Pickled Priest Mixtape: Our Favorite Songs of 1979
You can probably imagine how many great songs are on the cutting room floor from 1979. Piles and piles of amazing songs that should be listed below but aren't. It's cruel and inhumane. I'd rather be subjected to a botched lethal injection than do 1979 again. Some of the choices included below benefit from circumstance, others from bad taste. We are nothing if not built by our experiences for better or worse. These are favorites and not driven by a desire for critical credibility and I beg you to remember that.
For his charitable work, I assume?
PICKLED PRIEST'S FAVORITE SONGS OF 1979 MIXTAPE
SIDE A
26 “Jet Lag” | 20/20
Hi, I'm Pickled Priest...[Hi, Pickled Priest]...and I'm a power-popoholic. If you happen to live in a household with a power-pop addict, I'm here to support you in any way I can. I know how to deal with these people, for I am one. How do you know if your loved one is truly a power-popoholic, you ask? Simply answer the questions below: If two or more apply, you are likely living with someone who values catchy guitar riffs, sugary melodies, and effervescent choruses over just about anything else in their life:
Does your loved one routinely espouse the virtues of bands like Shoes, the Raspberries, Big Star, the Beat, the Toms, Cotton Mather, Chris Von Sneidern, the Someloves, Emitt Rhodes, and other like-minded artists as if they should be common knowledge to everyone else?
Does your loved one have old copies of Jordan Oakes' influential power-pop fanzine Yellow Pills lying around the house? Or, alternately, do they currently subscribe to Remember the Lightning, the active digital zine dedicated to all things power-pop?
Does your loved one own a copy of John Borack's Shake Some Action: A Guide to the 200 Greatest Power Pop Albums? [I'll pause here and give you time to check.]
Does your loved one particularly revere Tulsa, OK-via-Hollywood power-pop band 20/20 as if they were the Ark of the Covenant or something? Have they gone on to inform you that their song “Yellow Pills,” from the band's seminal, self-titled 1979 debut, gave that influential power-pop fanzine its name? Have they then gone on to point out that a second song from the very same album, "Remember the Lightning," gave the latest de rigueur power-pop fanzine its name, too, out of respect for Jordan Oakes, the OG of power-pop journalism? Did they also enthusiastically point out the mind-blowing fact that 20/20's debut album is ranked #1 in John Borack's 200 Greatest Power Pop Albums book? Perhaps they also went on to clarify that neither "Yellow Pills" nor "Remember the Lightning" are their personal favorite songs on the record, instead preferring the penultimate track, "Jet Lag," because it feels like an actual plane taking off from a runway, what with its killer guitar riffs, soaring melody, clever concept, and propulsive drums (supplied by Phil Seymour of the Dwight Twilley Band)?
Sorry, got a little worked up there. It happens when you're speaking of power-pop legends like 20/20. Well, if it turns out that your loved one is indeed a power-popoholic, I'm sad to say there's not a structured 12-step process to help them out of their hole. The good news is that 20/20's 1979 debut has 12-songs on it, each of which might get you addicted to power-pop yourself. If you can't beat them, join them! Melodies love company, it turns out.
25 “Romeo's Tune” | Steve Forbert
Steve Forbert is not the name of a rock star. It is the name of the guy over in IT who sets up your computer. "Jackrabbit Slim" (quotes his) is also not the title of a great rock album. It sounds like a redneck bluegrass album you might find in a Dollar Store bin in Little Rock, Arkansas. The photo of Steve on the cover isn't a picture that's going to sell a lot of records either. He's sporting a bad case of "hat head" on the low-budget cover, looking like an awkward sophomore on picture day. Everything about this record screams "Avoid me at all costs!" As they say, however, you can't judge a book by its cover, because Steve is actually really great songwriter with a unique voice—boyish with a light, 120-grit sandpaper rasp. In fact, he even generated some "New Dylan" comparisons when he first started out, which were totally unfair, although he did tour with Dylan in the 80s. So somewhat of a full circle moment, then.
The album's big hit, "Romeo's Tune," has a pleasing melody and a free-flowing lyrical cadence that sticks in your head from the first listen that is hard to shake. Trust me, I know this firsthand. For years, I had this song wedged in my cranium like a stubborn popcorn kernel without even knowing the singer's name or the song's title. Back then, we didn't have the luxury of the internet or an app that identifies songs in five seconds or less. It didn't help that the song's title isn't mentioned anywhere in the lyrics. I tried in vain to figure out all these things. I asked everyone I knew with no success. Soon, the song became my "great white whale." Then, one fateful day while I was doing my radio show on our college station, I pulled "Jackrabbit Slim" from the stacks by accident and, not familiar with it, looked it up to see if any songs from the record had dented the Billboard charts. "Romeo's Tune" was listed as a #11 single (impressive!), so I gave it a test spin. Suspense suspended—it was my white whale! I had finally found it! I immediately replaced the record I was playing with "Romeo's Tune," telling my bored listeners the whole story. I was euphoric! Every time I hear the song now, I recall that magical moment and it makes me feel good all over again. So, if you're wondering how a little song like this can make my 1979 list, there you have it!
