I certainly wasn't a kid in the eighties, but radio made me feel like one. I'd left country at the right time and discovered rock at the exact right time. My kids were still pre-teens, meaning they'd still agree to go places with me ~ drives to the mall, maybe a jaunt to pick up a pizza. And all the while our companion was rock radio. I foisted my musical tastes on them, swirling up the radio volume anytime a song I really liked kicked off. When "We Are The World" became a big radio hit, I patiently explained to them which singer was singing which part. My oldest really glommed onto Corey Hart's "Sunglasses At Night", a song I hated ("so I can...so I can..."), but I can never hear that song today without being reminded of that seven-year-old kid. On one of our yearly sojourns to South Dakota's Black Hills, Van Halen's "Jump" was the hot hit of the day. That organ-sounding guitar solo blasted out of the car radio's speakers approximately every seven minutes, to the point where I wasn't sure if I was experiencing car sickness or David Lee Roth-sickness. But my kids liked the song.
The eighties were the era of one-hit-band wonders, mostly British it seemed, but those tracks remain some of my favorite eighties songs to this day. The Dream Academy with "Life In A Northern Town", The Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy". And who could forget (or ever would be allowed to forget) Rick Astley?
Music snobs tend to denigrate eighties music, but I bet if they got a gander at my Spotify playlist they'd soon be dancing around their living rooms, or if they were male, at least tapping their foot. One thing about eighties music, it was joyous, not morose ~ not navel-contemplation. All that introspection is overrated. I like songs like this:
Yes, I am country at heart, but I wouldn't give up my eighties rock for the world. It speaks to me in ways that little other does.
(All these groups apparently had the same unimaginative photographer.)
In 1964 the British Invasion was BIG. Huge. I was nine years old and not exactly discovering music, but discovering my own music. Little kids don't generally have money to spend on records (or any money, really). I had two teenage sisters and a teenage brother, so their music was the music I listened to. My sisters were singles buyers; they had Dion and Bobby Vee and sappy teen idol love songs. My brother, on the other hand, had excellent musical tastes. His oeuvre was LP's. The Beach Boys, Dylan, the first Beatle albums I ever laid my hands on. That's not to say he discovered The Beatles first ~ we'll call it a draw. When "I Want To Hold Your Hand" busted out of my transistor radio's speaker, I was immediately smitten. On the sidewalk outside my elementary school I became an instant music critic. Debbie Lealos and Cathy Adair and I held serious discussions about the best Beatle singles and, of course, who was the cutest Beatle (Paul, duh.)
Then Shindig! came along. Unlike today, when kids rule the world, in '64 we were grateful to be allowed to exist in the word. TV shows weren't created for kids, unless you count Captain Kangaroo. Shows sure weren't created for bubbling adolescents until some guy (apparently smoking dope) greenlighted Shindig!. The show was cast in black and white, which wouldn't have mattered, since we only owned a black and white TV. The Righteous Brothers were sort of the artists in residence, but anyone who was anyone in 1964 appeared on the show at one time or another: Sonny and Cher, The Turtles, The Beau Brummels, Gary Lewis and The Playboys, The Lovin' Spoonful.
Then there were the British Invasion artists. I thought I'd seen them all: Freddie and The Dreamers, The Animals, Chad and Jeremy and Peter and Gordon (who I honestly couldn't tell apart), The Dave Clark Five, Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Zombies, Herman's Hermits, The Hollies, The Kinks, The Honeycombs (who recorded my favorite guilty pleasure track), Manfred Mann, The Moody Blues; yes, The Rolling Stones. Supposedly The Beatles, but I think I would have remembered that.
It seems, though, that a few British Invasion bands never made it in front of the camera.
The Searchers were a Merseybeat group, which actually was a thing, ostensibly named after the River Mersey in England. The British apparently don't know that the moniker should come first; otherwise I'd be living in close proximity to The River Mississippi. The Beatles are the most famous alumni of the Mersey beat sound, but it also included the afore-mentioned Gerry and The Pacemakers and the Hermits, Hollies and Dreamers, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders, and don't forget The Swinging Blue Jeans.
