Catch Me I’m Falling – Real Life
Written by group members David Sterry and Richard Zatorski, this was the follow-up to the first single by this Australian band, “Send Me An Angel.” The song is about living in a dream state and the fear of one’s dreams being a danger.
Tom Waits – 16 Shells from a Thirty-ought-six
The imagery in this song is so surreal and strange that it’s almost cartoonish. It’s sung from the perspective of a character who captures a crow in a Washburn guitar and then bangs on the strings “Just to drive him crazy.” The song’s narrator also makes a ladder from a marimba (a mallet percussion instrument); beats a French horn into a small travel kettle, and blows “a hole in the sky ’bout the size of a kickdrum.”
According to 1983 interviews, Waits wanted a sort of chain gang, work song feel to this track – which explains the metallic clangs and crashes. At least six years before Swordfishtrombones was released, this song started as a lyric about a farmer who shoots sixteen shells into the belly of a scarecrow out of frustration during a drought. A “Thirty-Ought-Six” is a .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge. (Source: “The Beat Goes On”, a 1983 interview with Rock Bill magazine.) Waits wanted this track to sound like a train; the low trombone and steady rhythm support this feel.
Love Is A Stranger – Eurythmics
Absolutely beautiful, sexy song.
“Love Is a Stranger” is a song by the British pop duo Eurythmics. Originally released in late 1982, the single was commercially unsuccessful, but it was re-released in 1983, reaching the UK top 10. The single was re-released again in 1991, to promote Eurythmics’ Greatest Hits album. Cash Box said that “the commanding vocals of Annie Lennox and hazy, electronically inflected backing combine to make ‘Love Is a Stranger’ a challenging yet already familiar sound.” Stereogum and The Guardian both ranked the song number two on their lists of the greatest Annie Lennox songs.
Will Powers – Kissing With Confidence
Always reminds me of a more mainstream Laurie Anderson 🙂
Recording Artist Will Powers re-releases her rare music video. There is no other album like Will Powers Dancing for Mental Health. With the support of such legendary musicians like Sting, Steve Winwood, Nile Rogers, Todd Rundgren, Carly Simon, to name a few, Will Powers brings you words and music that will not only make you smile, but make you realize what your smile can do for you.
Family Man: Hall & Oates
This was first recorded by the British musician Mike Oldfield and included on his 1982 album Five Miles Out with vocals by Maggie Reilly (Oldfield wrote the song with Reilly, guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboard player Tim Cross and drummer Mike Frye). Issued as a single, Oldfield’s original “Family Man” reached #45 on the UK charts. The next year, a version by Daryl Hall and John Oates became an international hit.
Jeopardy – Greg Kihn Band
This was the biggest hit for Greg Kihn Band, and it was a slow build: The group released nine albums between 1978 and 1986, and didn’t have a hit until “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em),” which appeared on album number six. “Jeopardy” came on their eighth album.
As for Kihn, he went on to write several novels and became the morning DJ at K-Fox FM in San Jose, California. He continued to perform live at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in California well into the ’00s.
ZZ Top – Legs
Very possibly their finest era (of several). Didn’t you want a bass (or guitar) like that or was it just me?
The video was very popular. Just like their videos for “Gimme All Your Lovin'” and “Sharp Dressed Man,” it featured Billy Gibbons’ 1933 Ford Hot Rod, which he called The Eliminator. The big difference in “Legs” is that the main character is a girl.
The video had the same director (Tim Newman) and featured the three “Eliminator Girls,” but instead of sweeping a guy off in the Eliminator, the models rescue a girl who desperately needs some confidence. They give her a makeover and teach her how to handle guys to get what she wants.
Yazoo – Situation
This was originally the B-side of Yazoo’s 1982 UK #2 hit “Only You.” In 1990 a re-mixed version by Francois Kevorkian took the song to #14 on the UK on its own right. It also topped the US Dance Club Play charts for four weeks in 1982.
In 1981 Vince Clarke left Depeche Mode and shortly afterwards teamed up with singer Alison Moyet to form Yazoo. He originally offered this song to Depeche Mode along with “Only You” as a parting gift when he left, but they declined. When we spoke with Vince Clarke in 2010, he talked about how his music is different from that of his former group. Said Clarke: “Martin Gore writes in a different way than I do, so that’s obviously the main difference. And they’ve developed this kind of a rock feel to their music. I’m more a fan of pop music, or I’m more of a fan of writing pop music, that’s the most difference, I guess.”
Eddy Grant – Electric Avenue
Most American listeners didn’t read much into the lyrics, but according to Eddy Grant, “Electric Avenue” carries a serious message about race and equality. It refers to a real place in London, and tells the story of a poor man who beholds the things in life he could never achieve.
Electric Avenue is a shopping area in the Brixton section of London, named because is was the first street in the area to get electric lights. Brixton was the setting for riots between police and protesters in 1981, which Grant refers to in the opening line, “Down in the street there is violence.”
This is one of the highest-charting reggae-influenced pop songs ever. Grant, a native of Guyana, had many pop and ska groups in England and Barbados. His first band, The Equals, had three Top 10 hits in England in the 1960s. They were the first multiracial band to find success in the UK.
George Clinton – Atomic Dog
Clinton likes to point out that this was written and released in the Chinese Year of the Dog – 1982.
The unique sounding rhythm of this song is a result of a simple two-bar drum beat, played backwards using tape.
Fallout from “Atomic Dog” showed up in hundreds of songs that sampled it. Among them:
“Doowutchyalike” by Digital Underground
“Brothers Gonna Work It Out” by Public Enemy (1990)
“My Summer Vacation,” “No Vaseline” by Ice Cube (1991)
“Pumps And A Bump” by MC Hammer (1994)
“Bow Wow (That’s My Name)” by Lil’ Bow Wow (2000)
“American Way” by Nas ft. Kelis (2004)
Lara Petersson Music 