The Music of My Life – 1987

Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life.  In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.

I would turn 17 in 1987. It was my junior year in high school and I did what I had to do to get by in all my classes except band class. I was completely devoted to band class. I was an officer in band class (I was one of the librarians who helped sort, catalog and distribute music). I often stayed late and practiced with a couple other band nerds.

It was also the year I dated a gal who was kinda sorta toxic. It was an 8 month relationship that really had me messed up. I won’t go into details. We had some good times, but the bad times outweighed them. As I have worked ahead for this feature, I began to notice how some songs really hold some big relationship memories. The power of a song and the memories attached to them aren’t always happy, but I have noticed that there are more happy ones than bad ones.

Off to 1987 and my ten picks …

One of the best concerts I ever attended was Billy Joel and Elton John. There were two piano greats and a night of fantastic music. I am always interested to find out an artist’s hero, or favorite artist. Billy has often said that his favorite was the great Ray Charles. Put the two of them together and you’ve got one very cool song.

According to songfacts.com, when Ray showed up at the session, they met for the first time, and Joel was in awe. To break the ice and get to know each other, they each played piano for a while before recording the song. Whenever Charles would meet someone for the first time, he would touch that person’s face. When he did this to Joel, he said, “relax,” since he could tell Billy was nervous.

In a 1986 promotional interview, Joel said he was sitting at home trying to find inspiration for the song in his surroundings when his baby grand sparked his imagination. “I began looking around at things that have been consistent in my life, and in this age of synthesizers and electronic keyboards the piano has almost become an old-fashioned instrument,” he recalled. “I glanced at the baby grand piano and realized that I had a lot of love for that thing. The piano has provided me with a nice living, a career, and happiness. It’s gotten me women, and it’s gotten me through some strange times.”

He continued: “Sometimes at night I’d sit down and give myself a concert, and it’s almost like the piano did it – I didn’t even have anything to do with it. When I was thinking about a theme for Ray and me, it seemed apropos: you know, Ray Charles, piano player. Billy Joel, piano player. Let’s talk about a real love in our lives – the baby grand. ‘Baby Grand’ is really a love song to an instrument.”

Personally, this is just one of those magical musical songs to me. It’s a bluesy love song played by two talents who love their instrument – and making music. And that is good enough for me.

Baby Grand

I’m sure that every radio market had an adult contemporary station that played love songs at night. Usually, it was hosted by a deep voiced DJ who would smoothly deliver requests and dedications over the air. In Detroit, we had “Pillow Talk” hosted by Alan Almond.

In 1987, I had my driver’s license and I would go out cruising around with my friends. When I began dating, I would often “park” and listen to the love song show. As I was going through songs for this feature, I was overwhelmed by just how many of those songs were nightly staples on that show.

While there were times that my girlfriend and I would make out in a parking lot, there were also a lot of times when we sat and listened to the music and talk. There were a lot of ballads that came out in the mid-80’s. Many of them continue to be played as wedding songs and such.

One song that really stood out on the radio was an instrumental by Kenny G. It was his hit, Songbird. It sounded so out of place, yet perfectly fit. Because it was an instrumental, the DJ would often use it to read those lovey dovey dedications. “Sarah wants Josh to know that she misses him so much tonight.” “William called in to thank Beth for a wonderful first date.” “Deborah wants Tim to know that she is very sorry for the argument they had tonight and wants to dedicate this one to him.”

Fun fact: “Songbird” is all Kenny G – he played every instrument on the track (including the drum programming) and recorded it in his home studio. “I created a whole sound based on what I was hearing inside me,” he told Vanity Fair. “It came out, and Whoa! That’s exactly what I wanted!”

When I hear Songbird, I am reminded of those nights where I thought I was really in love and had no idea what true love was at the time.

Songbird

MTV turned 6 in 1987 and as we have seen in the past few weeks, there were many creative videos to boost record sales. I could list about 50 videos that are forever etched in my brain, and up near the top would be the one for the next song – Doing It All For My Baby.

Mike Duke (who played with the Outlaws) cowrote the song with Philip Cody. They couldn’t get anyone to record it. Mike went on tour with Delbert McClinton and at some point was doing club gigs in Mississippi. Some guys from Huey’s band came in to see the gig and he was playing ‘Doing It All For My Baby.’ The guys in the band said, ‘Wow, we love this song. We’re going to bring it to Huey.’ And they brought it in, and three years after we wrote the song, Huey Lewis & the News recorded the song and put it on their biggest selling album ever.”

The band produced an extended video for the song that lasted almost 8 minutes and resulted an one of the iconic MTV images of the ’80s: the band’s heads on display in glass cases while they sing this song. In the video, the band gets stranded somewhere spooky, and end up in various Frankenstein scenes with Lewis playing Dr. Frankenstein. It was truly one of those “fun” videos!

This song features the Tower of Power Horns. I can’t imagine the song without them!

Doing It All For My Baby

When I used to DJ, I would often play music at the VFW hall that my dad belonged to. I met so many great people there and remain friends with many of them. It was here that I became familiar with a lot of songs that I hadn’t heard before. One of them was my next song.

Jimmy Mac, as he was known to all of us, used to always ask for stuff like Barry White, Deon Jackson and the Whispers. Rock Steady never failed to get people on the dance floor. I started playing it at other gigs afterward and it always worked.

According to songfacts.com, the song was written and produced by the team of L.A. Reid and Babyface. It was one of the first songs the pair worked on for another artist – they were members of the group The Deele at the time. In 1989, they formed LaFace Records and became music moguls as well as hit producers. TLC, OutKast and Pink were all signed to LaFace. It would be their biggest hit, reaching #7 on the chart.

Rock Steady

It has taken me 17 weeks to finally “Rickroll” you. Sorry. Of course, Rickrolling wouldn’t even become a thing until 2007, but you have to admit that the song was an earworm. Once you heard it, it was stuck in your brain for hours. (The same thing happens to me with his song, “Together Forever.” Which is almost the same song, really!)

At the time, however, this was a pretty big thing. I remember it playing at all the high school dances and all the kids dancing to it, well, not me, but you know what I mean. Astley’s story is actually a cool one …

He worked for the British production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s studio for two years. While he was there he was operating tape machines, singing on recordings for other singers, learning the trade and famously making the tea before the production trio wrote and produced this song for him, which became his first hit. It was recorded in October 1986, but wasn’t released until July 1987, as the producers were waiting for the right environment to break a new artist.

It was inspired by a woman Pete Waterman had been seeing for three years. Rick Astley was staying with Waterman at the time, and after a three-hour phone call with the woman, Astley said, “You’re never gonna give her up.” Aitken and Waterman then changed the story a bit and made him the one who was vulnerable. It was the biggest hit of 1987 in the UK, and went to number one here in the states.

I guess the nice thing about this blog is that you don’t have to click on the video, but you KNOW you want to! Do it! Click it!

Never Gonna Give You Up

Time to clear your musical pallet of Mr. Astley. I’ll do it with the phenomenal blending of three beautiful voices.

The group Trio was made up of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. These three ladies were good friends with each other and admirers of each other’s work. The first attempted to record an album together in the mid-1970s, but scheduling conflicts and other difficulties (including the fact that the three women all recorded for different record labels) prevented its release. Record labels were real peculiar about that kind of thing, I guess.

The Trio album was released in March of 1987. One of four singles that was released was called Those Memories of You. This song was recorded by Bill and James Monroe in 1950! Mel Tillis’ daughter, Pam, released a version in 1986 (reaching #55), but the Trio version is the one that was the hit. It was a top 5 song on the Country charts. The video starred a familiar face – actor Harry Dean Stanton.

The Trio album won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

It is one of those songs that I could get lost in the vocals and the harmonies.

Those Memories of You

The next song is on my list because of my brother. He listened to a lot of music in his room, but I can distinctly remember Madonna and Debbie Gibson music playing a lot. If memory serves me right, he saw her in concert a few times. Shake Your Love seems to be the one song from this album that I always heard from down the hall.

Out of the Blue was Debbie’s debut album and Shake Your Love was the second single from it. What is impressive to me is that she wrote every song on this album and was only 16 when the album was released! This and her first single (Only in My Dreams) were both top 5 records for her.

Another 1980’s superstar helped Debbie with the dance moves in the video for this song – Paula Abdul.

Shake Your Love

Desmond Child has written and co-written some very big songs, including You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin’ on a Prayer for Bon Jovi. When a record rep suggested that Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith write a song with him, they were not thrilled.