I didn't actually know that Needles and Pins was a remake ~ apparently The Searchers specialized in cover songs. I've never heard the Jackie DeShannon original, but it can't be as good as this:
Speaking of The Beat Mersey, this is a really good song:
The Georgia Satellites covered this song, and in hindsight, really didn't put their stamp on it. It sounds essentially the same (even sung in the same key):
This is a good song (and see? Wayne at least is shaking a tambourine):
Freddy and The Dreamers were a novelty act (I'm surmising). Even in 1964, I rolled my eyes at this attempt at choreography on Shindig!
Gerry and The Pacemakers weren't a pre-pubescent girl's dream. They didn't do "peppy" songs, unless you count "I Like It", which was a throwaway. In hindsight, they did very soulful songs; songs that only someone who'd suddenly sprouted maturity could appreciate.
I understand now why I recognize the name Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, but not their songs. It's always a risk when the lead singer can't latch onto a guitar, or even maracas, like Davy Jones did. It comes across as cheesy, red-tufted booth lounge-y.
Graham Nash thought he could do better than The Hollies (he didn't). Fittingly, he's not included in this performance:
There's no one more annoying on SiriusXM than Peter Noone. He just drones on and on...and on. Herman's Hermits were an amalgam of good pop songs and crap. And Peter's instrument of choice was apparently hand-claps. Granted, the group had some real winners, but they also had some real stinkers. It was a freak show, with apparently no one in charge. This is one of the winners:
I began this post only wanting to highlight Needles and Pins, but as life is wont to do, The River Meander snaked on through.
I could go on and on about the British Invasion, and these performances are only a subset. It is good to realize that even as an innocent rube, I had pretty decent musical tastes. I wasn't snookered by flash.
In other words, The Searchers, and I, are awesome.
Maybe it's a facet of getting older. I'm generally a pretty even-keel person, or maybe I'm just in denial. I do know that I now get too upset by workplace irritations and I'm not necessarily handling them well. You know, the usual -- people who ignore emails, someone taking over a room I've had reserved for two weeks and expecting me to find other accommodations. People declining to shoulder their share of the burden and being pissy in their refusal.
No wonder I don't sleep.
I read: Sustained or chronic stress, in particular, leads to elevated hormones
such as cortisol, the "stress hormone," and reduced serotonin and other
neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine, which has been linked to depression. (link) I didn't think I was depressed, but maybe I am. Even if I am, what am I supposed to do with that? I have to continue to "deal", because that's how life goes.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be selfish, to not be beholden to anyone. I think it would be heaven for a while. I would settle for just a tiny bit of fun. To be honest, I think I've forgotten what fun is. I asked myself, what would I do that would be fun? The first thing that popped into my mind was...dance. Dance like an idiot. Wave my arms in the air and swivel my hips like a bad Elvis impersonator and clap my hands over my head. Stomp my feet to the beat. Get those pheromones whizzing.
Music rarely fails to lighten my mood. Tonight it kind of failed me. The first song I heard that even registered was this one (thank you, Brian Wilson):
If I was alone on a dance floor and nobody was watching, I wonder what I would dance to....
I know the old joke -- Remember when MTV played music?
In 1987, I was in that sweet spot -- thirty-two years old, with two kids who were still fun to be around. I had a job I still liked; second shift at the local hospital, a work schedule that suited our family's circumstances just fine.The Medical Floor had two wings, a modern robin's-egg blue-walled cubby with a softly-carpeted waiting area near the elevator, furnished with cushy magenta chairs and sunflower prints on the walls; and the old annex, with its scuffed linoleum and the clatter of every dropped dinner tray echoing off its cavernous walls. I believe in the thirties the old wing was used as a psychiatric cell. Our work schedules were hand-drawn three months in advance, so we worker drones would know where we belonged on any given day. I rotated between the old and new wings. I liked the old one. I can't explain it rationally -- I think it just felt more real. A hospital is a sad place, but we didn't give in to sorrow. We couldn't. We had our "regulars"; those who were admitted every couple of weeks or so -- the elders with emphysema, the teenage kids with cystic fibrosis, who were the most joyous humans on the planet. We all knew their timeline was approaching its end and we huddled together and dripped tears on the newspaper print when a sad obituary was flayed across the nurses' station.
