Tag: MTV

The Music of My Life – Decade Extra – The 1970’s

Last week I wrapped up my Music of My Life feature. It focused on music from 1970-2025. I admit that it was fun to look back at the tunes that have special meaning to me, bring back a certain memory or a tune that I just really like.

When I got into the 2000’s it became more difficult for me to find songs. With the earlier years, however, I found it difficult to narrow my list down to just ten songs. So I sat down with my original lists and selected some songs that “bubbled under,” so to speak.

I figured a good way to present them was to focus on a decade. 10 years = 1 song per year = 10 songs. Let’s head back to the 70’s and check out a few “Decade Extras.”

1970

I wish I could find the recording of this so I could set it up better. My co-host, Steph, and I were in conversation with our newsman, Hal. Something came up about knocking and Hal says, “Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me.” This led to me asking why we were discussing Tony Orlando on a country station.

Steph walks out of the studio during commercials and I went on the hunt for the song. I found it and cued it up to the chorus. When she comes back to the studio, and she has to read a sponsorship for the weather forecast. I let her begin and out of nowhere I play the chorus of Knock Three Times. She was so thrown by this, she can’t stop laughing. She’s trying to do the sponsorship, but every 6th or 7th word, I’d fire the chorus again. She is down for the count in laughter (which was my intention), so I wound up reading it and apologizing to our listeners.

I think of Steph every time I hear it.

Knock Three Times

1971

I’ve always love the Jonathan Edwards song “Sunshine.” It was always one that I loved singing along with. Had it not been for a mistake, it may never have gotten recorded. According to songfacts.com, he recorded this out of necessity when one of the tracks he put down was accidentally erased. Instead of redoing that song, he did “Sunshine.” Pleased with the results, he and the engineer overdubbed bass and added the drums the next day.

Edwards was signed to Atco Records. They released “Sunshine” as his first single early in 1971, but it flopped. The song got some traction thanks to disc jockeys in New England who started playing it off the album. Six months after the Atco single was released, it was re-issued on the independent Capricorn label with a demo version on the B-side. This time, the song was a hit, shooting to #4 in the US.

He would often end live shows with the song, and Edwards said,  “I often say, and it’s true, that if I had never done another song in my life, I’ll be happy to have come and gone with that.”

Sunshine

1972

For the longest time, I thought that Neil Diamond was singing Nice To Be With You. When I started working at my first radio gig, I found out I was wrong.

The song was actually one that had a local connection. Jim Gold formed the group Gallery in Detroit. They recorded quite a few songs, but none were as big as Nice To Be With You. It was also the title track of their debut album.

Nice to Be With You

1973

There was no shortage of Jim Croce songs in my original feature. My mom and dad listened to his music a lot. He was one of many artists who were a part of my childhood.

I love when songs have some basis or inspiration in real life. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown is one of them.

“Leroy Brown is a guy that he actually met,” said his widow Ingrid. “When he was in the service – The National Guard – this guy had gone AWOL. He was a guy that Jim kind of related to, he liked to sing with him. This guy had gone AWOL but he came back to get his paycheck, and he got caught. Jim just thought he was such a funny guy that he thought he’d include his name in the song, and it just worked. There really was a Leroy Brown, and sometimes having a name helps you to build a song around it.”

It’s one of the few songs I can sing at karaoke.

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

1974

I was a big Beatles fan growing up. As a kid, I didn’t really understand why Paul McCartney was in another group (Wings) or why John Lennon was doing solo stuff. I do remember hearing Band on the Run, though, and liking it.

McCartney recorded the album in Lagos, Nigeria along with his wife Linda and guitarist Denny Laine. The other Wings decided not to make the trip, which worked out fine in the end: McCartney considers the album his best post-Beatles work. He told Word in 2005:

“I was on drums and guitar a lot, mainly because the drummer decided to leave the group the night before and one of the guitar players decided not to come! So we got that solo element into an otherwise ‘produced’ album.”

Band On the Run

1975

It’s a Long Way to the Top is an autobiographical song for AC/DC. It describes their struggles as they tried to make it big. Right from the start, they delivered a top notch live show night after night. Songfacts says: It was genuine: At the time, they were just getting started and playing some seedy venues with even seedier business associates. The hard work eventually paid off, and several years later the band was selling out arenas.

“It’s A Long Way To The Top” really summed us up as a band,” Angus Young told Rolling Stone. “It was the audience that really allowed us to even get near a studio.”

The song is a bit unusual because instead of a lengthy guitar solo it features Angus Young on lead and Bon Scott on the bagpipes in a Dueling Banjos sort of way. I remember the first time I heard the song. “Are those bagpipes?!” Yes. Yes, they are!

It’s a Long Way to the Top

1976

Turn the Page by Bob Seger is also a song about being out on the road and performing. This one focuses on the effects of touring on a performer. There is a lot of loneliness that they feel.

Bob says, “Our first headline shows ever in a large (twelve thousand seat) hall were the two shows at Detroit’s Cobo Arena, September 4th and 5th, 1975. I remember while I was singing this how nice it was to have such good on-stage monitors. I had never heard my voice so well while performing.” The version on Seger’s greatest hits album was taken from these shows.

The song is a classic rock staple here in Michigan. I got to see Bob perform one of his last shows and it was electrifying. I can’t even begin to explain the feel of the room when he performed this one.

Turn the Page

1977

“What’s Your Name” by Lynyrd Skynyrd is another song that is based on a true story. One night while they were on tour, the band was drinking at their hotel bar when one of the roadies got in a fight. They all got kicked out. So they went to a room, ordered champagne and continued the party.

Songfacts says: The incident in this song did not happen in Boise, Idaho. The first line was originally, “It’s 8 o’clock and boys it’s time to go,” but lead singer Ronnie Van Zant changed it when he found out his brother, Donnie, was opening his first national tour with his band .38 Special in Boise. The first line became “It’s 8 o’clock in Boise, Idaho.”

Three days after the album was released, Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines died in a plane crash. The cover of the album was redone because the original cover had the band surrounded by flames.

What’s Your Name

1978

Hold the Line by Toto caught my ear the first time I heard it because of the piano open with the guitar riff intermingling with it. It was the debut single for the group who was made up primarily of session musicians.

From songfacts: “Hold the line” is an expression meaning to maintain your existing position, which in this case is the singer telling a girl to be patient and stay with their relationship.

The saying also has a more literal meaning, however, which is how David Paich came up with the title. “Hold the line” is what you tell someone on the phone if you want to put them on hold while you’re taking another call. This is typical in workplaces, but in the days before cell phones, some households (especially ones with teenagers) also had multiple phone lines coming in and could put callers on hold. Paich lived in one such household.

Paich said: “When I was in high school, all of a sudden the phone started ringing off the hook, and I had a situation where I was at the dinner table and I had three girls all call at the same time, so all the lights were flashing. I was kind of juggling girlfriends, and that’s how that came about.”

Toto’s video was a bit ahead of it’s time. MTV hadn’t even gone on the air yet when the song was released.

Hold the Line

1979

Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen is such a fun song to play at weddings and parties, especially after the audience has loosened up. So often I’d come out of a slow song and segue right into the smooth intro of Freddie Mercury. People would raise their hands and sway while singing along. Then, when the tempo changes, the dance floor was insane.

It’s a catchy song that has you singing along, even if you are just hearing it for the first time. In 2011, Queen fans voted the chorus of “Don’t Stop Me Now” as the band’s best ever lyric.

In an Absolute Radio interview, Brian May says, “I thought it was a lot of fun, but I did have an undercurrent feeling of, ‘aren’t we talking about danger here,’ because we were worried about Freddie at this point. That feeling lingers, but it’s become almost the most successful Queen track as regards to what people play in their car or at their weddings. It’s become a massive, massive track and an anthem to people who want to be hedonistic. It was kind of a stroke of genius from Freddie.”

Don’t Stop Me Now

So what do you think? I like this idea. A quick look back at a decade. There are plenty of songs to choose from that did not make the original run of this feature. Join me next week for more!

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 – 2001

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.

In 2001, I turned 31. It is a year that I will not forget. It was that year that I found out I was going to be a father for the first time. To say that I was freaking out a little was an understatement. My mom continued to get treatment for breast cancer. There was a time where I prayed that she would be around for my wedding. Now I was praying that she’d be around to meet her first grandchild. My first song was inspired by, coincidentally, a mother with cancer.

It was also the year of the 9/11 attacks. I, of course, was around for the Challenger accident. Many folks called that the “JFK assassination” of my generation. As sad as the Challenger accident was, 9/11 was on an entirely different level. I remember sitting alone wondering about the world we were welcoming our baby into. The event caused many of us to think … more on that shortly.

Train’s Drops of Jupiter came from devastating loss for lead singer Pat Monahan. In a VH1 interview, he revealed that he wrote this song about the death of his mother. Train was were touring in 1988 when Monahan’s mom was dying of lung cancer – she was a heavy smoker. Cell phones had not yet become widely used. This found Monahan making many stops to pay phones on the tour to speak with his mom. It was in December of that year, his mother died.

