The Music of My Life – 2007

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.

Late 2006 and most of 2007 was a blur to me. The loss of my mother hit me hard. I distanced myself from so many people, including my wife at the time. That wasn’t good because the weekend we buried my mom, we found out we were expecting our second son. I was there, but I was not there.

Life goes on, however, and I was still working and DJing. In between all of that, I was seeing a grief counselor, which helped a little. But not much. All that being said, music found a way to get me through the tough times. Let’s look at my 2007 picks.

One of the things that has always remained constant is that people love to dance. Line dances like the Hustle, the Madison, and the Stroll have been getting people on the dance floor for years.

The Cupid Shuffle has been compared many times to the Cha Cha Slide from 2000. They are two very different songs, but they both have easy to follow line dances. Those songs became a staple of DJ gigs, dance clubs, and a night at the bar. It remains one of those songs that people of all ages can dance to. Folks still get excited when there here it play.

Nothing makes a DJ happier than a full dance floor. This one always filled them.

Cupid Shuffle

Honestly, I had forgotten that Michael Buble’ dated Emily Blunt. It seems like she and John Krasinski have been together forever. Michael was her boyfriend before she met and married John. Buble’ wrote the song Everything for Emily when they were still together. He explained:

“I wrote that song about the great happiness of real love, but at the same time I was making a statement about the world. We’re living in really crazy times, and I wanted to say that no matter what’s happening, this person in my life is what really makes it worthwhile.”

In 2009, after Buble’ and Blunt broke up, an Australian newspaper asked him about the song. He explained:

“I can sing ‘Everything’ because I’m OK now. But straight after, well, I didn’t want to listen to music. Forget about my music. I couldn’t do anything. The only good thing I did do was I went and got a therapist. I felt bad for everybody involved. It’s definitely worse cause it’s all done publicly. You go to the grocery store and it’s in every magazine. It’s the same thing that’s happened in my other break-ups. It’s always tough. You grow attached to someone and they become your best friend. You lose a friend – that’s one of the most difficult parts. I’m a sentimental person.”

This one didn’t mean much to me until after Sam and I got together. She is my everything without a doubt.

Everything

There was something about Colbie Caillat for me. I still don’t know whether it is her voice or the words of her songs. I really connected to her music. I remember hearing Bubbly for the first time and trying to figure out just what (or who) it is about. I found out, it isn’t about anyone or anything specific. According to songfacts, Colbie says,

“It’s about the feelings you get when you have a crush on someone and they make you make smile all the time; they give you butterflies and you just adore everything they do.” She added that the inspiration for the song came in the summer of 2006 when she was realizing that, “I didn’t have a crush on anyone, and its always fun to have a crush. So I was just thinking about missing those feelings and wanting them.”

She comes from a musical family. Her father, Ken Caillat produced Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Tusk albums!

Colbie Caillat explained the album title to MTV. “Coco is my nickname,” she said. “My parents called me it since I was a baby. And then my friends called me that, now my producer calls me it. So I just, I don’t know, I figured that would be a cool name for the album.”

She is a beautiful lady with a beautiful voice.

Bubbly

Sara Bareilles signed with Epic Records in 2005 and recorded the album Little Voice. Prior to this, she released a lot of demos. Things changed in a heartbeat thanks to iTunes.

“Love Song” was featured as the free single of the week on iTunes between June 19th and 26th June 2007. People then began to check out her album. Little Voice became the most downloaded album on the iTunes store between July 8th and 17th. Because of this, her music gained a lot of fans. She went from having a relatively small following to national exposure within a very short space of time. In an interview with Songwriter Universe, she commented on the popularity of the song:

“Honestly, I don’t know what it is about ‘Love Song’ that’s catching on with everyone. I think it’s just a cool and sassy uptempo tune and people are ready for a female artist in that range.”

What many people don’t know is that an artist doesn’t always have a lot of control of their music. Many times, they are asked to record something that the label feels is what the public wants. That was sort of the case with Love Song. Sara says,

“‘Love Song’ came out of my own frustration about trying to please somebody else with my music. I really put an unseen pressure on myself and got way too caught up in what other people wanted. That is not why I write songs. No one was really excited about the material I turned in. ‘Love Song’ came on a day where I was like, ‘God, just let me write something – anything – just for me.’ The label had no idea I was writing about them.”

I guess I like this because it does have a “feel” to it. It is as cool and sassy as she says.

Love Song

One of the absolute coolest artists I have ever met is James Otto. When I worked at the Moose he dropped by to play us some tunes and blew us away. One of the songs was “Just Got Started Lovin’ You.” My program director, Jim Johnson, and I looked at each other when he was done playing it and asked if we could start playing it on the air that day!

It was the ultimate smooth love song. When you get married, it’s easy to say I will love you forever. However, when you say, “Hold on to your seat, because I just got started loving you!” In other words, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

James wrote this with Jim Femino and D. Vincent Williams. In an AOL interview, he said,

“We sat down to write and I said, ‘I have got this hook – just got started loving you.’ D. Vincent had this melody line, which turned out to be completely hooky. The feel of that melody and that hook just sounds sexy, but I had no idea it was going to do what it did.”

In regard to the song itself, he says,

“This song is kind of a real groovy, R&B-feeling song. Like if Ray Charles was doing a modern Country record. It would have that R&B-feel to it, that kind of groove to it. It seems to be appealing to more women than men, which is not a bad thing. Actually the key demographic in Country music is women and all men want to reach women. That’s why we play music and buy nice cars and buy nice things, because we want to meet women in the first place. So, I guess it’s just a groovy song, it’s got a unique feel and kind of a sexy thing and hopefully it reaches them on all those levels.”