I was a civilian -- a ward clerk who tended to the doctors' orders and the next-day's breakfast choices. I scheduled surgeries and made sure the lab techs drew blood for the appropriate tests. I filled water pitchers. I helped to turn the patients when the RN's were busy tending to a combative old man who had wrested out of his restraints.
Around lights-out, the nurses and I settled in at the station and worked on our craft projects. Cross-stitch became my salve, my Zen. We flipped up the volume on the radio dial and bounced a bit in our chairs to the latest hits. Ten o'clock, I zipped through the sliding doors in the lobby, keys in hand; breathed in the cool night air, and snuggled inside the warm leather for my short drift home.
Our radio station was Y93. I was alive. Our Minnesota Twins were on a tear. I adopted baseball in 1987. We could feel it -- this time they were going to win it all -- our ragtag heroes, Gaetti, Hrbek, Kirby, Frank Viola, Dan Gladden, Brunansky. I learned to call strikes. I became a fool baseball expert in 1987.
And the radio and MTV featured songs like this:
I remember calling our local station and requesting that song, and the supercilious woman disc jockey informing me that they didn't play "that crap". She only deigned to play ZZ Top and Eric Clapton, apparently. You know, the stuff you twirl the dial on your radio to get away from. Because, you know, one just can't get enough of "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)".
1987 was also the year a savant voice appeared; somebody who couldn't possibly be that good, but she was. She was but twenty-four years old and she put all the old dudes and dudettes to shame. The sun sparkled in her eyes. Just watch:
Is Wang Chung a weird name? It doesn't seem weird to me, in hindsight. I do, though, remember an episode of Cheers in which Fraser Crane recited these immortal words:
Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody Wang Chung tonight
Concert videos, even "fake" concert videos, were awesome to we MTV viewers. It's like we're there!
Okay, I understood the stagecraft, but that didn't detract from this song's impact. Although I will say the song would not be quite as fabulous if it weren't for the "ooh-wah ooh-wah" talkbox. Just sayin'.
Not to mention the hair. And flying into the crowd was a cool touch.
And speaking of hair, let's just say this: Yes, it was the eighties. Yes, we had big hair; even the boys. Height was the desired standard. I had essentially the same hairstyle that John Bon Jovi had. It wasn't weird, because everybody looked like that. Sure, in hindsight it's weird. Again, it was the eighties. We also wore eyeglasses with gigantic frames that stretched from the tip of our hairline down to just above our upper lip. Again, it was the eighties.
Also, we had music videos with super models flouncing across the hoods of cars:
Some Irish band (who'd never last) appeared on the scene in '87.
If you're a girl, you'll understand this next song. If you're not a girl, you will be flummoxed. I don't understand the male brain. I guess men like fast cars and big guns and quick scene flashes. I guess it's why my husband likes "Big Trouble In Little China", which, while we're watching it for the twentieth time, allows me time to take a quick snooze. I don't know why men don't feel the emotional impact of this (please disregard the crappy preview):
There are the purists who say that Peter Cetera ruined Chicago. Then there's me who says, who the F gave a damn about Chicago before Peter Cetera joined the group? I don't know what Peter Cetera is doing nowadays, but I assume he's sitting at home counting his wads of cash. Cetera was ubiquitous on 1980's movie soundtracks. Think "Karate Kid".
Peter Cetera teamed with Amy Grant for a big 1987 hit:
I don't know about you, but for me, 1987 is defined by Huey Lewis and the News. There was just something about Huey. He was geeky and not anyone one would associate with pop music. And yet it worked. Sorry this video is so badly constructed:
As a sorta country-pop geek, this was my VERY FAVORITE single from 1987, and I love it today:
