Thursday, May 24, 2007

A Belated Tag Response

It's been a hectic couple of weeks, and I haven't been able to get to Danielle's excellent tag until today-- it required some research and some thinking!

The tag was:

1. Go to www.popculturemadness.com
2. Pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the song’s of the year
4. Write something about how the song affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

I modified the tag just a little-- I looked at some other lists of hits to find songs I loved from that year-- the hit lists of the time were heavy with disco, which I hated.

1. Message In a Bottle- The Police
This is one of the first Police songs I remember ever hearing (I think the very first was "Walking On the Moon"). I dug them, but I think I (and everybody else) was sick of them by 1984 or so. They still sounded fresh in 1979, and I loved this song.

It's funny to think now of poor Sting, all alone and lonely.

2.Let's Go- The Cars
This song will forever be embedded in my head as the song of the summer I graduated high school. You didn't even have to have a radio to hear this song-- it was playing out of car radios, out of windows, in stores. I never managed to get tired of it-- I still love hearing it. And the Vargas album cover didn't hurt either...

3. I Need A Lover (Who Won't Drive Me Crazy)- Johnny Cougar
This was The Artist Currently Known As John Mellencamp's first hit. He was, inexplicably, first promoted as a "glam" artist. This song put the lie to that silliness. He's a midwestern boy, with midwestern values-- our midwestern boy.

And I think we've all felt the sentiment behind this song at some point in our lives.

4. Take the Long Way Home - Supertramp
I liked Supertramp up through the Breakfast In America album. I hated the fatous Logical Song to begin with and hated it even more when it got overplayed. I did like Take the Long Way Home, with it's images of Frost's "road less travelled," and the line:



When you look through the years and see what you could
have been oh, what might have been,
if you'd had more time.



I've always taken the line as an admonition to take the time and do the things you want to do-- not wait until your old and play the "coulda/shoulda/woulda" game. I've tried to live by that code.

5. Promises- Eric Clapton
This sad, pretty, soft little song passed under my radar in 1979, but a few years later I discovered it. It's about a love affair or marriage unraveling. It's got one of my favorite-ever lines, lines that I find so poignant:



I got a problem. Can you relate?
I got a woman calling love hate.
We made a vow wed always be friends.
How could we know that promises end?



There's nothing sadder in the world than two people who once loved one another now hating each other.

Thanks for the tag, Danielle! I'm tagging: Bubs, Barbara, Skyler's Dad, Kristi and Samurai Frog. Feel free to use the modification I used.

And Samurai-- I haven't forgotten your tag! I'm still working on it!

14 comments:

Moderator said...

In addition to being a Midwestern boy, John Cougar Mellencamp also was born in a small town.

Splotchy said...

He'll prolly die in a small town, too.

Freakin' loser. It's probably good enough for him.

Speaking of that Police album, "Deathwish" has been in heavy rotation lately on my iPod.

SkylersDad said...

Hmmm, I have work to do! Bummer, I will have to get to this in awhile.

Joe said...

Once I go to that popculturemadness.com site, where do I look? That is one dense site...

SkylersDad said...

I checked out the hits of 1975, and no luck for what I listened to.

Then I expanded to more music from that year, and holy shit! Still nothing but the same hits that played at the clubs when we went dancing.

I listened to more eclectic stuff when I wasn't being pressured to hear hard rock by my friends.

Believe it or not, I used to belong to an accapella group for a while, then a larger choral group after I got home from the navy.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

What a fun meme!

And how could you not love the Cars? I never got tired of listening to Let's Go either, even though I sure hated a lot of the music that I was hearing back then. Damn those pre-internetz radio stations that held us hostage!

I may have to use your modifications as well, because there is way too much stuff that gives me rage from my year.

BeckEye said...

Ah, I remember the days when there was almost too much good music. What a wonderful time.

Tenacious S said...

Oh-my-God...I totally love that clapton album and I adore Promises. I am a closet Clapton fan. Well shit, now I need to go do this.

Tenacious S said...

I will add that "Take the Long Way Home" was popular when I was running cross country. Our coach would often give us these practice routes that would get us back to the high school just in time to miss the athletics bus, and we would break into song.

GETkristiLOVE said...

Oh yeah! Break out the JCM. I'll probably post five more of his songs. ;)

Doc said...

Oh Crap! I got "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson and "Listen to Your Heart" by Roxette. I didn't listen to this junk. I was too busy drinkin' beer with my buddies and jammin' classic Black Sabbath. Well at least I wasn't born two weeks later. I would have gotten Milli Vanilli and "Blame It On the Rain".

Doc

SamuraiFrog said...

That tag takes some thinking about. And now I've been tagged! Cool, I love to talk about music.

Nice list. I forgot about that Clapton sing, that's a good one. I liked "The Long Way Home," too. It reminded me of my dad. My dad's favorite show when he was seven was apparently Leave It to Beaver, and in the early eighties there was a TV movie featuring the grown up cast called Still the Beaver (which led to a revival of the TV series, very briefly). They used "Take the Long Way Home" in the opening credits, and hence, I always think of my dad when I hear it.

Damn, it's going to be hard to find five good songs from 1994...

Anonymous said...

Gaaah! talk about visual overload! Too much shit on that page!! Where's the link?! Where's the link?! Gaaah, my head 'splode!!

Johnny Yen said...

Grant-
I've heard that rumor.

Splotchy-
Yeah, he had it comin' to him....

Great song!

Another good early one is "Fallout."

Skyler's Dad-
I suggest using a looser definition, like I did-- mainstream radio sucked in 1979!

You've mentioned the acapella group in passing in your blog. What instrument did you play? ; )

Bubs-
I think it's supposed to be the appropriate Billboard hits on the left side. I looked up other hit lists in order to do it.

Barbara--
That first Cars album is incredible. My favorite tracks are the last two-- Moving In Stereo/All Mixed Up, which seque together.

Beckeye-
For me, that time was 1983, when I was in college-- sometimes I wish I could step back to that time in a time machine for a week or two.

TenS-
He has done so much great stuff, by himself and with various groups over the years-- Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes. Some standout tracks:

Motherless Children
Wasted and I can't find my way home
Tales of Brave Ullyseses
Mainline Florida
Layla
Little Wing

Kristi-
I had a feeling you'd like the Mellencamp!

Doc-
Yeah, the public's taste often leaves something to be desired. Remember 1978? The year Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Damned, the Dickies, the Ramones, etc were putting out such great music? Debbie Boone (Pat's daughter) won best artist Grammy for "You Light Up My Life."

Samurai-
There were good ones that year, though I missed a lot of them-- I was busy changing diapers, feeding a baby, etc.-- it was the year my son was born.

One of my favorites from 1994 (that I missed until later-- see above) was Interstate Love Song by the Stone Temple Pilots.

Big Orange-
Like I mentioned to Bubs, I think the appropriate ones were the Billboard hits. I ended up using other hit lists to compile my list.