The Music of My Life – 1994

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 turned 24 in 1994. In the 7 years I had been on the radio, I was starting to get used to the fact that radio stations made changes often. It happened again when Honey Radio went off the air that year. I would go on to land a gig at W4 Country in Detroit soon after.

1994 was also the year my paternal grandfather passed away. I was very close to him and that grief hung around for some time.

Musically, I was DJing a lot more parties and discovering more music. Thanks to a full time job where I drove a lot, I discovered some alternative music that I really enjoyed. Many of those tunes will show up in the lists/years ahead.

Let’s check out 1994 …

As someone who feels like I can never put my feelings into words, I appreciate a song that can. Beautiful In My Eyes was a huge Bride and Groom song when I was DJing. When it wasn’t the bridal dance, it was a slow song that always packed the dance floor.

When I DJ’d my cousin’s second wedding, it was on the “Do Not Play” list. Why? It was the wedding song she used in her first marriage. As strange as it may sound, that happened a lot.

Joshua Kadison describes the song as being about “a love that just lasts forever, and you’ll always be beautiful in my eyes.” I’ve always thought it was an example of a great love song. I will also admit that I had no idea what he looked like until I found this video.

Beautiful in My Eyes

We had Doug Stone do a show for us when I worked at the Moose. He was a nice guy and fun to chat with. By the time he did our show, he’d pretty much had all of his hits.

One song that I found extremely relatable was Addicted to a Dollar. There are lyrics in here that any hard working person can relate to!

“F.I.C.A. and the state – they make my paycheck look like a big mistake.
Tax man takes his before I see a cent
And what they don’t get, I’ve already spent.”

“Got me more payments than I’ve got checks. Ten more to go on this car, it’s a wreck.”

Those hit home on many levels, especially for a radio guy! Even long after my radio career, those lyrics can still hit home.

Addicted to a Dollar

Next up, the only US hit for Des’ree, who had quite a few hits in the UK. I like this song because it’s kind of a pep talk. It’s about not being ashamed to express your feelings and about living life to its fullest.

The whole song is loaded with wisdom. The chorus is something that a person could easily tell themselves everyday when they look in the mirror.

“You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day“

Some days you just gotta push through, and being bad, bold, wise, hard, tough, strong, cool, and calm can certainly help!

You Gotta Be

The Troggs followed up their hit “Wild Thing” with the ballad Love Is All Around. They took the song to #7 in 1967.

The group Wet, Wet, Wet covered it for the movie Four Weddings And A Funeral. It wasn’t the only song they could have recorded. The band chose “Love is All Around” over Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” even though some of their members hadn’t heard it before.

Singer Marti Pellow related that the decision to pick “Love Is All Around” was an easy choice “because we knew we could make it our own”. They made the right choice, as their version was a UK #1 for 15 weeks and became the best selling single in the UK in 1994.

The song is so much different than the Troggs’ version. I think that is why I like it so much! It isn’t that the Troggs’ version sounds dated or anything, I just think the Wet, Wet Wet version sounds more polished. It’s fantastic.

Love Is All Around

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have played this next one at a wedding or party! It was one of my most requested songs – Cotton Eyed Joe. What’s funny is that while high school kids were asking for it, they have no idea just how old the song is!

Songfacts says “This song originated in America in the 1800s, and is commonly associated with the American South. It became a popular song in country bars, as it was perfect for line dancing. It’s a traditional folk song, and many country artists recorded it.

Rednex is a group of Swedish producers who recorded “Cotton Eye Joe” as a techno dance song. After putting the song together, they came up with the country bumpkin motif and named the group Rednex, a play on the word “redneck,” a term for an uncultured southerner in America.

They found five Swedish performers to portray the band, dressing them in tattered clothes and giving them a stereotypical hillbilly look, with unkempt hair and dirty faces. In a cagy marketing move, they refused interviews and released a bio to the press explaining that the group was rescued from an uncivilized village called Brunkeflo in the backwoods of Idaho and brought to Sweden, where they could express their musical gifts. Their names were Bobby Sue, Billy Ray, Mary Joe, BB Stiff and Ken Tacky – all inbred.“

What a way to start a band, huh?

Cotton Eyed Joe

I don’t think I could ever be a good songwriter. There are some lines that I think are just brilliant. One of those lines is the opening line of Green Day’s Basket Case.

“Do you have the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once?”