In early 1999 Train was working on their next album when their record company started pressuring them for a hit. Monahan returned to his childhood home in Pennsylvania, and woke one morning with the words “back in the atmosphere” in his head. Beginning a time of healing, he started to compose the song. Pat said: “Loss of the most important person in my life was heavy on my mind, and the thought of ‘what if no one ever really leaves? What if she’s here but different. The idea was, she’s back here in the atmosphere.”

He recorded a demo of the song and played it for the president of their record company at Columbia. The president loved it and told him it was his Grammy song. He was right: It won Grammys for Best Rock Song and Best Instrumental Arrangement With Accompanying Vocalist. The label had Train record the song quickly. That way they could put it on the album and use it as the title track.

Pat Monahan is quoted as saying, ““It was an obvious connection between me and my mother. ‘Drops of Jupiter’ was as much about me being on a voyage and trying to find out who I am. The best thing we can do about loss of love is find ourselves through it.”

That is SO true.

Drops of Jupiter

I mentioned when I did my list in 1999 that I’ll Be by Edwin McCain is hard to listen to. It was the wedding song my ex and I used. In 2000, Edwin released I Could Not Ask For More, which is a more beautiful song, in my opinion.

This song itself is about spending time with your true love. It is about realizing you do not need anything else in life to make you happy. The song was written by Diane Warren, who has written quite a few songs that I have written about. McCain said that he had to speed the song up to suit his voice. He said, “The tempo of the song was actually half of what it is now. At first, I wasn’t into it. Now it’s a popular wedding song; every night on tour people tell me that it was their wedding song.”

It was in 2001 that country singer Sara Evans covered the song. While not too different from McCain’s version, I love her version more. I have always felt that she has one of the best female voices in country music. She is also one of the most beautiful singers I have met. I loved watching her perform this live.

I Could Not Ask For More

This next song is on my list for one reason and one reason only – the video! I can still remember the first time I watched it and was blown away by Christopher Walken. I had no idea he could dance like this!

Weapon of Choice appeared on Fatboy Slim’s third album and featured Bootsy Collins. Bootsy is, of course, known for his work with Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band. Boosty co-wrote the song and plays bass on it.

According to Songfacts:

The official music video for “Weapon of Choice” reveals a surprising side of Christopher Walken, known for his intense, often villainous roles in films like Pulp Fiction, The Deer Hunter, and True Romance. What most of us didn’t know until this video appeared is that Walken is a great dancer – he trained at the Washington Dance Studio and appeared in musicals such as 1981’s Pennies from Heaven. In a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Walken said he accepted the role before he became “too decrepit to dance.”

He choreographed the video with Michael Rooney, son of Mickey Rooney, and performed stunts, including flying across the mezzanine in a harness. Reflecting on the humor and playfulness of the video, Fatboy Slim told Higher Frequency in 2006: “I think it’s full of irony, and to see an actor that I really admire but who’s famous for playing psychopaths, to see him do that silly un-psychopathic dancing made me smile and made everyone else smile.”

The “Weapon of Choice” music video was a huge hit! It won six MTV Video Music Awards in 2001. It won for Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Art Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography. It also went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Music Video. To top it all off, it was named the greatest music video of all time by VH1 in 2002.

Weapon of Choice

I recently saw where Brian Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek, and Frankie Muniz announced that they will reunite for a reboot of Malcolm in the Middle. The show debuted in 2000 and did very well. I always watched it because I could relate to the constant fighting between the brothers. I also loved the humor of the show.

They Might Be Giants recorded this song specifically for Malcolm in the Middle, and can be found on the show’s soundtrack. The show used other songs from the band throughout the run of the show.

The rumor is that the song is about guitar player John Flansburgh’s brother. I can totally see this. We may not have used the exact phrase growing up, but I know my brother and I often said that the other couldn’t boss the other around. It hits home in that way for me.

Boss of Me

The next song was a triumphant return for Weezer. Their fans were a little worried about the band in the late ’90s. After touring for their 1996 album Pinkerton, they took some time off and went through some lineup changes. It was during this time that Rivers Cuomo was taking classes at Harvard. He enrolled there in 1995 and attended sporadically when it suited his schedule. “Island In The Sun” was welcome relief for fans, showing that the band was back and in a good place. (Cuomo did eventually graduate Harvard, earning a degree in English in 2006.)

Songfacts says, “Unlike many Weezer songs, there’s no trace of pathos and no deeper meaning, making it an easy song to enjoy even if you’re not a big fan of the band. It became one of their most popular songs, although it was never a bit hit, reaching a chart peak of just #111 in the US.”

This is another one of those songs that I remember hearing a lot on the radio. I find it hard to believe that it only reached #111 on the charts. It was obviously good enough for them to play on TV. Weezer played it along with “Hash Pipe,” when they were musical guests on Saturday Night Live, May 19, 2001. It was their only guest appearance on the show.

Sing along…. “Hip. Hip.”

Island in the Sun

What do Neil Diamond, The Monkees and Smash Mouth have in common? One MONSTER hit!

Neil Diamond wrote I’m a Believer in 1966. Don Kirshner was looking for material for the Monkees to record and liked it. Neil was allowed to record it as well as part of their deal and did so in 1967. The Monkees version went to #1in ’66.

Jump ahead 35 years to 2001. Smash Mouth recorded a version of the song for the Dreamworks animated movie, Shrek. The song was picked because it fit the movie’s theme, as it was a sort of fairy tale. The opening line of the song is “I thought love was only true in fairy tales.”

Smash Mouth’s version is a great modern take on the song and still fun to sing along with. When I hear it, I am taken back to watching this movie with my oldest son. He loved Shrek and we watched it MANY times.

I’m a Believer

The next song was one that I often used as a first song at parties and weddings. It was a good one because it was the “kick off” song and literally got the party started.

Songfacts.com says: Get the Party Started was written by Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes. After the group broke up in the early ’90s, Perry released two solo albums and started writing for other artists. She learned that hits of the ’00s were made digitally. She bought Akai MPC and Korg Triton digital workstations and started experimenting with them. As she was learning how to use them, she came up with the track by adding layer after layer, then she quickly banged out a lyric with every party cliché she could think of, arriving at lines like:

I’m your operator, you can call anytime
I’ll be your connection to the party line

It worked: “Get The Party Started” was a huge hit for Pink and launched Perry’s songwriting career. Her next hit was “Beautiful” for Christina Aguilera.

The song is synonymous with Pink, but it was almost offered to another singer. Thankfully, a phone call changed that. Perry initially thought this could be a hit for Madonna. However, Pink happened to call her the week after she wrote the song. Pink was a huge 4 Non Blondes fan. She sought out Perry, who was very surprised to get a call from a pop star. When they met, Perry gave Pink an MP3 copy of the “Get The Party Started.” Pink’s management loved the song and arranged for them to work together on her second album.

Get The Party Started

When an artist’s first single is a ballad, it is usually because the ballad is amazing. Most record labels want uptempo songs. (Honestly, most radio stations want uptempo stuff, too!) There are no shortage of ballads waiting to get airplay!

When it came time to release his first single, Enrique Iglesias fought to get “Hero” released. “Everybody thought first singles at the time had to be uptempo,” he told People. “But I knew that it was one of those songs that when I wrote it it just felt special.” It was, and he was right. Iglesias attributes the success of this song to a combination of good lyrics, melody, and excellent production. He feels those three qualities need to work together to make a timeless hit.

The song took on a whole new meaning shortly after it was released. This song was released on August 14, 2001, just a month before the September 11 attacks on the US. The song doesn’t describe the type first-responder heroes, but the theme of standing by a loved one resonated at this time. The song became quite popular because of that, reaching a chart peak of #3.

One pastor taught a message on husbands and wives. He stated that what a husband wants is to be his wife’s hero. That’s the guy who will take away her pain and be there through thick and thin.

Hero

MercyMe is a contemporary Christian group. They had an Adult Contemporary crossover hit with a song that was written by their lead singer Bart Millard. I Can Only Imagine is simply about imagining what it will be like meeting Jesus for the first time.

In a Songfacts interview, Bart said that he that he wrote the song in about 10 minutes. He said that it was one of just three songs he wrote where he felt like he was “a spectator watching the song being written.”

Regarding the song’s meaning, Millard stated: “When my father died of cancer in 1991, he left me with the assurance that he was headed to a better place. For several years following his death, I would find myself writing the phrase ‘I can only imagine’ on anything I could find. That simple phrase would give me a peace thinking about what my dad was finally experiencing. Years later, in 1999, MercyMe was writing songs for an independent project. I remember coming home from a show and being wide awake on our bus at 2 o’clock in the morning. I was trying to write lyrics in an old notebook of mine, when all of a sudden, I stumbled across that phrase. About ten minutes later, the song was written. Some people say it’s amazing that it was written in ten minutes, when really it had been on my heart for almost ten years.”

This one means a lot to me personally. I am so grateful for my faith and my Savior. It is an amazing thing to imagine….