The song reached #1 in May of 2008. We were thrilled for him and were glad to see him on more than one occasion when he came through town. He and I are friends on Facebook and chat every so often. Over the past year or so he’s been working on rebuilding a late 60’s early 70’s Chevelle. It’s been fun to watch.

Side note: The first time he shook my hand, I thought he’d crush it! His hands were HUGE!

Just Got Started Loving You

The next song is about murder. I don’t promote it and I don’t think it is right. However, anyone who watches the First 48 or any of those cop shows knows that cheating is often a motive for murder.

My introduction to Wake Up Call by Maroon 5 was via video. The video was edited in the style of a NC-17 movie trailer. Naturally, lead singer Adam Levine as the main character. At the end of the video, Levine is arrested and dies in the electric chair. It was one of those videos that I thought was very well done. I like when a video lines up with the content in the song.

Despite the content of the song, I love the song.

Wake Up Call

New Eagles music?! Yes, please! That was my reaction when the song How Long hit my desk. I was working at a country station at the time. There were many people who did not want to play it, but I was super excited to add it. It was so fresh and so “Eagles!” Those harmonies were still fantastic!

From songfacts: “How Long,” was recorded with Don Henley and Glenn Frey sharing lead vocals. The song sounds especially familiar, like it could have come from the 1970s. That’s because it did.

The song was written by the band’s longtime friend J.D. Souther in 1969. Souther wrote many songs for the band (Best of My Love, Heartache Tonight, etc…). The Eagles used to perform it live in the early ’70s, but never recorded it. Souther put it on his first solo album in 1972. At the time, if one member or a cohort released a song, the Eagles wouldn’t do it themselves. However, 35 years separated them from Souther’s version. So they had no problem adding it to the Long Road Out Of Eden album.

We have YouTube to thank for the Eagles recording this song. Glenn Frey’s kids were online watching videos. They came across footage of the Eagles performing “How Long” in 1974 on a Dutch TV show called Pop Gala. They showed it to their dad and had a good laugh. Glenn’s wife suggested he record it with the Eagles. He took the idea to the band and they all got on board.

The album was the band’s first studio album in 28 years. The single didn’t even crack the Hot 100, peaking at #101. That didn’t matter, the song won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals.

I just love this song!

How Long

I’m not the biggest Kenny Chesney fan. I know that will not go over well with some people. I felt that there was a time when he could record a piece of trash song and people would play it. Why? Because he is Kenny Chesney. There were songs that were much better than some of his tunes that never got airplay because stations only played established acts.

With all of that being said, he did have some great songs! Don’t Blink is one of those. It basically says what I have said over and over on this blog – Time flies! Life goes faster than you can imagine.

From songfacts: “Don’t Blink” is a reflective song where Kenny Chesney sings of a TV news story where a 102-year-old man is asked about the secret to his longevity. The man’s response is “don’t blink,” which inspired the song’s message about slowing down and cherishing every moment. So very true!

For me, having children sped up the clock of time. It just goes faster when you have children. Before you know it, you blink and they go from toddlers to high school graduates.

Don’t Blink

Leona Lewis is one of those artists who appeared on a reality singing show. She won The X-Factor in February of 2008. She waited almost a year before putting out this song. Songfacts says, the 22-year-old from Islington took her time over the follow up and accompanying album. She didn’t want to rush out a record that might disappoint all her fans who supported her on the show. It was worth the wait. In its debut week “the single “Bleeding Love” sold 218,000 copies, the biggest total for any UK single since “A Moment Like This.” In it’s debut week it outsold the rest of the UK top five put together.

“Bleeding Love” was originally intended for Jesse McCartney’s third album, Departure. However record label boss Clive Davis heard the song and wanted it for Leona Lewis, who he was championing. McCartney said: “We originally wrote the song for my record and then I guess Clive Davis heard it, called up and said, ‘We really wanna use it for her album.'” Jesse co-wrote the song with OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder.

Jesse McCartney revealed that his songwriting inspiration for this song was the pain of a long distance relationship (specifically actress Katie Cassidy, daughter of singer David Cassidy). He said: “I kept thinking about being in love so much that it hurts. I was away from my girlfriend for four months at the time and I really wanted to throw in the towel (quit) and fly home. I was so in love that it was painful. It was like bleeding, it cut me open. That’s how my head was and that idea just really fit the song.”

Bleeding Love

When Taylor Swift first came out, I was impressed with her stuff. There were some really deep songs for a gal that young. I suppose I knew when they started remixing her songs for pop radio that she’d wind up leaving behind the format that made her famous.

There were some great songs from that debut album, and Our Song is no exception. AOL asked her if there was a true story behind this song. She replied:

“I wrote this song in my freshman year of high school for my ninth grade talent show. I was sitting there thinking, ‘I’ve gotta write an upbeat song that’s gonna relate to everyone.’ And at that time, I was dating a guy and we didn’t have a song. So I wrote us one, and I played it at the show. Months later, people would come up to me and say, ‘I loved that song that you played.’ And then they’d start singing lines of it back to me. They’d only heard it once, so I thought, ‘There must be something here!'”

Her debut album went Platinum on June 7, 2007. This made the 17-year-old Swift the first female solo artist to write or co-write every song on a Platinum-selling debut album. The album eventually went 7x Platinum.

When this reached #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, Swift became the youngest performer ever to write and sing a chart-topping Country single.

This made my list because of my wife and me. We’ll be married 7 years in March. Would you believe we do not have a song?!

Our Song

So that wraps up 2007. What songs did I miss that are on your list? List them in the comments.

Next week, we’ll move into 2008. My list includes two fantastic parent songs, a counting song, a couple songs that make you ponder, a song with a great sample, one that I came to love because of the Rock Band video game, and a song for the guys. I thank you for listening and reading!