That’s a great line! This song is about anxiety attacks and a feeling that you are going crazy. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong suffered from various panic disorders while he was growing up – he would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a panic attack and walk around his neighborhood to settle down. “Basket Case” was a cathartic and personal song for him. “The only way I knew how to deal with it was to write a song about it,” he explained.

Songfacts says “Blasting right into the verse at the beginning of this song is something that set it apart. Simplicity was a hallmark of the Dookie album, and while omitting an intro made little marketing sense (DJs couldn’t talk up the song), it got right into the meat of the track. Tre Cool of Green Day cites the first Beatles album, Please Please Me, as an influence on Dookie, since many of those early Beatles songs also got right to the point.”

Basket Case was one of those alternative songs I heard on the radio and it made me want to hear more from Green Day.

Basket Case

I’ve got the chance to hang out and interview Aaron Tippin a couple times. He’s a huge supporter of our veterans, and does a lot of charity work

During his stage show he puts together a bicycle while singing a song. Then he brings out someone from a children’s hospital or foster home and donates the bike and more to those children. Class act!

Off air, I found out he was a big fan of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. We chatted for a long time about their music. At his county fair show, he donned a fedora and nailed a Sinatra song. It was amazing.

My dad loves his music and he asked if I would get an autograph for him. Aaron and I were talking and I mentioned my dad’s request. My dad loves Aaron’s patriotism and support of veterans. I mentioned this to him. Aaron wanted to know more about him. Where did he serve? How long? What branch of service?

He grabbed one of his photos and signed it for my dad. It hangs proudly in my dad’s music room. “Sam. I KNOW you got it honest! Thank you. Aaron Tippin.”

I Got It Honest

The video for the next song is what got me. More on that in a second.

Weezer’s Buddy Holly was almost called “Ginger Rogers.” Well, it could have been. According to songfacts “The early demo of this song had a slower tempo and some different lyrics. The chorus originally referenced famous dancing duo Fred & Ginger: “Oo-wee-oo you look just like Ginger Rogers, Oh, oh, I move just like Fred Astaire,” before it was changed to “Oh wee-ooh, I look just like Buddy Holly, Oh, oh, and you’re Mary Tyler Moore.”

The video was just awesome. Spike Jonze directed it. Vintage Happy Days footage was intercut with shots of Weezer performing on the original Arnold’s Drive-In set. Al Molinaro, who played the diner’s owner on the series, made a cameo appearance in the video.

Think about this: Happy Days aired in the 1970s but was set in the 1950s, when Buddy Holly made his mark. So here we have a ’90s video referencing a ’70s TV series set in the ’50s.

The video was one of the most popular clips of 1995, it scored four MTV Video Music Awards, including Breakthrough Video and Best Alternative Music Video, and two Billboard Music Video Awards, among them Alternative/Modern Rock Clip of the Year.

The single was released to radio on September 7, 1994, which would have been Buddy Holly’s 58th birthday.

Buddy Holly

In 1994, Huey Lewis and the News released Four Chords and Several Years Ago. It was an album of 50’s and 60’s cover songs. What made this really cool was that they recorded it just like they would have in those days.

You didn’t have the guitar track laid down beforehand. The drummer wasn’t in a separate booth. All the musicians and vocalists were in the same room recording at the same time. This gave the songs a very authentic sound.

The band’s final entry into the Hot 100, was a cover of the JJ Jackson hit But It’s Alright. This is not to be confused with an earlier cover they did of the Impression’s It’s Alright. They did that one all acapella.

Four Chords is one of my favorite albums.

But It’s Alright

It is fitting that the next song is the last one on my list for 1994. It’s fitting because since it came out, I almost always used this song as the last song of the night when I DJ’d.

Madonna’s Take A Bow has a beautiful instrumentation and arrangement. While beautiful, it is sad. This song is about a failed romance Madonna had with “a movie star,” possibly Warren Beatty, whom she starred opposite in the movie Dick Tracy.

Babyface sang backup and also produced this track to give Madonna the R&B feel she wanted for the Bedtime Stories album. At Madonna’s suggestion, this song was recorded with a full orchestra. It was the first time Babyface had worked with live strings.

I always felt like it was a perfect song to wrap up with. The lyrics say, “The show is over, say goodbye.” I also liked that it was a 5 minute song, which gave me a little time to start packing up at gigs. At some gigs, if I had a friend there, or my significant other, I could sneak in a brief dance with them.

Take a Bow

And just like that, we’re through 1994. Like other years, there were plenty of good ones to choose from. Which one of your favorites did I miss?

