song was featured in

Eric Bana Eric Banadinović, (born 9 August 1968), known professionally as Eric Bana (), is an Australian actor and comedian. He began his career in the sketch comedy series '' Full Frontal'' before gaining notice in the comedy drama '' The Castle'' (19 ...

's 2009 documentary film '' Love The Beast''. It is also featured in

Mike Mo Capaldi Michael Capaldi (born March 27, 1990), popularly known as Mike Mo Capaldi, is a professional regular-footed skateboarder who gained popularity following his video part in ''Forecast'', a video produced by professional skateboarder Paul Rodriguez. ...

's part in ''

Fully Flared ''Fully Flared'' is a street skateboarding video by the Lakai footwear company, featuring video parts from its team riders. The film is directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze, and Cory Weincheque. In 2007, it won "Best Video of the Year" at the Tran ...

'', a skateboarding video released by

Lakai Limited Footwear Lakai Limited Footwear is an American footwear company based in Torrance, California that creates shoes designed for and inspired by skateboarding. Lakai was founded by professional skateboarders and Girl Skateboards co-founders Mike Carroll an ...

in 2007. In the UK, the song was also featured in ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

s video montage/preview at the beginning of Series Ten, as well as in ITV's coverage of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

in 2007/8. It has also featured on series 6 of ''

Wheeler Dealers Wheeler Dealers is a British TV series originally produced by Attaboy TV for the Discovery Channel in the UK and for Motor Trend in the U.S. The programme is fronted by car enthusiast and former dealer Mike Brewer with mechanics Edd China (Seri ...

'', a motoring programme on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

. In Italy it was used as the main theme of the soccer's Sunday TV-show "Quelli Che Il Calcio" hosted by

Victoria Cabello Victoria Ellen Cabello (born 12 March 1975, in London) is an Italian television presenter. She was born in London to an Italian father and an English mother, and grew up in Valsolda, a small town in the province of Como, just a few kilometers f ...

, from September 18, 2011 to May 19, 2013 on

Rai 2 Rai 2 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's second television channel, and is known for broadcasting ''TG2'' news bulletins, talk ...

. It also was the soundtrack for the

Danny MacAskill Daniel "Danny" MacAskill is a Scottish trials cyclist, from Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. He works professionally as a street trials / mountain bike rider for Santa Cruz Bicycles. In April 2009, he released a five-minute street trials video t ...

film The Slabs. The song was jokingly referred to by

Win Butler Edwin Farnham Butler III (born April 14, 1980) is an American-Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and multi-instrumentalist. He co-founded the Montreal-based indie rock band Arcade Fire with his wife Régine Chassagne. Early life Butler was ...

as "Yes Boats Yes" during their gig at the

Hackney Empire Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney. Originally designed by Frank Matcham it was built in 1901 as a music hall, and expanded in 2001. Described by ''The Guardian'' as ‘the most beautiful theatre in Lon ...

on July 7, 2010.

Controversy

"No Cars Go" was used by

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

in a post-halftime montage that aired during its coverage of

Super Bowl XLII Super Bowl XLII was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...

, and for similar segments in other ''

NFL on Fox The ''NFL on Fox'' (also known as ''Fox NFL'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Game coverage is usually preceded by ''Fox NFL Kickoff ...

'' broadcasts throughout the 2007 season. Following the Super Bowl broadcast, the band said it would consider legal action against

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

, claiming that the network did not seek permission to use the song.Digital Spy: Arcade Fire consider FOX legal action
/ref>

Track listing

7" vinyl and digital: # "No Cars Go" (album version) – 5:39 # "Surf City Eastern Bloc" – 6:22

Chart performance

References

{{authority control 2007 singles Arcade Fire songs Songs written by Win Butler Songs written by Régine Chassagne 2007 songs Rough Trade Records singles Merge Records singles Songs about cars