See you next week.

The Music of My Life – 1988

1988 was a very big year for me. It was the year I graduated from high school. It was also the year that I landed my first radio job. As graduation day grew closer, I began counting all of the “lasts.” The last marching band performance. The last band concert. The last final exam. To say that I was an emotional wreck would be an understatement.

After graduation, I had a full time radio gig (making a whopping $12 an hour) and so I gave up thinking about doing anything else. I was that clueless to think that I’d have this radio gig until I retired. Can you imagine? Typical 18 year-old!

I mentioned last week that 1988’s list would present some songs that may or may not seem out of place. I suppose that those who know me well will not be surprised by the songs I picked, and there certainly is a variety! Well, I suppose I should get right into the tunes …

I have to remind myself that it is not Movie Music Monday, because my list includes not one, but two songs from the soundtrack to Tom Cruise’s film, Cocktail. My buddy Steve and I cruised a lot our senior year. He was always bringing new music for me to listen to. I am almost positive that he was the one who told me about the Georgia Satellites’ version of the Hippy Hippy Shake.

The version I was familiar with was done by the Swinging Blue Jeans, and was a song we played at my first radio station. I had no idea that the song was written and recorded first by Chan Romero in 1959. Anyway, when I hear the Satellites’ version really rocks and it was a great song to cruise to.

Hippy Hippy Shake

In 1987, the song La Bamba was a hit again. This time it was Los Lobos from the soundtrack to the hit movie starring Lou Diamond Phillips. It made for the perfect parody song for Weird Al Yankovic. His version was called, Lasagna. Now, what Italian wouldn’t like this song?!

It is on my list because when my dad booked my graduation party, he also gathered up a few of his band friends. He had the sax guy, keyboard guy, and bass guy come. It was either my cousin or my uncle who brought their drum kit, and my dad brought his guitar. No rehearsal, all they had was some lyric sheets with chords on them and they jammed through the whole party. It was awesome!

My dad played so many great blues songs. Everyone seemed to take turns singing something. My dad called me, and my friends Steve and Joe up to the stage and handed us the lyrics to Weird Al’s Lasagna. I’m guessing it didn’t take much coaxing for us to sing, and it was probably awful. However, it is a great memory of me and my pals.

Lasagna

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, they say. Robert Palmer had great success with his Addicted to Love video. So he brought back the models from the previous music video for this one. Only this time they’ve multiplied! Five of them do choreographed dance moves, but another eight stand behind Palmer looking bored. It worked, though, as Palmer won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male for this song. It was the same award he won two years earlier for “Addicted To Love.”

Songfacts.com says: The big, sexy hook in this song is the pause after Palmer sings, “Now I find her.” After some drumbeats, he comes back with “…simply irresistible.” The song was in the works for three years before Palmer came up with this part, making the song complete. “A little thing like that makes the difference between an idea and the complete song,” he wrote in his Addictions: Volume 1 liner notes, adding, “I like the manic military rhythm and the strong counter melody.”

This was yet another song that made it to our “cruising cassettes.” It was another great sing along song for us.

Simply Irresistible

My next song is one that I always thought was very creative. I Hate Myself for Loving You is such a great line. I relate to in in a few ways. As a young punk, I kinda fell for gals pretty hard. I let many of them treat me bad and I just kept hanging on with them. I always felt that I would just keep on loving them through it all. Yeah, I was an idiot. Today, that title makes me smile and makes me think of young Keith, who just wanted to make someone happy.

Thanks to Songfacts, I learned that that wasn’t originally the title: Joan Jett’s producer Kenny Laguna told us that Joan came up with the guitar riff for this song and wrote it as “I Hate Myself Because I Can’t Get Laid.” She took it to the writer/producer Desmond Child, who thought the title would never fly and convinced Joan to change it to something with “Love” in the title. Child, who got a co-writing credit on the song.

I Hate Myself For Loving You

The next song is the only country song on my list. I am guessing that I never really heard this when it was released, and became familiar with it a year or so after when I had my first stint at a country station.

I was familiar with the Oak Ridge Boys, of course. I mean, who wasn’t? Elvira was all over the radio when it was out. They guys had great harmonies and when I first heard Gonna Take a Lot of River, that is what stood out to me. This would have been sometime in 1991, when my girlfriend had broken up with me.

That being said, the lyrics now really hit home. I spent a lot of time at the beach and on the pier watching the waves during that time. So the lines “Because my baby’s long gone and nothings going my way. I’m gonna let this muddy water just wash away my blues.” resonated with me.

Today, when I hear it I just love listening to the harmonies and fumble every time I try to say, “Monongahela.”

Gonna Take a Lot of River

The variety of songs continues …

1988 brought us the only acapella song to go to number one in the United States. It is the second song from the Cocktail soundtrack. Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin was unlike anything on the radio at the time. Bobby recorded it using only his body to make all the sounds. The simple message and unusual sound made it a surprise hit.

The inspiration for the song came from a poster that Bobby saw featuring the Indian guru Meher Baba. It simply said, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Bobby says that when he saw it he thought it was “a pretty neat philosophy in four words.” If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, Don’t Worry, Be Happy in 1988 alone, I’d be financially set for life.

The video was a silly one and a received lots of airplay on MTV. It featured Robin Williams and the lesser-known comedian Bill Irwin (who plays Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street). It is interesting to note that the video is a bit shorter than the single.

I always think of my best friend, Jeff, when I hear this one. He would always say the line, “I’ll give you my phone number, when you worry, call me, I’ll make you happy.” We found that line hilarious for some reason.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

The next song was something I heard while cruising with my girlfriend. I’m sure we were listening to that Love Song show (Pillow Talk). It grabbed me from the intro. It was a smooth groove that reminded me of some old Atlantic or Stax soul songs. I was surprised to learn it was Glenn Frey.

