• Danish Translation
• Farsi Translation

During an interview in which Tyler speaks candidly about the songs on Vessel, he says:

I would say it’s one of my favorites, but honestly my favorite song is always the one I’m working on…but what I like about it is that there’s really no structure to it that is similar to any other song I’ve heard before, in the sense that there’s no chorus. But it makes sense to me. I don’t really remember making decisions on what should happen in that song. It just kind of happened…I think the hardest part of songwriting is you start to second guess yourself. And I’ve learned that good songwriting is all about accidentally happening upon a new idea and having the sense to chase it and go after it. And I think “Car Radio” is a perfect example of that…

The verses are talking about a true story of me being late to class. I was in college trying to do that whole thing because that’s what you’re meant to do I guess, I dropped out after that…the point is, I was late to class and I forgot to lock my door and when I came back out everything had been gutted and stolen out my car. At the time financially I was not able to replace anything that was taken, the GPS, the radio, all my CD’s.

When I get in the car my first reaction is to put the radio on and for a while I wasn’t able to do that and finding out that once I removed that piece of me I realized that sometimes music can act as a distraction and can get in the way of where your mind wants to go.

–Tyler Joseph via Rock Sound:

This action is most likely meant to represent angst, caused by the fact that he’s sitting in silence, alone with his thoughts.

The video may not seem like it’s representing the song in a literal way. Instead, the video uses metaphors to describe what Tyler expresses in the lyrics; shaving his head is one of them.