Cars and Girls

"Cars and Girls" by Prefab Sprout plays during Jason and Lucia's conversation with Brian and Lori Heder at a rooftop bar in An Extended Look. By Game Rant's timestamps it starts at 10:39 and runs for about 1 minute 45 seconds, the second-longest song in the video, and IGN counts it among the songs it says are now known to be in the game.

A song about cars that is not a car song

Paddy McAloon wrote "Cars and Girls" in 1985, he told Mojo, and Prefab Sprout released it in February 1988 as the first single from From Langley Park to Memphis. It was a comment on Bruce Springsteen's romantic car imagery: McAloon told NME in 1992 that he wanted to write about someone "listening to Springsteen, and saying 'But our lives aren't like that'". The single stalled at No. 44 on the UK Singles Chart, yet it became one of the band's best-loved songs; Classic Pop calls that peak remarkable.

Kotaku asked podcaster and Prefab Sprout fan Jesse Hawken about the pick. His advice to would-be Vice City bandits borrowed the song's own idea: some things hurt more than cars and girls, and you will understand that at a five-star wanted level.

Why it fits

Brian is a drug runner from the golden age of smuggling in the Keys who still works out of his boat yard, according to Rockstar's profile. Jason and Lucia want the life he seems to have. A song that pokes holes in the dream of fast cars and romance, playing while the couple sit with the man living a worn-out version of that dream, is about as sly as Rockstar's music choices get.

Our take: this is our favorite pick in the Extended Look. GTA has always sold the fantasy of cars, and here Rockstar plays a song that questions that fantasy, in a scene about how far the couple's dream is from reality. It also plays for a long time at a bar, which suggests venues in GTA 6 will have their own music. Where else it plays, and whether it is on a station, Rockstar has not said; we will add that after launch.