Next week, we’ll hear the dance craze people love to hate, a band that was superior to another, a soulful sweet collaboration, a rather strange song, and the reuniting of one of the biggest groups in history. I hope you’ll stop by to check it out ….

Thank You For Being A Friend

Last night Sam and I headed down to Royal Oak to watch The Golden Girls – The Laughs Continue. It had been too long since we had a date night and this was the perfect solution. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we heard that the show was a bit more … “adult.” It was, and in between the raunchiness, there were times I laughed out loud.

Before I go on, I mentioned that Sam was teasing me about “costumes” that we were going to wear to the show. Thankfully, I did not have to don a dress or a wig. She bought us T-shirts (mine was a bit snug).

When we left the parking garage and walked to the theater, there was a line all the way around the building! I had no idea that there were so many Golden Girls fans. It was crazy. The show was for 18 and older, and it was obvious that all ages were represented.

When we walked in there was a guy snapping photos in front of pictures of the actors. It made the process quick and easy.

I had no idea how good our seats were. I purchased them online and thought they would be further back from the stage than they were. They ended up being pretty good seats. Once the lights went down they began the Golden Girls Theme Song and the entire audience sang along. Then the stage lights came up and the played one of those little “scene change” musical snippets from the show and the actor who played Dorothy walked on stage.

Keep in mind that all the characters were played by men in drag. The thing that blew me away from the get go was that this guy actually sounded like Bea Arthur!! Actually, all the guys sounded just like the characters they played. The voices and the mannerisms were dead on, especially they guy who played Blanche. They were so good, I forgot they were guys.

I won’t go into the plot or anything, but I will say that it was a bit raunchier than I expected. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. My co-worker who took his wife the night before told me that there were some elderly ladies sitting in front of them and his wife was embarrassed for them. During intermission, I was in the rest room and a guy in a stall behind me was talking about how “inappropriate” some of the dialogue was and how they “didn’t have to take it that far.”

That said, there were many times I truly belly laughed. I’ve always been amazed at the work that goes into a play. Quick costume changes, scene changes, and all the lines that they have to memorize. These guys were very good.

One thing I really enjoyed were the little subtle nods to Broadway shows and the actresses and the shows they were in. There was an obscure reference to Mame, which Bea Arthur appeared in on Broadway with Angela Lansbury, which only a few people got. Rose, the Betty White character at one point says she had a weird dream that she was on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (she was). Later, while Sophia is talking about some rap singer, Blanche says something about being in the “3-1-3” (Detroit’s area code) and how she should be talking about Eminem!

Another thing I loved was how many times the actors broke the fourth wall. Nodding to the audience or acknowledging the audience or pointing to an audience member – you know, things that aren’t in the script, but make you know they know you are there. My favorite instance of this was when the Sophia character tells Rose (Betty White) that she KNEW that she was going to outlive all of them. The audience roared at this and each of the actors looked at the audience pointed upward and paid homage to Betty White. It was pretty cool.

The play never felt like it was dragging on. It was about a two hour show and a fun night out for Sam and me. We drove home afterward and decided we were hungry. (There were a lot of times cheesecake was mentioned in the play.) I won’t lie, I was amazed at home many places were closed by 10 on a Friday night. There were places that were open until midnight, but the kitchen closed at 11. It would be closed by the time we got there. So we decided on a stop at Taco Bell.

On the way home, Sam asked me something that really made me realize how much our lives have changed since having the kids. She said, “Can we go home, sit on the couch, eat our nachos and watch something that IS NOT a kid’s show!?” That hit me hard. Before kids, we spent so much time watching TV together on the couch. Now it seems that the TV only plays kid shows.

She found the very first episode of House, M.D. with Hugh Laurie. We sat snuggled up together eating and watched it together. Afterward, we called it a night and went to bed. It really was a perfect night.

As a bonus, because the kids stayed at Nana’s, we got up and had coffee together. We sat on the porch and enjoyed the quiet time and cool weather. Then Sam reminded me of the cheesecake mentions in the play and how a slice would be perfect for breakfast. I wasn’t about to argue, so I ran up to the grocery store and bought one! It was delicious and a sweet way to wrap up an amazing day/night with my wife!

Uncontrollable Laughter

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When I started this blog, I often questioned whether or not I would have things to write about. A friend of mine suggested subscribing to a “daily writing prompt” site. These prompts can be helpful as “thought starters,” but I haven’t really ever received one that immediately made me want to sit and write – until today. Today’s prompt simply said, “Write about a time when you couldn’t stop laughing.”

There are two stories that instantly come to mine and they both involve my best friend of over 40 years. Jeff and I have known each other since 2nd grade. For years, we’ve been able to make each other laugh with stories, jokes, gibberish and sound effects. As you know, there are times when laughter is appropriate and there are times when it is not. Both of these incidents fall into the latter.

Story #1

You know that uncontrollable laughter that you get when you know that you absolutely should not be laughing? The laugh that no matter how hard you try not to laugh, and try to stifle that laughter, you just cannot seem to stop it from happening? Remember the Mary Tyler Moore when Mary can’t stop laughing at the funeral of a clown? No? Here is the clip:

My first incident falls into that category. Jeff and I had an English class together. As I remember it (and Jeff can correct me if I am wrong), we had a substitute teacher and we were working on vocabulary words. This meant looking up words and writing the definitions down on a work sheet. Well, you know how it is when there is a substitute teacher … we were screwing around.

In this class we sat next to each other. I don’t recall who started it, but we began looking up words, circling them, and passing the dictionary to each other with a bookmark marking the page to be looked at. You can imagine the words we were looking up. If you can’t, they were words like “penis”, “anus”, “testicles”, “feces”, “turd”, etc…

The more the dictionary went back and forth, the more we both began to laugh. The final two passes that got us in trouble was when one of us looked up the word “fart”. This in itself was funny. The following word that was looked up was an adjective to describe the fart – “raunchy”. The words were scribbled in a sentence: “A man let a raunchy fart under downtown Las Vegas.” (“under downtown Las Vegas” was something that Telly Savalas said in Cannonball Run II, which we found funny for some reason). By this time, we were snickering and doing every thing we could to hold back laughter and just couldn’t. I remember being called out by the teacher and not really being able to explain myself because I was still laughing. Jeff was laughing too. The sub stood at the front of the classroom shaking her head and said to me, “I’m still trying to figure out what planet your friend is from” and without missing a beat, Jeff yelled out, “Uranus!”

We both may have been sent to the office for that, but I can’t recall.

Story #2

One of the cool things about TV series on DVD is that most of them include a Blooper or gag reel. Many of the flubs are performers or actors forgetting lines and many are because other actors are laughing or can’t stop laughing while recording the scene. Those gag reels will show take after take of an actor cracking up before the funny line of the script is even said. There were no “retakes” with my second story, as it happened live on the radio in Detroit in 1991.

I was working a weekend overnight shift one Saturday night at WMXD. I remember before I left for work, I was searching for something to take for lunch. My dad had recently been to some army/navy surplus store and bought a bunch of MRE’s. MRE stands for “meals ready to eat”. They are made so that no matter where a soldier is, they can rip it open and eat it. Some of them are actually quite good. He gave me one to take and I left for work.

Jeff came up to hang out in the studio that night and when I got ready to eat, I pulled out the MRE. It was barbeque pulled pork. First of all, when I opened it, it reeked! The smell was awful – almost like vinegar and cat food! I squeezed it out onto a plate and it looked disgusting! I can’t even begin to describe it to you. It was stringy and orange-ish red (the so-called “barbeque sauce”). I am sure that while the microphone was off we were laughing and describing just how gross it looked. Then I had to go on the air.

I remember opening the microphone and backselling the song I had just played. I was getting ready to go into commercials and had to read a liner card. Liner cards usually contained information about contests, concerts, or promotions that the station was involved with. I remember getting a line or two into the card and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jeff moving around. As I continued to read the card, he waved a fork loaded with that gross pulled pork in front of my face. This made me crack up as soon as I saw it. I really hope that the information on that liner card wasn’t important, because the more I kept reading, the more I laughed. If I had been smart, I would have just quit and fired off the commercial, but I was determined to finish that liner card. It was reminiscent of when Elvis started laughing while singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” I can’t even imagine what the listeners thought as I laughed and read through that!! (I am chuckling as I am typing this, just remembering the incident!) Thank God it happened on the overnight shift, I probably would have gotten called into the bosses office!

If you are unfamiliar with Laughing Elvis – here is the clip (with the story):

Final Thoughts

The laughter continues with each phone call and visit from Jeff. We send each other silly pictures daily and leave voice mail messages that are incomprehendable for each other. We can still make each other laugh with a sound effect, movie line, or some made up song lyrics. Though we are approaching the half century mark … we still are like teenagers looking up “fart” in the dictionary … and I am ok with that!

I would love to hear your stories about laughing when you shouldn’t be ….