Glenn’s Soul Searching album was his third solo album. I picked up the album because of the song True Love. My feelings about the song were justified when I read the liner notes. Frey wrote of the song “For those of you who have my previous albums, I apologize. I just can’t shake my obsession with this Al Green-Memphis thing. Like Wilson Pickett says, ‘Don’t fight it’.” Cash Box magazine even called the song: “a classic R&B tune replete with hornbreaks and soul-tinged arrangement and production.”

My favorite part of the song is the fake ending. After a second or two, the drum kicks back in and the sax wails away at a solo. Love this song. I wish the video would have started with the song instead of the cheesy acting by the actors … LOL

True Love

Who would have thought that Tom Jones would have a career boost in 1988?! Tom enjoyed great success in the mid 60’s and the 1970’s. He never really stopped making records and was always on tour. In the early 1980s, Jones started to record country music. From 1980 to 1986, he had nine songs in the US country top 40, yet failed to crack the top 100 in the UK or the Billboard Hot 100.

Prince had recorded Kiss in 1986. The song was a big hit and continues to be played in a regular rotation on Adult Contemporary stations all over the country. I know that many will not agree with me when I say that Prince’s version sounds weak compared to the Tom Jones/Art of Noise version. Tom commands the song and I cannot love it more!

According to Songfacts, after his country songs, he “made a left-field decision to cover this song, and in doing so revived his career. He told the Observer Music Monthly December 2008 how this came about: “If I hear a song I like I’ll do it in the show, so when I heard this I sang it (Kiss) in an R&B style. Then I was due to go on Jonathan Ross’s program in 1987 to perform the ballad ‘A Boy From Nowhere,’ and he wanted something upbeat too. My philosophy has always been: when in doubt, do ‘Great Balls of Fire.’ But Jonathan asked if I had anything new. Art of Noise were watching and they asked if I’d do a version with them. When they sent me the finished version I thought: ‘If this isn’t a hit, I’ll bloody well pack it all in.’ It was a busting hit.”

Tom tells a great story about Prince. When he met Prince and thanked him for the song, but didn’t ask what his thought of his version, as he wasn’t sure he would like the answer. “I saw a movie once that Bette Midler did called The Rose,” Jones said in a Songfacts interview. “She goes to see Harry Dean Stanton, a country singer, because she’d recorded one of his songs. She says she’s a big fan of his, and just before she walks out the door he says, ‘Could I say one thing to you? Don’t you ever record one of my songs again. ‘That hit home. I thought, s–t, I’m never going to ask a songwriter what he or she thinks of my version. I’ll leave that to them. That always sticks in my mind. So I just thanked him for writing it.”

Fun fact: Prince and Tom Jones were both born on the same day, the 7th of June (Prince in 1958, Jones in 1940)

Kiss

I am sure that I have talked about the next song before. I am also sure that I talked about the album before. It was truly a monumental event!

From Songfacts: Handle With Care was the first single from The Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup created by George Harrison and Jeff Lynne. Initially an informal grouping with Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, they got together at Bob Dylan’s Santa Monica, California, studio to quickly record an additional track as a B-side for the single release of Harrison’s song “This Is Love.” “Handle With Care” was the song they came up with, which Harrison and his record company immediately realized was too good to be released as merely a B-side. The five superstars decided to form a band and make an entire album, recording nine more songs at Dave Stewart’s (of Eurythmics) house in Los Angeles in a 10-day window when they were all available.

This was the only video that included Roy Orbison. A short time after the album was released, he passed away of a heart attack. I was working at the radio station the morning that news of his passing came across the news wire. I will never forget that.

Handle With Care

When I was DJing parties and weddings, I would often find out about new dance songs from people who made requests. Many of the songs were line dances like the Cupid Shuffle or Cha Cha Slide. Over the years, I was introduced to The Biker Shuffle, The Turbo Hustle, The Dougie and many others that way. I was always surprised at how they would fill the dance floor.

I remember someone asking for a song called Da Butt and I laughed. It was from a Spike Lee movie, but I had never heard of it. That week, I stopped by a DJ supply store and there on one of the many compilation CD’s they made was Da Butt by a group called EU. I bought it, took it home and gave it a listen.

It certainly had a funkiness to it and I could see how this might be something that people could dance to. It didn’t take long to find out because I had a wedding the following weekend. Once I started the song, the crowd screamed and got on the dance floor. Before I knew it, everyone was shaking their rear end. I would use this song a lot over the years.

I always think of one of my college instructors when I hear this because I DJ’d a birthday party for one of her kids and SHE was the one who asked me to play it.

I would often get out on the dance floor with these poster board signs I had made for my gigs. I had one that said “Oh-We-Oh. Whoa-Oh” and I would hold it up for audience participation during that part of the song. While it is not the most family friendly song, it did give me a chance to have some fun at a lot of DJ gigs.

Da Butt

I couldn’t let this year pass without touching on one of the big controversies of the year. In June of 1988, Gail Brewer-Giorgio released a book called “Is Elvis Alive?” Along with the book, there was a cassette tape with alleged phone conversations that Elvis had with someone long after he was supposed to have died.

This played right into the rumor in the music industry was that Elvis had faked his death. In the years following his death, there were many sightings of him (including my home state of Michigan – at a Kalamazoo Burger King), and in late 1988 record label LS Records released “Spelling on the Stone” to capitalize on the popularity of the phenomenon. According to LS Records owner Lee Stoller, who produced the song, his daughter Tammy received the recording in August 1988 from an anonymous man who arrived at the label’s offices in a limousine. After obtaining distribution rights, LS Records released the song on radio by the end of 1988, with the single’s release not crediting an artist. The song’s title refers to the fact that Presley’s middle name, Aron, is misspelled as “Aaron” on his tombstone, which was a common argument against his death at the time. The song features an uncredited vocalist with a delivery similar to Presley’s; it tells a first-person narrative, purportedly from his perspective, to suggest that he had faked his death.