I Can Only Imagine

I can still vividly remember the morning of 9/11. I was in a meeting with my boss at the radio station when the morning gal came in and told us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We went into the newsroom and were shaken to the core when we watched the second plane it the Twin Towers. That would be one of the longest and most emotional days in my radio career.

I worked at a country station at the time. We saw a lot of patriotism come out of those attacks. Songwriters wrote songs about being an American and such, but none of the equaled the contribution made by Alan Jackson.

The 9/11 attacks made a lot of us stop and think about life. We were left with so many questions. We were left shocked and scarred by the images we watched on TV. It was constantly on our minds. Alan Jackson seemed to be on the same page as everyone else, and conveyed it all perfectly in the song Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)

He wrote the song alone, with the idea coming to him at 4am in the morning. He explained to The Boot that the lyrics really “came out of nowhere.” “It was just a gift,” he said. “I got up and scribbled it down and put the melody down so I wouldn’t forget it, and the next day I started piecing all those verses together, thoughts I had or visuals I had.”

The song made its debut on the Country Music Association’s annual awards show on November 7, 2001. I still cannot believe that he was able to sing the song without breaking down. Alan considers this to be one of his biggest (if not the biggest) accomplishment. He said in an interview: “I [recently] did a radio interview, and the guy was talking about being at the [CMA] Awards the night I sang ‘Where Were You,'” he explained. “Even though that was a hard performance for me and an emotional time, I still get so many comments about that. Of all the awards, and all that kind of stuff, the music is still what I like. To be able to create a song that really affects people and makes a mark in the music industry, I would have to say that would be a highlight.”

To this day, the song still gives me chills. I’m sure you will never forget where you were when the events of that day unfolded either.

Where Were You

Sorry to wrap up the year on a somber note, but that wraps up my list. How about you? What song from 2001 did I miss that was your favorite. Mention it in the comments.

Next week, we’ll head to 2002. My list features movie music, an in your face patriotic song, a song full of 70’s and 80’s nostalgia, a cover song, an appearance by the Muppets, and the return of the King! I hope you’ll check it out.

Until next week, thanks for listening and for reading!

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 ….

The Music of My Life – 1986

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 sweet sixteen in 1986. MTV was 5 years old and music videos were becoming more and more iconic. To make that point, we kick off my list with a video that is often listed as one of the best of the 1980’s.

Robert Palmer released Addicted to Love in January of 1986. It was accompanied by a video where he is singing in front of a “band” of beautiful women who look exactly alike. They wear lots of makeup and identical outfits as they pretend to play the instruments.

According to songfacts: the funny thing about the video is that the models posing as a band were selected precisely because they did NOT know how to play the instruments. As a result, each girl is keeping her own time and moving to a different beat. The video is constantly parodied, including in a Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears.

You might say the song came to Palmer in a dream. It all started with a guitar riff that came to him in a dream one night. He told Q magazine in 1988, “That noisy riff woke me up. I went downstairs, got out the tape recorder, then went back to bed. Next morning, I thought, Phew, caught one there!”

From the “What Might Have Been” file: Palmer wanted this song to be a duet with Chaka Khan, and he almost got his wish. He recorded it with her, but Chaka’s label, Warner Brothers Records, would not allow her voice to be used on the record, so Palmer had to erase her part and re-record her high notes before releasing it.

If you’re going to be addicted to something, love is a good thing, wouldn’t you say?

Addicted to Love

Next, we have a song whose video was like nothing that had been done before. Depending on the source, some say it was the 4th most played video on MTV. The video is so fun to watch, you may actually forget that the song is full of sexual innuendos.

Sledgehammer was a BIG number one song for Peter Gabriel. It was his first solo number one. It actually bumped his old band, Genesis, out of the number one spot.

The song was influenced by the ’60s soul music Gabriel listened to as a teenager, in particular Otis Redding, who Peter saw perform at the Ram Jam club in London in 1967. The horn section was typical of this sound. As a matter of fact, the horn section that he used was the legendary Memphis Horns, who played on several hits from Stax Records.

The wildly innovative video was directed by Stephen R. Johnson and featured stop-motion claymation techniques. It swept the MTV video music awards in 1987, and is considered a major breakthrough. It was a bit hard for Gabriel, though. He once remembered how he spent 16 hours lying beneath a heavy sheet of glass for the video, while each frame was shot, one after the other.

I’ve always felt that this song had at least some influence in the blues. It just sounds like a great blues song to me.

Sledgehammer

Songfacts says that this song has a lot of haters and has appeared on various “worst of” lists over the years. An example: it was listed #1 on VH1’s 40 Most Awesomely Bad Metal Songs. As a Michigan guy, I can tell you that they used this song as the Detroit Pistons theme song for years. Heck, they use this song at all kinds of sporting events.

Europe’s The Final Countdown is like an anthem. The iconic keyboard riff was composed by lead singer Joey Tempest five years before the song was recorded. The band’s keyboard player Mic Michaeli had lent him the instrument.

Despite writing the song, Tempest still cannot believe the success. He said, “It was quite a surprise that the song ‘The Final Countdown’ became such a big hit because it was written for the band, it was written for our concert, it was written to be the opening song in our concert. It was almost six-minutes long, it was never intended to be a short pop hit or anything, it was very much a surprise and its been used for all kinds of events, anything from Formula 1 to boxing. It’s been used a lot.”

I liked this song before Arrested Development aired on Fox, but came to love it even more because of the way they used it on the show. Will Arnett is a magician on the show and they often used the song as background music as he performed his “illusions.” The song only made a very funny scene, even funnier for me.

The Final Countdown

The next pick is not quite a duet, but it brought back a legendary voice and put her back in the spotlight. It almost didn’t happen, but Eddie Money stepped in and made it happen.

My favorite track on Eddie Money’s Can’t Hold Back album is Take Me Home Tonight. The song is based on The Ronettes’ 1963 hit “Be My Baby,” and features their lead singer, Ronnie Spector, on the chorus performing her famous line, “Be my little baby.”

At first, the song was going to be a duet with Martha Davis, lead singer of The Motels. Eddie, however, wanted “the real thing” (Ronnie) on the song, so he called her to ask, telling her, “This is a tribute to you. The song is all about you.” According to Spector, she got on board as soon as she heard the lyric, “Listen honey, just like Ronnie sang… be my little baby.”

“When they said that, I was sold,” she told Entertainment Weekly. Spector says Money was very excited when she showed up to record it. “He was a crazy person – freaking out in the studio, going, ‘I’ve got the real Ronnie Spector singing ‘Be My Baby’ on my record!,'” she said.

This cracks me up because I can see Eddie going crazy. He was a bundle of energy. Every time I interviewed him on the radio, it was hard to get a word in because he would just chat away with that “Eddie Money” energy!

Take Me Home Tonight

It must have been the summer of 1987 when our band took a trip to Cedar Point. I am not a ride person, so I hung out with guys who also didn’t ride them. As we walked the streets of the Point, we saw a “You Be The Star” booth. I suppose you would call it an early form of Karaoke.

There was a book that listed a bunch of songs that they had a music track from. They ushered you into this little recording booth with a microphone and headphones. I don’t remember if you got to rehearse the song first, but I thought that was the case. At the end of the session, they played your song on the speakers for all to hear and you got a cassette of the tune to take home. It cost a pretty penny to do and the music tracks were very cheap sounding.

I had some money and made a tape of Mack the Knife for my grandma (which was awful). I sounded so bad on it. Then, me and my three friends chose Hip To Be Square. I had heard the song before, but didn’t know it well enough to sing the lead. My buddy, Steve knew it and sang it like he had a record deal! Chris and I were satisfied enough to be the “Here, there and everywhere” guys.

The music video was directed by the team of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, who made some of the most innovative videos of the ’80s. They got a distinctive look by using a medical camera – the kind doctors use to see inside the human body. They had the band perform the song a few times a few feet away from the camera, and did the heavy lifting in post production – the band loved it because it was so easy for them. The resulting video contained angles previously unseen on MTV, including one from the point of view of the drumsticks. It was nominated for Best Experimental Video at the 1987 Video Music Awards.

Hip To Be Square

The next pick is one that didn’t mean much to me in 1986, but two years later it sure did. I remember early in my senior year receiving a ballot in which I was to vote on our class song. Honestly, I don’t remember what songs we were picking from, but I do recall some of them being not very “class song-like.”

Our class chose Time to Remember by Billy Joel. It was the third single from his The Bridge album. The chorus is about looking back on the good times with appreciation and gratitude, making it a perfect song for proms, graduations, and just about any occasion where memories are shared:

This is the time to remember
‘Cause it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on to
‘Cause we won’t, although we’ll want to

Our teachers told us that the high school years would fly by. We never really felt that, especially during some boring lecture. Of course, the senior years goes by the quickest. Those lyrics should have been posted somewhere for every one to see, because by the time I heard them, and the meaning sunk in, it was graduation day.

I’m reminded of a quote from Ed Helms’ character Andy on the final episode of NBC’s The Office:

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

I don’t have to tell you, especially if you are a regular reader, that those days are definitely a time I remember, and remember them fondly!

Time To Remember

The group Cameo was formed in 1974, however, it wasn’t until 12 years later that they had their first Top 40 Hit. Word Up was the title track from their 13th album! The song was written by band members Larry Blackmon and Tomi Jenkins.

“Word Up” is a saying that was popular in New York and other urban areas in the US that acted as an affirmation of what was said, kind of a hipper “you bet.” Blackmon said this about the song:

“It just sounded good, and it was before its time. You can play “Word Up” anyplace anywhere, and someone is going to be grooving and bobbing their head. Our sound was unique, as well. I haven’t heard another one like it, and we probably won’t hear another one like it in the future. It was that significant for us.“

This was one of those songs that everyone at school seemed to be singing as they walked down the hall to class. We all seemed to know the words.

It got a lot of radio airplay and MTV played the video a lot. I’ve seen the video many times before, but I had forgotten about a neat cameo. (LOL – a cameo in a Cameo video!) Watch for Star Trek: The Next Generation’s LeVar Burton as a policeman.

Word Up

I am almost 100% against remaking movies. I feel the same way about television shows. Music on the other hand is a bit different. When an artist covers a song, they bring to it their own interpretation of the song. Think of all the different versions of an old standard like “Georgia on My Mind.” Off the top of my head I can throw out 5-8 versions that I absolutely love.

I remember the first time I heard the Art of Noise doing Peter Gunn. I was in the car and I thought, “What in the world is this?” The more I listened the more intrigued I was. I was impressed with how close the guitar sounded like Duane Eddy. Of course, I was even more surprised to hear that it WAS Eddy!

It didn’t do much on the charts, but the sound was so different and unique that I had to go pick up the tune. The video was a private eye parody with comedian Rik Mayall as the detective. The song was a Grammy winner, as it took home the award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Peter Gunn

I mentioned that Sledgehammer had a bit of a blues sound to it earlier, and so does this one. Take a little blues and mix in some rock and you get some good stuff from The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

The title track from their Tuff Enuff album was a top 10 record for the group in 1986. They are often considered to be a one hit wonder band, but their song Wrap It Up was a minor hit. Kim Wilson wrote it and sings lead on the song.

The song is about a guy who will do pretty much anything for his gal, including wrestling with a lion or a grizzly bear, swimming the sea, put out a fire, and fight Ali. He’d even walk ten miles on his hands and knees, which really isn’t walking I suppose, but walk sounds better than crawl.

There is so much I love about this song, the syncopated guitar lick, the lyrics and the attitude. It made for a perfect sing along driving song.

Tuff Enuff

My last pick is another cover song, and this one I think tops the original and most of the other versions. That is saying a lot, because I am not the biggest Beach Boys fan.

California Dreamin’ was a hit for the Mamas and the Papas. It was written by John and Michelle Phillips. Barry McGuire (who had a hit with Eve of Destruction in 1965) actually recorded it first with the Mamas and Papas singing backup. They, of course, recorded their own version of the song soon after.

The Beach Boys recorded it for their Greatest Hits album, Made in U.S.A. The song was produced by the great Terry Melcher and had Roger McGuinn of the Byrds playing the 12-string guitar on it. Naturally, there was a video which featured McGuinn along with every living member of The Beach Boys and the “California Dreamin'” songwriters, John and Michelle Phillips. This primed the group for a big comeback two years later with their #1 hit “Kokomo.”

There are so many things about this song that I just love. That opening 12-string is fantastic. With the opening line, you get it and an echo of it which I thought sounded cool. Even cooler, after the line “and the sky is grey” there is that rumble of thunder that makes you feel the chill of the wind and the anticipation of a storm. Then there is that fantastic harmony! It is perfect for this song. Finally, their version opts for a jamming sax solo and loses the wimpy flute solo used in the Mamas and Papas version. That sax aids in conveying a “haunted sounding ending” as the song begins to fade away.

The song never hit the Top 40 on the Hot 100 chart, but on the Adult Contemporary charts it went to number 8.

California Dreamin‘

Next week, we’ll take a look at 1987. I’ll feature two fantastic duets, we’ll shake, rock, and roll, and hear about 6 beautiful ladies … er, 5.

What was your favorite from 1986? Tell Me about it in the comments. See you next time….

The Music of My Life – 1985

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 15 in 1985. It was sophomore year and I had moved up from the Freshman band to the Concert/Marching band. It is the year that consisted of many of my favorite songs that I recently posted about in this week’s Turntable Talk blog. It was also the year that I went on my first date and my first dance. How did the music of 1985 play into my life? Let’s find out…

My first pick is a soulful tribute to two amazing singers who passed away in 1984. It is also the only hit that the Commodores had after Lionel Richie left the group. I am talking, of course, about Nightshift.

The song is a tribute to singers Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. Marvin was 44 when he passed away, while Jackie was only 49. In 1974 the Righteous Brothers had a hit with Rock and Roll Heaven, where they picture fallen stars like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin forming a band in heaven. This was supposed to be a soul version where Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson are on heaven’s nightshift, playing some sweet sounds.

I love how the intro starts with that percussion lick and the smooth bass line that works its way to the vocal. It is such a funky, soulful and loving tribute to Marvin and Jackie – two legends!

Nightshift

As a sophomore, I ventured out of my comfort zone a bit and decided it was ok to go to high school dances. Mostly, the guys just hung out at a table and talked. However, after my first official date, I began actually wanting to go to dances with a female date. While I cannot remember for certain, I am pretty sure that one of my first dances ever with a girl was to Crazy For You by Madonna.

Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of hers. My brother, on the other hand, loved her! There are a few songs that I do like by her, and this is one of them. What I remember most about dancing to this song was that she was singing “crazy for you” and I wasn’t sure what kind of message that may or may not have been sending to my date. I was also thinking about making sure I was swaying the same way she was and NOT stepping on her toes. It had to be a very uncomfortable dance for her.

Fun Fact: Madonna reportedly only took one take to record this song.

This was recorded for the soundtrack to the wrestling film Vision Quest, which also featured a guest appearance by Madonna herself, who played a singer at a local restaurant. After the success of this song, the film was renamed Crazy For You in some European countries to capitalize on the song’s popularity.

Crazy For You

How does that saying go? Everything old is new again? I don’t know. What I do know is that Netflix is currently airing the 4th installment of the Beverly Hills Cop Franchise and I hear it is doing well. It was back in 1984 that Eddie Murphy first played Detroit Cop Axel Foley. The character’s name is what led to the title of my next song, Axel F.

Before the title was settled on, it went by a different name. During production of the movie, it known as the “Banana Theme,” as it was slated for a scene where Axel Foley shoves a banana in the tailpipe of police officers intending to pursue him. The composer was German musician Harold Faltermeyer and truly, this song was all him.

According to Wikipedia, he  recorded the tune using five instruments: a Roland Jupite-8 provided the distinctive saw lead, a Moog modular synthesizer 15 provided the bass, a Roland JX-3P provided chord stab brasses, a Yamaha DX7 was used for the marimba sound, and a LinnDrum was used for drum programming. Faltermeyer played every single instrument.

He was also the musical director on Beverly Hills Cop and did the score for the film. The soundtrack went to #1 in the US and won a Grammy for Best Album Of Original Score Written For A Motion Picture Or A Television Special. The song topped out at #3.

We played this at a concert one year in band, and though it sounds pretty easy, it was a bit tougher than I anticipated. It may have been in a weird key. It was one of many fun numbers we played.

Axel F

There are some songs that when you hear them, you cannot help but feel happy. My next pick is one of those songs. I have rarely played this at a party or wedding where it didn’t cause people to just get up and dance.

Remember the feeling you got when you first found out that someone truly loved you? There was that feeling of joy that just overflows from you! You can feel that joy and excitement in the vocals by Katrina Leskanich in Walking on Sunshine. It just makes you feel good!

The wife of one of my second cousins threw him a birthday party I DJ’d. The song was on the “must play” list. I remember having a conversation about the song and she said that it was the kid of song that you should play the minute you wake up in the morning. She said that it would just set the mood for the day. She always seemed to be in good mood when I saw her, so maybe she did just that!

Songfacts says, The video got a lot of airplay on MTV. It shows the band hanging around London, with Katrina very colorful and bouncy, and her bandmates more subdued. She had to make her own sunshine, as there was none in London – it was a typically cloudy and cold day.

Katrina’s look was anti-glam, with tennis shoes and the kind of fashions you’d find at the mall. In interviews from this time, she often took shots at singers like Madonna and Pat Benatar for adopting more suggestive looks.

Teen boys didn’t seem to mind….

Take four major country superstars, all who are friends with each other, pitch them an old song and tell them they should record it together and you get one really neat song. That’s the basic story of how Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash became The Highwaymen.