Child told songfacts.com: Steven was much more friendly, as he is, and was very generous, really, and showed me a song that they had started called ‘Cruisin’ for the Ladies.’ I listened to that lyric, and I said, ‘You know what, that’s a very boring title.’ And they looked at me like, ‘How dare you?’ And then Steven volunteered, sheepishly, and said that when he first wrote the melody he was singing ‘Dude Looks like a Lady.’ It was kind of a tongue twister that sounded more like scatting. He got the idea because they had gone to a bar and had seen a girl at the end of the bar with ginormous blonde rock hair, and the girl turned around and it ended up being Vince Neil from Motley Crue. So then they started making fun of him and started saying, ‘That dude looks like a lady, dude looks like a lady, dude looks like a lady.’ So that’s how that was born. That’s the true story of how that was born. So I grabbed onto that and I said, ‘No, that’s the title of the song.'”

I have always loved the story of how the song came to be. It really became the comeback song for the group, as their last hit was back in 1978. When I first saw Mrs. Doubtfire with Robin Williams and they played this song, I laughed out loud.

Dude Looks Like A Lady

In 1982, George Harrison released his Gone Troppo album and it didn’t do well. It can be said that a lot of his work was well off the mainstream, using unusual instruments and based on Indian music. “Got My Mind Set On You” proved that he could release a song requiring very little thought and send it up the charts. Naturally, many of Harrison’s ardent followers can’t stand this song.

The song was written by Rudy Clark and originally recorded by James Ray in 1962. George had bought a copy of the single in the summer of 1963 when visiting his sister Louise in Illinois. Many years later when he was writing his Cloud Nine album, he remembered the song and decided to cover it.

Songfacts.com says that when Harrison conceived the Cloud Nine album, he looked for a producer who could carry some of the load and not be intimidated by working with a former Beatle. He sought out Jeff Lynne of ELO for the role even though he had never met him – he connected with Lynne by having their mutual friend, Dave Edmunds, get him the message. It ended up being a great fit. Lynne brought his distinctive production sheen to the tracks and helped out writing some of the songs. Lynne’s influence can be heard in the backing vocals of the “Got My Mind Set On You” chorus. Harrison and Lynne are responsible for bringing together Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty, forming The Traveling Wilburys in 1988.

MTV played the video a lot for this song and VH1 had recently gone on the air, so it aired there, too. As simple as this song is, I’ve always loved this one by George.

There were two videos for the song, the first I was unaware of until I stumbled on it for this piece. Both were directed by Gary Weis. The first features a young guy trying to win a ballerina for a gal he sees in an arcade. She is watching the video of George on a kinescope. Here is that video:

Got My Mind Set On You

This second video is the one I am most familiar with. It was inspired by the then-recently released movie – Evil Dead II. As George sits in a study singing, furniture and knick-knacks (including a stuffed squirrel, sentient chainsaw, a suit of armor, and mounted stag and warthog) begin to sing or dance along with the song. FYI, the backflip is performed by a stunt double.

I have made it no secret that I love Roy Orbison’s music. I remember being thrilled that he was making a comeback in the late 80’s. His stuff with the aforementioned Wilburys is so good. His posthumous Mystery Girl album was a fitting sendoff for him.

The original version of crying was recorded in 1961. Roy claimed to have written this as the result of an encounter he had with an old flame with whom he was still in love. He refused to say how much she meant to him, and when he ran into her again it was too late. It has one of the most powerful endings in music, in my opinion.

He claimed the stunning climax at the end of the song was not contrived, but just happened in the course of the song. He told the NME in 1980: “Immediately I thought of a past experience and just retold that, was the way that came about. It was the retelling of a thing with a girlfriend that I had had. I couldn’t tell you right now what notes I hit at the end of the song, or anything.”

In 1987, shortly after he signed with Virgin Records, he recorded a duet of this song with kd lang which was released as a single and later used as the B-side to his 1989 release “She’s A Mystery To Me.” This duet won the 1988 Grammy award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, and was re-released in the UK in 1992, where it hit #13. Lang said that when they met to do the recording, it was obvious that their voices had a “tonal connection.”

I do not disagree with her. To me, the 1961 version is perfection. When I hear it, I am mentally exhausted. It is so moving. How can you top it? Add kd lang. Wow. To say that I was blown away by this version is an understatement. The arrangement and the vocals are just powerful and beautiful at the same time.

There was a time in my life where I could relate to the lyrics of this song. It was a painful time, and the hurt conveyed in the song was very real to me.

Crying

Boy, this week I Rickroll you and end on a sad note. Sorry about that. Next week will be better.

We’ll travel to 1988 next week. It was my senior year, and there are some fun ones on my list. I hope you will come back and check out the list.

What was your favorite from 1987? Drop them in the comments ….