Some people claim that the impersonator is actually a guy named Dan Willis, who recorded at LS Records. Others think it really is Elvis. I say Balderdash …

Bonus Song: Spelling On the Stone

1988 had so many great songs. There have been times I wonder if I should pick 15 instead of 10. I know that in future years, I will struggle to pick 10, so I won’t. What one of your favorite 1988 hits did I miss? Mention it in the comments.

Next week we move to 1989. The list isn’t as all over the place like this one and includes some great songs. Join me next week and we’ll give them a listen….

The Music of My Life – 1984

1984 was a big year for me. It was a year of change as I started high school that year. It was also the year that the Detroit Tigers won the World Series! What an amazing year!

Musically, it was the year of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Weird Al’s Eat It, and Prince had a few hits, too. As I looked over the list from ’84, there are a lot of “staple” 80’s hits from this year. Alas, not too many of those made my list. I apologize to fans of A-ha.

My first pick is one of a few songs that I could feature on my Music Movie Monday feature because it comes from a great soundtrack. Beverly Hills Cop was huge here in Michigan because Eddie Murphy plays a Detroit cop. But there is another Detroit connection as well…

According to songfacts.com: “The Heat Is On” was written for the film by Harold Faltermeyer (who also wrote Axel F for the film) and Keith Forsey, and they needed a popular artist to sing it. The Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack album was on MCA Records, which Glenn Frey recently signed with. MCA asked several of their male rock singers to audition for the lead vocal for the song. At first Frey thought this wasn’t something “rock stars” did, but he decided to go along, just for fun, never thinking they’d pick him. Harold Faltermeyer was impressed by Frey’s vocal (the instrumental tracks were already recorded) and shocked Frey by using his version. It was Frey’s biggest solo hit, reaching #2 in the US.

The other Detroit connection? Glenn Frey was born and raised in Detroit where he played in bands with names like The Mushrooms and Subterraneans before heading to Los Angeles and joining the Eagles.

The Heat Is On

I have already mentioned Thriller by Michael Jackson. Spoiler Alert: It isn’t on my list. However, you gotta admit that the video was pretty darn good, right? I mean it was all over MTV and people still copy the dance for it at weddings and such. But would you believe that it did NOT win the first-ever Video of the Year award at MTV’s Video Music Awards? So what video did?

That honor went to You Might Think by The Cars! Today a video like this would be pretty easy to make, however, the video was very advanced for the time and was one of the first to use computerized effects. Singer/guitarist Ric Ocasek’s image appeared in various animated scenes – he would show up as a fly, climbing the Empire State Building, just about anywhere to get the attention of the girl. (The object of his affection was played by model Susan Gallagher.) When the video was first aired, it was done so without the fly – because technically, the video’s effects were not done.

The song was released in February 1984, as the first single from their Heartbeat City album. “You Might Think” peaked at number seven in the United States. This is one of those videos that I always got a laugh out of. It seemed so silly to me. It was directed by Jeff Stein (who was famous for other videos). He thought The Cars were a boring live band so he used digital trickery to get around that. I think it worked.

You Might Think

The next song is the “love theme” from the movie Footloose. You may remember in one of my past posts about Footloose that Dean Pitchford not only wrote the screenplay for the movie, but he wrote all the lyrics to all the songs (some with co-writers). He wrote Almost Paradise with Eric Carmen.

The Footloose producers wanted it to be a duet. They knew that they wanted Heart’s Ann Wilson for their female voice. They contacted Wilson, and asked her for a list of preferred duet partners. Her list included Paul Rodgers and Lou Gramm, but it was Mike Reno (the lead singer for Loverboy) – not on the list – who was chosen.

They recorded the song together at a session in Chicago with Keith Olsen, who had worked on Heart’s Passionworks album and also the 1975 Fleetwood Mac album, producing. At the time, Ann was nursing a broken wrist, but stayed off her painkillers so she wouldn’t be compromised during the session. They put their vocals down over the track that had already been recorded, then went their separate ways. She thought it was a great song, but was still surprised it was released as a single. She was even more surprised when it became a staple of proms and weddings.

That is the reason the song is on my list. I was a junior in high school and was dating a senior. She asked me to go to her prom, which was titled “Almost Paradise.” I think it was their class song, I don’t know for sure. I remember this would have been in 1987, so the song was a few years old by then. With every ticket, the student received a wine glass with the Almost Paradise logo on it. LOL – it didn’t take long for the school to stop giving away wine glasses!

Almost Paradise

Huey Lewis was a big part of my high school days! My buddy Steve and I loved cruising around and listening to Huey’s albums. This was one I loved the minute I heard it. As a lover of oldies and the Rock and Roll greats, I heard it as a “hat tip” to them and their influence on music.

In a 2013 Billboard interview, Huey said they song found its roots in Cleveland. “‘The Heart of Rock & Roll’ was written driving out of Cleveland. We’d heard that Cleveland was this great rock and roll town, and we’re from San Francisco – how can Cleveland be anything? We went to play the Agora Ballroom and had this amazing gig. On the bus out of town I was looking at the skyline of Cleveland and I said, ‘You know what boys? The heart of rock and roll really is in Cleveland. Hey, that’s a pretty good song title. Later I thought it through and went, ‘The heart of rock and roll is still beating’. The idea is that, although the music business is in New York and LA, good rock and roll is where you find it.”