Country legend Jimmy Webb wrote the song about a soul with incarnations in four different places in time and history: as a highwayman, a sailor, a construction worker on the Hoover Dam, and finally as a captain of a starship. Webb released his version in 1977, it was covered in 1979 by Glen Campbell, who took the song to Johnny Cash, who was recording with Nelson, Jennings and Kristofferson.

The story goes that the four were all together in Switzerland doing a television special and decided that they should do a project together. While the four were recording their first album, Johnny’s friend Marty Stuart played the song for Cash, saying it would be perfect for them. It had four verses, four souls, and four of them.

The song led to the name of their supergroup, their album, and of course, their first single. Each of the four verses was sung by a different performer: first Nelson as the highwayman, then Kristofferson as the sailor, then Jennings as the dam builder, and finally Cash as the starship captain. Webb later observed, “I don’t know how they decided who would take which verse, but having Johnny last was like having God singing your song.”

No personal story to go with this one, I just like it!

I am embarrassed to say that up until 1985, I had never seen a James Bond movie. I was familiar with the fact that Roger Moore played Bond. My mom would rent Bond films on occasion and also watch them on cable. Moore played a Bond-like version of himself in Cannonball Run in 1981, but I had never really seen him AS Bond.

So when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go to the show with him we saw A View to a Kill. It was actually neat to see this in the theaters. I had often seen the Bond movie intro being parodied, but to see it kick off the film and to hear the song was all new to me. I was grateful to be able to see it.

Knowing Duran Duran and some of their songs, I was surprised that they did the theme song. The story of how they got it is interesting. Songfacts says: “according to the bassist John Taylor, was that he approached the longtime Bond producer, Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, while extremely intoxicated when they were both at a party. He stated that he was a long time fan (Major Bond geek would be more accurate. An Aston Martin was said to be one of his first “rock star” purchases, and he frequently mentioned his Bond video collection in interviews) of the series, but the music for the last few movies had been mediocre. He then offered to have his band fix the problem and Broccoli took the idea under advisement. Being asked to perform the theme song for a James Bond movie is a great honor, but the requirement to include its title in the lyrics can be challenging. Just ask John Taylor. “To this day we are forever grateful that we didn’t get Quantum Of Solace,” he said.

It is the only theme from a Bond movie to hit #1 in America.

A View To A Kill

I’ve made it all the way to 1985 and have yet to feature a Prince song. Not that I don’t like him, he was a musical genius. I am still blown away by his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance and his Superbowl Halftime Show. He was a talent, no doubt. My only real connection to him was that we play Let’s Go Crazy in Marching Band one year.

However, I can connect this one to me because it was on my 15th birthday that Prince released Raspberry Beret. Prince originally recorded “Raspberry Beret” in 1982, but re-worked it with his newly re-formed Revolution backing band.

At the time this was released, Prince was under fire from Tipper Gore during the notorious PMRC witch hunt, which placed two of his songs on the list of the “filthy 15.” So this is one of the songs where Prince started making his lyrics more family friendly. But if you really listen closely, you know that Prince still slipped in a “filthy” reference.

Raspberry Beret

1985 was the year that one of my favorite movies was released – Back to the Future. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, I reference the movie a lot and have read my fair share of time travel novels. It is a masterpiece and I will always watch it when it is on.

When Marty realizes he’s going to be late for school and he leave’s Doc’s place on his skateboard, Huey Lewis and The News’ The Power of Love makes the perfect song to accompany the scene. How did Huey become involved?

The film’s director Robert Zemeckis wanted Lewis to do the song – Huey Lewis & the News were rising stars with a modern sound that worked well in the movie, which takes place in both 1955 and 1985. Lewis had never done film work and hesitated at first, since he didn’t want to write a song called “Back to the Future.” When Zemeckis told him that the song didn’t have to be about the movie, Lewis accepted the challenge.

All Back to the Future fans know that Lewis has an uncredited cameo in this movie. Lewis has an uncredited cameo in this scene, where he plays a teacher who is judging the auditions. An early scene in the film has Marty McFly and his band The Pinheads auditioning for the high school dance. Huey plays a teacher who is judging the auditions. The group plays the beginning of “The Power of Love,” but before Marty can sing a note, Lewis cuts them off, telling them, “I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud.”

The music video doesn’t contain scenes from the film, but does feature an appearance by Christopher Lloyd in character as Doc Brown. We see him pull up in the DeLorean outside of a club where Huey Lewis & the News are performing.

The Power of Love

Yesterday marked the 34th anniversary of the passing of Stevie Ray Vaughn. I debated posting one of his songs for Tune Tuesday, but opted for a more uplifting post.

I was late to the SRV party. I was introduced to him after he passed away. I marveled at his playing and his vocal abilities. I really fell in love with his music.

I wrote about this song before, probably for one of the Song Drafts we were doing. It is Stevie’s cover of the old Hank Ballard song, “Look at Little Sister.”

Look At Little Sister

My final pick is another fun song. It reminds me a lot of the Kinks Come Dancing (which I just wrote about for Max’s PowerPop blog) because of the sound of the opening keyboards.

The Dire Straits were coming off the success of Money For Nothing which really established the band on MTV and on Top 40 radio in America. The fourth single from their Brothers In Arms Album was Walk of Life.

Mark Knopfler wrote this song to celebrate the street buskers of London, hence the references to “Be-Bop-a-Lula” and “What’d I Say,” which were two standards that might be part of a singer’s repertoire in the mid-’80s. Before the lyrics kick in, Knopfler does a few “who-hoo”s, which help create a whimsical vibe. When he spoke with the BBC in 1989, he expressed some “woo-hoo” remorse. “There’s too many ‘woos’ at the beginning of ‘Walk of Life,'” he said. “I heard it on the radio the other day and thought, Oh my God! What was I doing that for?”

Walk of Life (US)

Walk of Life (UK)

What song defined 1985 for you?

Next week we’ll share some songs from 1986. As I look at the music from that year, there were some great music videos! The year will feature my high school class song, my first attempt at Karaoke – before there was Karaoke, and two fantastic cover songs!

See you then!

The Music of My Life – 1983

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 13 in 1983. I had a paper route and a weekly income because of it. I spent my money on toys, books and music. I loved going into Harmony House and buying 45’s or albums. As I get deeper into the 80’s, I’m seeing more and more songs that I “had” to have.

I am noticing something about a lot of the songs on my lists. There have been some that have not necessarily been meaningful to me the year they were released, but wound up being important later on in my life. That is the case of a few of them from this year. That being said, let’s check out my list….

When Lionel Richie left the Commodores, he had a number one song with “Truly.” The follow up song has always been one of my favorites. I can still see and hear my mother singing along the the chorus of “You Are.”

What I love about this is the fact that while it is a love song, it has some tempo to it. It also has a horn section. Future hit maker Richard Marx sang backup on this track. His first job in music was singing on the Lionel Richie album, and he proved himself on this track, which required some deft background vocals. Richard told songfacts.com: “Every session I ever did with Lionel, or for him, was a very fun atmosphere. I’ve been on so many sessions where it’s a downer, and you just try to get through it and nobody is having fun. Lionel is always having fun – no matter what.”

You Are

When I worked in country radio, I used to go to the Country Radio Seminar. It was a place where you got to hear various panels discussing programming, promotions and more. There were plenty of artists there (both old and new) to entertain. We’d often bring stuff for artists to sign so we could auction them off for St. Jude.

Every night there was always a show somewhere. Everyone had always talked about “the boat.” One record label would bring folks about the General Jackson Showboat and provide dinner and drinks. While us radio people would sit and eat, they would bring artists out on the stage to play for us. Many times it was familiar artists featuring their new songs or new artists that the label wanted to showcase.

One of the things about the boat was that there were always one or two surprise guests. You never knew who might show up. The year before my first boat ride, Huey Lewis had mad an appearance. The first time I was on the boat, they wheeled out this piano on the stage. Next, they brought out Ronnie Milsap and I was thrilled. I had always loved his music and he did not disappoint.

He came out laughing and joking and cranked out a few songs, including Stranger In My House. It was written by Mike Reid, who was a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals for five seasons and had a couple country hits of his own. The song was a country hit and also crossed over to the AC and Hot 100 charts.

The song is done in a minor key and from the opening chords, I was hooked.

Stranger In My House

Anyone who goes through a divorce or a break up knows that what follows can be a rough road. The next song is an example of a song that meant nothing to me at the time, but years later it did.

The fighting, the bickering, the pettiness, the blame, the suffering, the accusations and all the things that comes with a divorce is difficult enough. Once they hand you the final decree, it is important to start anew. I had a wonderful support system in place for me and as time passed, I looked back to see that I was making it. I had been through the war and I had made it to the victory.

Elton John’s I’m Still Standing was used in an animated movie called “Sing.” It was while watching that with the kids that I really heard and felt the lyrics. I can look in the mirror and know that I’m Still Standing and life is GOOD!

I’m Still Standing

Remember ELO’s song “Motor Factory?” Of course, you don’t. That’s because as the group was recording the song, it went through a bunch of changes. They lyrics were completely changed and it became Rock and Roll Is King. The song was released as a single from their Secret Messages album.

ELO’s Dave Morgan said in an interview, “I sang on quite a few tracks, I sang on ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Is King’. I played on that one, but it wasn’t called that, it was something about something about working at Austin Longbridge! It was full of car plant sounds, you could hear it going clank, clank, clank, like somebody hitting a lathe with a hammer, and Jeff went away and made it into ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King’, wiped off everything we’d done, no, there was still some backing left in there, It was much better how he finished it off than it was before.”

I remember recording this off the radio as a kid. I didn’t realize that there was (what we radio guys call) a “fake cold” ending. That’s where the song stops, you think it’s over, and they come back and sing again. The first time I recorded it off the radio I hit pause on the fake cold, only for ELO to start singing again. Urgh! I got smart after that and went and bought the single.

Rock and Roll Is King

Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham released a few solo albums in the 80’s. Despite some songs that were Top 40 hits, not many folks can recall them. There is, however, one song that folks know thanks to the misadventures of a family named Griswold.

Thanks to National Lampoon’s Vacation, Buckingham’s song Holiday Road had become his best known song. That’s really saying something for a song that never cracked the Top 40 and peaked at #82 when it was released. The song almost didn’t happen.

Actor/director Harold Ramis asked Buckingham to create two songs for his film National Lampoon’s Vacation. He was initially reluctant, believing that soundtrack work “wasn’t part of his discipline.” Thankfully, he decided to grant Ramis’s request, and wrote. Buckingham recorded “Holiday Road” without seeing the entire film. He figured that the movie “had to be somewhat uplifting and a little bit funny”. To keep in line with that, he added dog barks near the end of the song, unaware that the movie featured a scene where a dog is accidentally dragged to death from the bumper of a car.

It is one of those songs that makes you unconsciously press down a bit too much on the gas pedal if your driving while it is playing. I’m not sure I ever “got” the video for the song, though.

Holiday Road

ZZ Top’s Eliminator album was one of few albums that have sold over 10 million copies in America, earning Diamond certification. I helped it get there! This was an album that I remember buying and dropping the needle on for the first time. It had such a neat sound.

Billy Gibbons says that he got the idea for Sharp Dressed man when he saw a movie and a character was listed in the credits as “Sharp-Eyed Man.” According to songfacts.com, the song attracted a slew of new fans to ZZ Top when the video ran constantly on MTV. Their long beards made them instantly recognizable and the babes certainly helped, but the car was the real star.

Prior ZZ Top albums had a Tex-Mex vibe, but when it came time to sort out visuals for the album, the hot rod was finally ready – Gibbons had been working on it for years. It was good timing, giving them an MTV-friendly focal point just when they needed it. They had never made videos before and had no acting experience, but their videos provided everything MTV’s target audience craved: girls, rock and roll, and a really sweet ride.

The music video was the first that was a sequel. It picked up the story from the “Gimme All Your Loving” video of the down-on-his-luck gas station worker who is swept away by three beautiful women. In “Sharp Dressed Man,” he’s a valet, and he encounters the same three girls and is once again given the keys to the Eliminator, Billy Gibbons’ 1933 Ford Hot Rod.

Sharp Dressed Man

I had no idea in 1983 that I would be working as a sleep technologist. The next song is one that is based on a real sleep disorder – somniloquy (Sleep talking). “Talking In Your Sleep” is the biggest hit of The Romantics’ career. In fact, it’s their only Top 10 hit, and only one other song by them (“One in a Million”) even made it to the Top 40. Contrast that with the number of times you’ve heard their song, “What I Like About You,” which only made it to #49.

I love this story about the song: As usual, MTV helped boost The Romantics’ success right around this time with videos of their songs. In Greg Prato’s book MTV Ruled the World, Romantics’ lead singer Jimmy Marinos talks about this song: “That was the last song recorded for the album In Heat. All we had was a backtrack, the instrumental part of the song. And we realized it was too good a track to leave unfinished. So everybody put their heads together, and in a couple of days, we finished up the song melodically and lyrically.” Ha also mentions that the video was filmed at 8:00 in the morning in Detroit, surrounded by girls in their jammies, at what was deemed “not really rock ‘n’ roll hours.” So if they look like they just woke up, that’s because they did – and it works great!

Check out their hair in this video!!

Talking In Your Sleep

Two years ago, Dave Ruch invited a bunch of us to write a column for his Turntable Talk feature. The first topic was about why the Beatles are still relevant, the next song is an example of their influence.

When Genesis began to write That’s All, it was intended as an attempt to write a simple pop song with a melody in the style of The Beatles. Phil Collins even acknowledged in a subsequent interview that the song also features one of his attempts at a “Ringo Starr drum part.”

Genesis keyboard player Tony Banks was one of the first to use an Emulator, which was one of the first digital samplers (it was introduced in 1981). Banks would record his bandmate Mike Rutherford as he noodled around on his instruments, then play around with those samples to craft a track, which is how this song developed.

That’s All was the band’s first Top 10 hit in the US, setting the stage for their tremendous success the rest of the decade as they adapted their sound from progressive rock to tighter pop songs. The video certainly played a part in the success of the song, too. It depicts the band as homeless men taking shelter outside a disused factory. They perform the song, eat soup, play cards, and keep warm around an open fire. It was the first time Genesis used director Jim Yukich, who would direct the majority of their next videos as well as many of Collins’s solo videos.

That’s All

Remember the group Blue Angel? Me either. It was the group that Cyndi Lauper was in in 1981. It was her solo career and her first single, however, that made her famous. It is interesting to note that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun didn’t start out as the female anthem that Cyndi made it.

A Philadelphia singer/songwriter named Robert Hazard, who had a band called Robert Hazard and the Heroes, wrote it. He recorded a demo of it in 1979. Speaking with Rolling Stone, Lauper said that she had to alter the lyrics from Hazard’s original. “It was originally about how fortunate he was ’cause he was a guy around these girls that wanted to have ‘fun’ – with him”

Believe it or not, Cyndi didn’t want to record this song, but her producer, Rick Chertoff, was convinced it could become her anthem. The challenge for her was figuring out how to sing it. She ended up doing her vocal in the style of the ’50s hit “Let the Good Times Roll” by Shirley & Lee, which Shirley Goodman sings in a high-pitched voice. It obviously worked as the song went to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

MTV again played into the success of the song, as this was a very fun video to watch. The video, which ran constantly on MTV, features the wrestler Captain Lou Albano as Lauper’s father, and also Lauper’s real-life mother, who had no acting experience but did just fine. It won the first ever award for Best Female Video at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards.

The song had a huge influence on how girls dressed in the 80’s. When I think of it, I can picture so many of my gal friends who dressed like Cyndi.

Girl’s Just Want To Have Fun

Everyone I grew up with had the 1984 album from Van Halen. The song actually was a bigger hit in 84, but it is on this list because it was released in December of 1983. Jump is just one of many songs that used synthesizers in the 80’s. The synthesizer intro for Van Halen’s Jump is iconic, but not everyone in the band wanted to use it.

The synthesizer was a point of contention in the band. Eddie wanted to use it, but lead singer David Lee Roth thought it would look like they were selling out to get more radio play. Eddie was classically trained on piano growing up – he didn’t start playing guitar until he was a teenager – so it wasn’t that far a stretch for him. Had the band brought in an outside keyboard player they probably would have gotten a lot of flak, but Eddie was held in such high esteem that fans were happy to hear him on another instrument.

Songfacts.com says: 1984 was David Lee Roth’s last album with Van Halen before he left the band in 1985; the video for “Jump” inflamed the tensions that led to his departure. The video was produced by Robert Lombard, who wanted to show the personal side of the band on stage. Roth, however, wanted the performance intercut with footage of him doing other things, so they shot him doing things like riding a motorcycle and getting arrested while wearing nothing but a towel. Lombard edited the video and used none of the extra Roth footage, taking it to Eddie and Alex for approval. Two days later, the band’s manager fired him for bypassing Roth. Lombard says he never received the award the video won from MTV.

Jump

Next week, we’ll look at songs from 1984. 1984 was a big year for me in a lot of ways. Musically, it was a big year for ballads. With a mix of country, R&B, and a song that led to me embarrassing myself on the air years later, it will be an interesting list!

Tell me about your favorite from 1983 that I may have missed in the comments and I will see you next week.

The Music of My Life – 1982

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.

Let’s jump right into 1982. We start with a song that was released in January of ’82 in the United States. Believe it or not, this song would go on to have a special meaning for me and many others from my high school. More on that in a minute.

The Go-Go’s were one of those bands who wrote most of their own songs. “We Got The Beat” was written by guitarist Charlotte Caffey, who drew inspiration from some Motown beats, specifically one that mentioned the name of her group. She explains, “I thought it would be very clever to do ‘Going to a Go Go’ (by the Miracles). I thought, Well, let’s try working this out as a cover song. Which is really funny when I think about it. I was listening to it a lot one day, and later that night, the song came to me within five minutes. I don’t even know if it has anything to do with listening to that song, but this whole idea came to me. It was one of those things that just went right through me and came out my hand; I wrote it down, recorded it a little bit, and then brought it into rehearsal a few days later.”

