A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How those V-8s used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those pistons dance
And that would keep me happy for a while!

The muscle cars could make you shiver
As they blast past your parents' flivver.
Gas supplies seemed endless;
The Shah was hardly friendless.

But then one day in '73
The papers cried catastrophe
That fateful day was (I could see):
The day horsepower died.

So bye-bye, little Chevy of mine
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Did you see what happened then,
When the Shah got kicked out of Iran?
Jimmy Carter told you why.
Well, did you believe it was all a lie?
That the Middle East thought we'd die
If they just starved us of our oil sup-ply?

Well, I'm sure that they just wanted cash
'Cause you saw the prices quickly crash
It took a couple years,
But it didn't quell the fears...

I got a brand-new Mazda pickup truck
Though I thought the four-banger in it sucked
But hey man, I was out of luck
The day horsepower died.

I started thinking,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Now it's thirty years since the GTO
Which, by its death, was "The Judge" no more
But that's not how it used to be...
The Camaro SS was king of the track,
With the Charger Hemi 440 Six Pak.
AMC ... had the Rebel Machine...

Oh, but while our folks were looking down,
Insurgents usurped the Shah's crown
The White House was disturbed;
Car buyers were perturbed.
And while Honda Civics sold like mad
Those muscle cars had it so bad
And we all moaned that we'd been had
The day horsepower died.

We were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Smaller Impalas had never been made
And could no longer make the grade;
So big cars like it were re-placed...
By gutless little crap com-pacts
That couldn't burn out even on wet grass
And the imports, (no surprise here) kicked our ass.

Now the evening news said it was OK
Just buy a small car right away.
The Ford Pin-to was new,
But get rear-ended and you're screwed!
The U.S. tried to level the field
Because OPEC refused to yield
Do you recall was was revealed
The day horsepower died?

We started singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Oh, and there we were all in one place,
What happened to "Grace, Pace, and Space"?
With no gas left to burn, it seemed.
Come off it, ricing your little Civic
With its inline-four and a five-speed stick
'Cause you think it's cool to hear that thing scream.

Oh, and as I watched you on the street
You thought that car was really neat.
You thought it was pure sex...
Dude! It's just a Civic EX!
And, as you raced a Camaro
I thought I saw your engine blow
But how you beat him, I don't know
The day horsepower died.

You were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

A girl bought a Mustang new;
Except it was a Mustang II
And I just grimaced and turned away.
I went down to the GM store
Where I'd seen the Malibu years before...
Now they're front-drive, V-6 powered, white or gray.
And in the streets were SUVs;
Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys.
Half of them were champagne,
The rest were all just plain beige.
And the three cars I admire most,
The Mustang, Vette, and Camaro,
All were detuned and became slow
The day horsepower died.

And we were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

We were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time.