Sports was one of my favorite albums back then. I had it on vinyl to play at home and on cassette to play in the car. The Heart of Rock and Roll the third of five singles from Sports, the third Huey Lewis & the News album. All of the singles were hits, and the album went on to sell over 7 million copies in America, putting the band of firm financial footing for the first time, which was very important to them – these guys were all in their 30s and had been working in music since the early ’70s.

The Heart of Rock and Roll

My dad was really involved in the local Vietnam Veteran’s chapter when I was in high school. As we got older, me and some of the guys would go up to their events. They often had cook outs, holiday dances, and fund raisers. I met so many great people at these events and came to love hanging out with them. My dad would spin records for the group.

Along with many oldies he would play songs like “Some Gave All,” “Goodnight, Saigon,” and “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” But it was always at the end of the night that my dad would play God Bless the USA. The first time I witnessed this, I choked up. Everyone in the building gathered on the dance floor and held hands. They would sing this song at the top of their lungs and raise their hands in the air. It was truly moving.

This song holds a special place in my heart for those friends.

God Bless The U.S.A.

The videos of many songs will forever be what I think of when I hear them. We’re Not Gonna Take It is a great example. I remember thinking it was cool that “the guy who played Niedermeyer in Animal House” was the dad in this video!

According to Dee Snider, he started writing this song in 1980, two years before Twisted Sister released their first album, Under the Blade. He had the hook, but couldn’t come up with a verse melody. After Def Leppard released their Pyromania album in 1983, Snider came up with a plan. “In studying some of Mutt Lange’s work with Def Leppard, I saw that a number of their songs were using variations on the chorus as a verse. That gave me the information I needed to come up with the rest of ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It.'”

Songfacts.com perfectly describes the song this way: “This is the mighty anthem for anyone lashing out at an authority figure and ready to put up a fight. The song is short on specifics, so it can apply to just about any situation where “we” are battling “the powers that be.” This all-purpose approach was intentional and gave the song a timeless quality.“

We’re Not Gonna Take It

When I first moved to Mid-Michigan, I discovered that there was a local hockey team. The Flint Generals played in a sports arena that held like 3000 people. There wasn’t a bad seat in the place. I loved being able to see these guys slam up against the glass. It was great!!

When the Generals disbanded, the public hoped for hockey to continue. They would up bringing in a hockey team that was made up of college aged kids and the team was called The Michigan Warriors.

The hockey was a bit less violent, but it was still hockey. I always loved a night out at the games. When they would introduce the members of the team (and at the end of each game) they always played Scandal’s The Warrior.

The Warrior

The next song is one that I always liked because the hook is catchy and it had a cool sax part. Sadly, it is also the subject of one of the biggest flubs I ever did on the air.

Released in August of 1984, “Smooth Operator” was the breakout hit in America for Sade, who were based in England. Their debut album, Diamond Life, was first issued in 1984 in the UK, where “Smooth Operator” was the third charting single. In the US, the album was released in 1985, with “Hang On To Your Love” as the first single. It went nowhere, but the next single, “Smooth Operator,” rose to #5 and earned the group a reputation as an exotic soulful act with a captivating frontwoman.

One night I was working at WMXD and I came out of the song and realized that I had never known who sang it. I looked at the music log and read, “Sade.” So that’s what I called her – “Sade” (Say-d). The phones lit up and people were either making fun of me or asking why I was playing songs when I couldn’t even pronounce the name of the artist! I was embarrassed. I had no idea until I pulled the CD out of the player and saw the writing ….

What a dope!!

Smooth Operator

Sea of Love was a song that I heard often on the oldies station. Phil Phillips had recorded it in 1959 and it was a top 5 hit. The song was covered by Robert Plant’s Honeydrippers in 1984. They truly were a rock and roll supergroup – Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Paul Schaffer, Nile Rogers and other greats appeared in the group.

They only released one EP, The Honeydrippers: Volume One. Sea of Love took their remake all the way up to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. I love the orchestration of this version so much. The EP is worth a listen – Rockin’ At Midnight would go to #25. The success of the songs led Plant to say that a full album would be released, but it never came to be.

Sea of Love

My final pick is one that is really embarrassing. So why is it here? Because the minute I saw it as a released single, the chorus became an ear worm and stuck in my head. If I have to walk around singing it over and over, you may as well, too!

My 14 year old self loved novelty records. I had Spike Jones, Weird Al, and many more in my collection. When I first heard this “rap” song, I laughed like hell. When I ran to the store to get the single, I remember thinking how cool it was that I got the 12 inch vinyl record. It had the single, an extended mix, and on the B-side an instrumental.

As I listened to this before adding it officially to my list, I thought, “What in the world did I like about this song?! It really is kinda dumb.” At the same time, all these years later, there are still people I know who will break into a chorus of “Duh Ha, Duh Ha! Duh Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha..”

Yep, that gives it away. I was a fan of the Rappin’ Duke by Shawn Brown. Do I really need to go into any history on this one? Probably not. Forgive me for the earworm….

Rappin’ Duke

Next week I’ll take a look at 1985 and how some of those songs connect to my life. Movie music will be in there for sure, a tribute to some legends, the first slow song I remember dancing to, and maybe a song I have featured once before on this blog. See you next week!

The Music of My Life – 1979

1979 is a year where I was surprised to find many of the songs that wound up on my mom’s ballad 8-track tape. I could easily have posted all of those songs in this blog, but then you would fall asleep listening to them, just like my brother and I did on our way up north. Instead, I will list them at the end of this blog, and if you wish, you can search them on YouTube.

So let’s begin with the first of two “out of place” or “odd” songs….

The first song is part of the soundtrack of my summer of 1979. The song seemed to be playing in a very hot rotation and was always on the radio when we were up at my grandparents place.