The Go-Go’s released an early version of “We Got The Beat” in the UK as their first single. It was issued on Stiff Records, which was home to The Specials and Madness, both groups The Go-Go’s toured with in England to promote it. Sadly, it flopped, but the group fared far better in America, where they were signed to IRS Records by Miles Copeland, who managed The Police.  In the US, “Our Lips Are Sealed” was released as their first single in the summer of 1981, followed by a new version of “We Got The Beat” in January 1982. This release was The Go-Go’s biggest hit, spending three weeks at #2. (I’ll include both versions below)

Band Camp – Summer 1985. We Got the Beat was a favorite of my high school marching band. I have no idea how long they had been playing it prior to my first year, but it was always played at pep assemblies and when our team won. It was a staple in the marching band music folder. It was the one song that we could play and just have fun. We danced, we jumped, we acted the fool while playing it. It was a celebratory song.

Our band director would say, “Let’s do the little Italian number” during rehearsals. We all knew what he was talking about because he’d often call it, “We Gotta Da Beat.” I want to say our alumni band was around for at least 10 or 12 years after I graduated and they were still playing it. We always joined it because we all had it memorized. I haven’t played my trumpet in years, but I can assure you that if I were to pick it up today, I could still play this song!

We Got the Beat

Real life once again inspired another big hit. Songwriter Wayne Carson, who wrote The Box Tops’ 1967 #1 hit “The Letter,” came up with “Always On My Mind” when he was working at a recording studio in Memphis. He lived with his wife in Springfield, Missouri, and the trip to Memphis had gone 10 days longer than expected.

When he called the missus to tell her he would be there even longer, she let him have it. He tried to assuage her by telling her that was thinking about her all the time – she was “always on my mind.” “It just struck me like someone had hit me with a hammer,” he told the LA Times, “I told her real fast I had to hang up because I had to put that into a song.”

Willie had never heard the song before the song’s co-writer, Johnny Christopher, brought it to him and Merle Haggard, who were busy recording the album Pancho & Lefty (Christopher was playing guitar on the session). “‘Always On My Mind,’ bowled me over the moment I heard it, which is one of the ways I pick songs to record,” Nelson recalled in his 1988 autobiography, Willie. “There are beautifully sad songs that bowl me over… haunting melodies you can’t get out of your mind, with lines that really stick.”

Nelson figured he and Haggard would do the song together, but Haggard didn’t care for it. After they finished recording their album, Nelson stayed in the studio and recorded the ballad solo, just to see what it would sound like. Of course, it sounded like a hit, but Nelson wondered, “We’ll never know what would have happened if Merle had really heard the song right.”

You may remember that Willie Nelson played a big part in my childhood. His Stardust album was played all the time by my grandfather. My grandfather passed away in 1981. Any song by Willie reminded me of my grandpa. My mom really struggled with his passing and I remember being in the car with her when Always on My Mind came on the radio. She had to pull over because it really hit her hard.

It hit me the same way. I know that it is far fetched to believe that grandpa sent a message from beyond the grave, but it felt that way. From Stardust to Always on My Mind and every Willie album that followed, there always seemed to be one song that fit into something that was going on in my life. This one helped me cope with the first death I ever experienced, even though it was more of a love/apology song.

Always on My Mind

One of the things that I noticed as I scanned over the list of singles released in the early eighties was the prominent use of the synthesizer. Rock bands like ZZ Top, Van Halen, and Yes added synthesizers to their mix in the ’80s and scored huge hits by adapting what songfacts.com called “the sound of the decade.” The Steve Miller Band started out as a blues band in the ’60s, evolving into a rock outfit in the ’70s. They often sprinkled electronic effects into their songs, so the keyboards and synth stabs in this song weren’t out of character.

“Abracadabra” was the last US Top 40 hit for the Steve Miller Band, and their third #1. The song was written by Miller and the lyrics were inspired by Diana Ross and the Supremes, whom he had met while performing together on NBC’s Hullabaloo in 1966. “‘Abracadabra’ started off as a great piece of music with really atrocious lyrics,” Miller explained to The Dallas Morning News. “One day I was out skiing in Sun Valley and, lo and behold, who did I see on the mountain but Diana Ross. I skied down off the mountain to go have lunch. I started thinking about the Supremes and I wrote the lyrics to ‘Abracadabra’ in 15 minutes.”

Honestly, I’m really not sure how the Supremes led to the song, but I remember it being a song that really stood out to me on the radio. I rushed out to buy the 45 and it was always a song that wound up on my “driving music” tapes.

Abracadabra

1981 was the year that many were introduced to Men at Work. Their debut single, “Who Can It Be Now” shot straight to #1 on the charts. The group started as an acoustic duo with singer Colin Hay and guitarist Ron Strykert. After a few years playing pubs in Australia, they were discovered by an American who worked for CBS records and signed them.

Colin Hay wrote the song and explained how it came about:

“I was up in the bush in Southern New South Wales with my girlfriend, just sitting outside at night. We had this little tree hut in the middle of the bush. It was a great place to kill the time, mess around with ideas. It was just an idea that popped out, it took about half and hour to write that song. I was living in St. Kilda in Melbourne, which is a great part of Melbourne. At that particular time it was a very interesting area, it was frequented by everybody from the high Jewish population, punks, drug movers, all kinds of different people. It was about six or seven hours drive away, sitting in the middle of the bush in New South Wales and that song just popped out. My girlfriend at the time said, ‘that will be your first hit, that song,’ and she was right.”

Their Business as Usual album was one that I played often.

Fun Fact: The famous saxophone part originally didn’t come in until the middle of the song, which suited when the band played it in bars. When they recorded it, producer Peter McIan identified the sax as a hook and moved it to the beginning of the song, also making it more prominent throughout. This opening sax riff made the song instantly identifiable.

Who Can It Be Now

Juice Newton had a few big hits between Queen of Hearts and Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard On Me. The latter is one of those fun sounding songs, even though it is about the hardships of a relationship. The song was released exactly one week after my 12th birthday.

Juice reminds me of Carlene Carter who had some jumpy, fun songs like this one. Even though she channels Neil Sedaka and sings harmony with herself on the song, that’s one of the reasons I love it. It’s nothing fancy, but it is just good harmony and it blends so well.

One of the things I have enjoyed while picking songs for this year was seeing the videos that were made for certain songs. Wiki describes the music video for this one perfectly. It says that it comically plays off the emotional hurt of love by showing Juice Newton being physically injured by her lover in a series of accidents. The final shot is of Newton singing in the hospital in a full-body cast with her broken leg in the air. The video was awarded Video of the Year by the American Video Association in 1982.

Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard On Me

There is an outdoor amphitheater in the Detroit area that packs in some fantastic shows every summer. I cannot tell you how many shows I have seen at Pine Knob (For some time DTE Energy paid to have the name and even though shows were at “DTE Energy Music Theater,” everyone still called it Pine Knob!). I’ve seen rock shows, comedy shows, country shows, and more there.

For many years, Eddie Money was ALWAYS the guy who played the first show there. He kicked off the summer concert season annually and it became a tradition. One year, I had the opportunity to interview Eddie on the air. It was the easiest interview in the world! Why? You never had to ask questions after he got on the phone. “Hey, Eddie! How are you?” Then Eddie would roll – he’d promote the show, promote an album, share some funny story, talk about the venue, and more. The “Money Man” was great!

I dated in high school who loved Eddie Money’s Music. She had the No Control album on cassette and we’d listen to it in the car. Think I’m in Love was on that album and I remember the first time I saw the video on MTV. Again, these early videos are fun to watch. Eddie plays a sort of vampire character in it. It was a very popular video.

Think I’m In Love

Growing up I listened to Elvis, Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran and other artists who played some rockabilly music. So when I heard the Stray Cats in 1982, it was like hearing stuff I was already familiar with. The Built For Speed album was one I played over and over.

Brian Setzer was born in New York and was exposed to a lot of genres of music. He learned to play the guitar at a young age, and when he was a teen, he formed a trio he called the Tomcats, That group would later change their name to the Stray Cats. They were influenced by all those artists I just mentioned and their group developed a fairly large following in the underground punk scene of New York City during the late ’70s. Their fan base expanded so quickly that they found themselves being courted by no less than a half dozen record labels in 1980.

Brian Setzer opted to record and produce the Stray Cats’ debut album in the UK Rock This Town was released there over a year before it was released in the US. Rock This Town was a Top 10 hit for the band. It’s crazy to watch the video and see Brian. He looks like a baby in it. Hard to believe he was only 23 when this video was shot.

Rock This Town

My dad and my uncle used to play old blues music on records and on the guitar. At my graduation party, they played stuff from Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, and other blues legends. Because of that, I’ve always loved the blues. Because of that, I was naturally a fan of George Thorogood.