Frank Mills wrote and recorded “Music Box Dancer” in 1974, but it did not become a Canadian single until December 1978. By Christmas of that year, it was in the top ten of many European and Asian pop music charts. It was released as a single in the United States in January 1979 and got up to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.

In 1974, Mills released an album that featured the song, but it was not initially a hit. When he re-signed with Polydor Records Canada in 1978, the label released a new song as a single, with “Music Box Dancer” on the B-side. Because of a mistake, a single of “Music Box Dancer” found its way into the hands of a pop station in Ottawa – the single was only supposed to go out to adult contemporary stations. The station’s program director listened to the A-side and wondered why it was sent to him. He played the B-side and liked what he heard anyway and began airing it in rotation. Next thing you know, the album’s gone gold in Canada.

Music Box Dancer

The next song makes the list because it was on the iPod of my ex. My oldest son used to take it and listen to it all the time and I can still hear him in his toddler voice singing the chorus of this one.

Hot Stuff is a single that was on Donna Summer’s 7th studio album, Bad Girls. The song is unique in that while many consider it disco, many others consider it rock. As a matter of fact, when the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance category was added at the Grammy Awards in 1980, Donna Summer won for “Hot Stuff.”

The song has ties to other music as well. It was written by Pete Bellotte, Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey. Bellotte co-wrote a few other hits for Summer, including “Love To Love You Baby” and ” Heaven Knows.” Faltermeyer had a solo hit in 1984 with the theme from Beverly Hills Cop, “Axel F” and Forsey’s credits include “Don’t You Forget About Me” for Simple Minds and “Shakedown” for Bob Seger.

This was Summer’s second #1 hit on the Hot 100; her first was her disco cover of “MacArthur Park.”

Hot Stuff

Here is a song that is missing one of the things the band is known for. Don’t Bring Me Down was the first ELO song that did not use strings. According to Songfacts, after recording it, they fired their string section, leaving four members in the band.

ELO leader Jeff Lynne wrote this song late in the sessions for the “Discovery” album. He came up with the track by looping the drums from a song he recorded earlier in the session, then coming up with more music on the piano. The words came last, as Lynne put together some lyrics about a girl who thinks she’s too good for the guy she’s with.

Here’s a fun fact: Wanna know why Jeff Lynne repeatedly sings the word “groose” after the song’s title line? Apparently it was a made-up place-keeper word to fill a gap in the vocals when he was improvising the lyrics. When the German engineer Reinhold Mack heard the ELO frontman’s demo, he asked Lynne how he knew “gruss” means “greetings” in his country’s language. Upon learning the German meaning, Lynne decided to leave it in.

Don’t Bring Me Down

“Hey Ringo, play something hot!”

Those are the words that Rodney Dangerfield’s character in Caddyshack says to the band at the snobbish country club as he throws money at them. As the money falls, the band plays the opening 5 note stings from Boogie Wonderland from Earth Wind and Fire (With the Emotions). I’ve always loved that song because of the movie connection.

The song, while it is upbeat and happy sounding, it really isn’t. Songfacts calls it one of the more complex and misinterpreted songs of the disco era. Written by Jon Lind and Allee Willis, it was inspired by the movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar, which stars Diane Keaton as a lost soul who goes to clubs every night to dance away her misery.

Willis says, “When I saw Mr. Goodbar, I got kind of fascinated with people who did go to clubs every night, whose life was kind of falling apart, but they lived for the night life, though it didn’t seem to be advancing them as humans in the end. So if you really look at the lyrics of ‘Boogie Wonderland,’ unlike ‘September,’ it’s not a happy song at all. It’s really about someone on the brink of self destruction who goes to these clubs to try and find more, but is at least aware of the fact that if there’s something like true love, that is something that could kind of drag them out of the abyss. So ‘Boogie Wonderland’ for us was this state of mind that you entered when you were around music and when you danced, but hopefully it was an aware enough state of mind that you would want to feel as good during the day as you did at night.”

Boogie Wonderland

The second “out of place” or “odd” song is also a movie song. It may seem like a very simple kid song, but if you listen to what the songwriter says about it, the song is deeper than you can imagine.

This was written by songwriters Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher for The Muppet Movie, which came out in 1979. In the film, it is sung by Kermit The Frog as the Muppets set out to find adventure. In a interview Williams said: “Rainbow Connection was the first number in The Muppet Movie. It’s the one that establishes the lead character. We find Kermit sitting in the middle of the swamp. Kenny Ascher and I sat down to write these songs, and we thought… Kermit, he’s like ‘every frog.’ He’s the Jimmy Stewart of frogs. So how do we show that he’s a thinking frog, and that he has an introspective soul, and all that good stuff? We looked at his environment, and his environment is water and air – and light. And it just seemed like it would be a place where he would see a rainbow. But we also wanted to show that he would be on this spiritual path, examining life, and the meaning of life.

It tells you that he’s been exposed to culture: ‘Why are there so many songs about rainbows?’ Which means, obviously, he’s heard a lot of songs. This is a frog that’s been exposed to culture, whether it’s movies, or records, or whatever. And I also like the fact that it starts out with the negative: ‘Rainbows are only illusions, rainbows have nothing to hide.’ So the song actually starts out as if he’s going to pooh-pooh the whole idea, and then it turns: ‘So we’ve been told, and some choose to believe it. I know they’re wrong, wait and see.’ And again, he doesn’t have the answer: ‘Someday we’ll find it.'”

Now, with that in mind, give this masterpiece a listen!

Rainbow Connection

Next is my “go-to” Karaoke song. I’ve always loved the line, “You had me down 21 to zip, the smile of Judas on your lip.” What a great line. Bad Case of Loving you was written by Moon Martin who released the original version on his 1978 album Shots From a Cold Nightmare. Martin is a singer/guitarist/songwriter with his band Southwind. When the group broke up in 1971, he took on studio work. He paired up with Linda Ronstadt, and played on her self-titled album. He nearly joined some of Ronstadt’s other backing musicians in a little band called the Eagles, but ended up a solo artist and signed a deal with Capitol Records.

Martin’s album got some good reviews but went nowhere on the charts. A song called “Hot Nite In Dallas” was chosen as a single, but “Bad Case Of Loving You” was only given limited release in Europe. Enter Robert Palmer. He heard the song when he was being driven to one of his shows by a rep from his label, who played it for him. Palmer included it in his set and got a great response, so he recorded it for his Secrets album.

Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)

In 1989, Palmer released a remix of this song for his Addictions: Volume 1 greatest hits album. “Looking back at the 1978 original the performance was there but someone was asleep at the mixing desk,” he wrote in the liner notes. “The original mix in comparison sounded like a band rehearsing in a garage and this sounds like the finished song.” I can’t listen to the original cut much anymore. The remix is SO MUCH better!

I LOVE good harmonies. This song kicks right off with a cold open and the amazing a cappella harmony of The Little River Band. Most of the band’s hits were written by founding members Graham Goble, Beeb Birtles or Glenn Shorrock, but “Lonesome Loser” was written by guitarist David Briggs, who joined in 1976 after the band’s second album.

The lyric uses a lot of gambling imagery to tell the story of the lonesome loser, who staked his heart and lost. His adversary is the “Queen of Hearts,” who will always win this game of love. The same year this song was released (1979), Dave Edmunds had a UK hit with a song called “Queen of Hearts” that used the same metaphor. That song, of course, became an American hit when Juice Newton covered it in 1981.

Lonesome Loser

Speaking of great harmonies and the Eagles, the next song features both. Heartache Tonight was written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey with Bob Seger and J.D. Souther. Songfacts says: When Frey was a 19-year-old in Detroit, Seger took him under his wing and got his music career started. Souther, who is sometimes considered an “Unofficial Eagle,” was the first person Frey met when he moved to Los Angeles in the late-’60s. J.D. Souther, told us how this song started: “Glenn Frey and I had been listening to Sam Cooke records at my house. So we were just walking around clapping our hands and snapping fingers and singing the verses to those songs. The melody sounds very much like those Sam Cooke shuffles. There’s not much to it. I mean, it’s really just two long verses. But it felt really good.”

Bob Seger’s contribution to this song was the chorus. JD Souther says, “We didn’t get to a chorus that we liked within the first few days, and I think Glenn was on the phone with Seger, and he said, ‘I wanna run something by you,’ and sang it to him, and Seger just came right in with the chorus, just sang it and it was so good. Glen called me and said, ‘Is four writers okay on this?’ And I said, ‘Sure, if it’s good.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, it’s great. Seger just sang this to me,’ and he sang it to me and I said, ‘That’s fantastic.'”

According to Seger, he was in the room with Glenn Frey when he came up with the chorus. He told Entertainment Weekly: “Glenn had the verse: ‘Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through.’ We hadn’t been sitting down for more that five minutes and I just blurted out, ‘There’s gonna be a heartache tonight!’ His eyes lit up huge.”

Heartache Tonight

The next song is one that I used to hear on the way home from elementary school. I had a buddy who got a ride home every day and his mom would often give me a lift, too. Keep in mind the ride home was 5 to 7 minutes tops, but it always seemed to be on the radio when we were in the car.

Freddie Mercury wrote Crazy Little Thing Called Love while Queen was recording The Game in Germany. He wrote it while taking a bubble bath in his room at the Munich Hilton. Peter Hince, the head of Queen’s road crew, recalled to Mojo magazine September 2009: “The idea for the song came to him while he was in the bath. He emerged, wrapped in a towel, I handed him the guitar and he worked out the chords there and then. Fred had this knack of knowing a great pop song.”

Freddie acknowledged that perhaps his limited talent on the guitar helped shape the song:

On stage, this was an important part of the show. Brian May often used three different guitars during the song: the first verse was played by Freddie alone with his guitar, then Brian joined with another Ovation Acoustic; before the third verse he had already switched to a Telecaster on which he performed the solo. During the singalong part (famous for its “ready Freddie” line) Brian again changed instruments to his homemade Red Special. From 1984 onwards Mercury replaced the acoustic with another Telecaster.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

The final selection comes from a band who was formed on Valentines Day of 1977 in Detroit. That is what inspired their name – the Romantics.

Believe it or not, the band have only two US Top 40 hits, and “What I Like About You,” now their best-known song, isn’t one of them. ( Their two Top 40 hits were “Talking In Your Sleep” and “One In A Million”). It attracted little attention and was only a minor hit when first released in 1980 on their debut album. This song’s resurgence had a lot to do with MTV. The band made a simple performance video for the song that MTV put in rotation when they launched in 1981. It fit the criteria the network was looking for: American band, rock, catchy song, acceptable production quality. Since few American artists made videos at the time, MTV made do with lots of European imports when they started.

Since then the song has also become a fixture at sporting events, bars and nightclubs, and parties and celebrations of all kinds, and has taken its place as one of the most popular rock anthems of all time. It’s nice to wrap up the last year of the decade with an uptempo, fun song!

What I Like About You

I’m sure I have missed a few favorites, and the more I look ahead, the more I wonder if I need to expand to more than ten songs. I’ll tackle that issue if I have to later on.

Next week, we ring in a new decade – 1980! The 80’s sound certainly can be heard in some of these late 70’s songs and from here on out, the sound progresses quickly!