Bad to the Bone is based on the Bo Diddley blues song “I’m a Man.” Bo Diddley was one of George’s heroes. His “version” has a much heavier guitar sound, which replaces the harmonica in Diddley’s recording. Songfacts.com says that “both songs are full of swagger, with the singers exuding lots of testosterone.”

Songfacts.com goes on to say, “With MTV coming on the air in 1981, Thorogood picked a good time to release a memorable video. The clip shows Thorogood playing pool against Bo Diddley in a place where there is no chance of a dance sequence breaking out. Pool champion Willie Mosconi also appears in the clip, which introduced Thorogood – and to some extent, Diddley – to the younger MTV crowd. Among the British New Wave acts that dominated MTV’s playlist at the time, Thorogood certainly stood out, and he created an image of a bad man. While Thorogood is a disciple of the blues, he was raised in a Delaware suburb and by most accounts is actually a pretty nice guy, despite what he claims in this song.”

I love the fact that Diddley is in this video! The song is one that has a life of it’s own. It is used as intro music for wrestlers, it has been used during the removal of the bride’s garter at weddings, and has been used in both movies and television in seriousness and for comedic effect. It is a classic.

Bad to the Bone

I love a great intro. Sometimes a great guitar riff or a neat drum thing is all it takes to hook me. The intro to Everybody Wants You was one of those intros. It appeared as the opening track of his multi-Platinum 1982 album Emotions in Motion.

The song itself didn’t do that great on the Hot 100 chart, as it only went to number 32. However, it was around this time that one of the radio formats that was big was called AOR – Album Oriented Rock. It had great success on these and rock stations. It reached number one on Billboard’s Top Rock Tracks chart. Naturally, the video did well on MTV, too. It remained in heavy rotation for quite some time.

The minute I hear this one, I think back to those nights of shooting pool with my buddies. It was always on the jukebox.

Everybody Wants You

The next song is one that is still applicable today. Perhaps even more so. What exactly is “news” today? Turn on any local news channel or entertainment news show – it is chock full of stories like the ones referenced in Don Henley’s first Top 40 hit as a solo artist – Dirty Laundry.

Again, the intro of this really stood out for me. The lyrics take it to an entirely new level. They are so good and perhaps that is because Henley had plenty of real life to draw from. This song is about unscrupulous news people doing anything for a story. Henley values his privacy, and hates it when reporters pry into his personal life. He had to deal with increased press attention when his girlfriend at the time, Maren Jensen, came down with Epstein-Barr Syndrome. She recovered, but they broke up soon after.

Songfacts.com states: “Henley sings from the standpoint of a news anchorman who “could have been an actor, but I wound up here”. The song’s theme is that TV news coverage focuses too much on negative and sensationalist news; in particular, deaths, disasters, and scandals, with little regard to the consequences or for what is important (“We all know that crap is king”). The song was inspired by the intrusive press coverage surrounding the deaths of John Belushi and Natalie Wood. It was also inspired by Henley’s own arrest in 1980 when he was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and possession of marijuana, cocaine, and Quaaludes after a 16-year-old girl overdosed at his Los Angeles home”

While Don’s version is the best, Lisa Marie Presley (who had to deal with a lot of press intrusions on her personal life) also does a really neat version of Dirty Laundry.

Dirty Laundry

There were plenty of great songs in 1982, I’m sorry if I missed one of your favorites. Next week, we’ll move ahead to 1983 where there will be a good mix of rock, country, pop, soul and a movie song that will forever be associated with summer vacations ….

See you then!

Turntable Talk – Did Video Kill The Radio Star?

This blog is my entry for Dave over at A Sound Day’s “Turntable Talk.” Kudo’s to Dave for picking some fantastic topics, and at the same time letting us participants “run” with it. The following are the instructions we were given:

We were told we ” …don’t have to write literally about the question, but we’re looking for your thoughts on all things music video – how much did MTV change the music of the ’80s? Since there were already British acts making videos regularly in the 70s, do you think it would have taken off in a big way even without the American MTV influence?  Did it kill careers… or make careers that shouldn’t have happened? Do you have favorite ones you still like to watch?  Do you miss the days when MTV (or Much Music in Canada, or European equivalents) ran music videos instead of reality TV and old reruns?   Really, approach it how you like, but I’m curious to get thoughts on the Video Revolution.“

My Conundrum

There have been many people who truly believe that video killed the radio star. As a child of the 70’s and 80’s, I lived through the beginnings of MTV. When I think about music videos, there are so many that I will forever associate with the songs. For example:

  • Take On Me – a-ha
  • Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel
  • Rhythm Nation – Janet Jackson
  • Bad, Billie Jean, Beat It, Black or White, and of course, Thriller – Michael Jackson
  • Vogue – Madonna
  • Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
  • Buddy Holly – Weezer
  • Weapon of Choice – Fatboy Slim
  • Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
  • Legs – ZZ Top
  • Land of Confusion – Genesis
  • Hot For Teacher – Van Halen
  • Simply Irresistible – Robert Palmer
  • Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
  • Run DMC and Aerosmith – Walk This Way
  • California Girls – David Lee Roth
  • Got My Mind Set on You – George Harrison
  • Stuck With You – Huey Lewis and the News
  • Faith – George Michael
  • White Wedding – Billy Idol
  • Opposites Attract – Paula Abdul

The list could go on and on! Those are just the ones that I pulled off the top of my head (and I am probably forgetting some big ones)!

The more I thought about it, I kept coming back to “Video killed the radio star.” Perhaps that is the case (as some proclaim), but I can think of one artist who made videos and it got him mainstream attention.

MTV Welcomes Weird Al Yankovic

According to Wikipedia, the discography of Mr. Yankovic consists of fourteen studio albums, nine compilation albums, eleven videos albums, two extended plays, two box sets, forty-six singles and fifty-four music videos. 

Those fifty-four music videos helped to take Weird Al Yankovic to the mainstream world. Let’s face it, the only place you could hear him on the radio was on the Dr. Demento Show, which was often aired in the worst possible time slot because of the crazy content. When Al ventured into the video realm, more and more viewers wanted to see – and hear – more of him!

Parody songs have been around forever, and very rarely ever got radio play. Novelty records were big in the 50’s and 60’s, and there were a few here and there in the 70’s. When Al comes on the scene in 1983, he took it to a whole new level, using videos.

1983’s “Ricky” is credited as being his first video. It was a parody of Toni Basil’s “Micky.” It was a parody base on the TV show I Love Lucy. The video was shot in black and white and still looks great today.

From there, Al continued to use video to gain exposure on MTV. His next single was “I Love Rocky Road” which parodies Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll.” Instead of a greaser bar, it is set in … an ice cream parlor.

Al’s next video is really the one that really stands out as the one that moved him to a whole new level. Yes, he is a parody singer, but with the video for “Eat It” (a parody of Michael Jackson’s Beat It), not only is the song parodied, but so is the video. Al’s video is literally a shot for shot remake of Jackson’s. Throughout the video, instead of switchblades there are rubber chickens and kitchen utensils, and gags for almost everything in the Beat It video.

I can’t say whether or not the video is responsible for this, but the song won Al a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1984. The video won for Best Male Performance at the 1984 American Video Awards!

From that point on, Al continued to make music videos for his singles. Art Fleming appeared in the “I Lost on Jeopardy” video, non-stop visual gags were plentiful in the “Like a Surgeon” video, and the James Brown “screams and shrieks” in “Living With a Hernia” were all more painful than soulful.

In 1988, Al once again parodied Michael Jackson. If I had to pick a “perfect” Weird Al parody video, it this would be one of two. Al won another Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video for “Fat.” He even got permission from MJ to use the same set as the original video. Al’s makeup took three hours to apply every day and his fat suit weighed 40 pounds. Every time I hear the line, “Ding Dong, Yo!” I still crack up.

I mentioned that “Fat” is one of two “perfect” videos. The other would have to be the fantastic video for “Smells Like Nirvana” (a parody of Smells Like Teen Spirit). Al famously got permission for this parody from Kurt Cobain himself when he was performing on Saturday Night Live. In this Grammy-nominated video, Al satirizes Nirvana and the grunge movement, shooting on the same set as the original video and using the same actor who played the janitor (Rudy Larosa). Dick Van Patten has a cameo, which for whatever reason is extremely funny to me. Why Dick Van Patten??!! Someone said that Tony Hawk makes an appearance in the video, too. I’m not sure I know where.

Weird Al has certainly used music videos to his advantage. It takes a lot of creativity to write a good parody (I mean, come on, there are a lot of crap ones out there – just look on YouTube), but to take an already funny song and create a video that brings about even more humor, just enhances the song. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, Weird Al is a musical genius.

There have been many other great videos that have followed. To name a few: Amish Paradise (featuring Florence Henderson), Headline News (featuring The People’s Court’s Doug Llewelyn), Gump (featuring Ruth Buzzi and Pat Boone), The Saga Begins (the fantastic Star Wars tribute), White and Nerdy (featuring Donny Osmond and Seth Green), and so many more.

Yes, video may have killed the radio star, but it certainly helped boost the career of Weird Al Yankovic.