Postscript: I now admit, as the statute of limitations has long expired, that I stole our station's copy of Steve's record and added it to my personal album collection. I felt some guilt at the time, but I also felt I deserved it. They have since reissued the record, but that original copy still remains in my collection somewhere.
24 “We Don’t Talk Anymore” | Cliff Richard
Status in the UK doesn’t always translate to status in the US and there are few better examples of that phenomenon than Cliff Richard. A virtual god in England (with 14 #1 singles and 134 charted songs), he's been an occasional dalliance in the US at best. Strangely, most of his American crossover came long after he dominated the charts over the pond. That said, Pickled Priest is a notable exception to that rule. Cliff had already made our 1959, 1962, and 1976 mixtapes and here he is again in 1979, and on one of the most difficult mixtape years to make the cut, no less. There's a pleasing lilt to “We Don’t Talk Anymore” that holds on to last vestiges of AM radio before the onset of the AOR FM format. Credit goes to its melancholy chorus and airy cadence, plus a theme that's instantly relatable to millions of heartbroken people with decelerating love lives. I've always loved songs that can be sad and upbeat simultaneously and this is a pristine specimen.
23 “I Did the Wrong Thing” | The Toms
My power-pop addiction strikes again and I'm nowhere close to being done. Even in power-pop circles, claims of the great, lost power-pop album are way too plentiful. Many of those acclaimed records turn out to be overrated, but not this time. I’d argue that the Toms self-titled 1979 debut is one of the most tragically overlooked albums in the genre’s history; a genre, I should clarify, that occasionally breaks into the mainstream when the stars align just right. This album should be a record collection staple and not a boutique item for a small cult audience to enjoy. Sadly, to this day it toils in relative obscurity. Thankfully, there are enough influential people who have heard the record (which I initially found thanks to Bruce Brodeen at Not Lame Records, a one-time power-pop label out of Denver) for it to merit a vinyl reissue which has surely broadened its exposure by about 3% beyond its humble self-released origin. The Toms were Tom Marolda on vocals, Tom Marolda on guitars, Tom Marolda on bass, and Tom Marolda on drums. Yup, a one-man show (very much like modern day versions like James Goodson of Dazy, Mo Troper, Tony Molina, or Kai Slater of Sharp Pins). The record is packed with perky pop nuggets like “I Did the Wrong Thing (To the Right Girl)” (parenthetical mine). It's one of many gems from a record without a skip allowed. If intrigued, pick up the reissue on Feel It Records, which includes the original LP and 11 bonus tracks. Essential for all fans of power-pop or great songs in general.
For the record: The Toms ranked #5 on John Borack's 200 Greatest Power Pop Records ranking. What a landmark year for the genre!
22 “Yankee Wheels” | Jane Aire & the Belvederes
Other than the untouchable vault of Stax classics, few other labels have released more knockout singles that turn my crank more than London's Stiff Records. Major artists pepper the label's roster (Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, the Damned, Madness, Graham Parker, et al), but it's often the relatively unknown fringe artists that flavor the true uniqueness of the label. The cult single “Yankee Wheels” ranks with my all-time favorite 45s from Stiff, a label known for the slogan "If It Ain't Stiff, It Ain't Worth a Fuck'. I do love a record label with a sense of humor. A model we wish Pickled Priest could live up to. Suffice it to say, "Yankee Wheels" is worth a dozen fucks to me. Interestingly, Jane Aire (aka Jane Ashley) was actually from Akron, Ohio (home of another New Wave band called Devo!) and not from England. Stiff didn't care. They had scouts everywhere looking for the next New Wave classic. Would Charlotte Brontë approve of the name appropriation? I'd bet the life of Edward Fairfax Rochester that she'd get a kick out of it!
21 “Rock N Roll Girl” | The Beat
Power-pop addiction, part three. So much great power-pop came out in 1979—how many songs will be featured by this mixtape's end? Here's one of the best singles of the year from the Beat's—say it with me because it's getting repetitive—self-titled 1979 debut album. The band (responsible for the Birmingham band of the same name having to change their moniker to the English Beat), were led by power-pop wunderkind Paul Collins. It's, you guessed right, another classic record in the genre (ranked #4 in the oft-mentioned 200 Greatest Power Pop Albums book). With a handful of driving, energetic rockers, there's not a letup on the whole record, including "Rock N Roll Girl" that ultra-rare power-pop song with girls as its main focus.
20 “Sad Eyes” | Robert John
I'm a sap. I'll be the first to admit it. That's why I love so many of these syrupy AM radio ballads from the 1970s. Before leaving that decade, however, we've time for one more heartbreaker. "Sad Eyes" whisks me away on a tide of swelling, enveloping melancholy every time as its falsetto chorus dispatches a mistress in the most delicate way possible—with a reminder of a couple's verbal contract to part ways at the end of the summer. The matter is urgent, too, for Robert John's wife is "coming home today," which means old sad eyes has leave right now, preferably from the back door and over the garden fence. That's the whole plotline. He, at least, seems to think the arrangement was properly telegraphed, but I'm not sure she was ready for such a sudden end. It had to be hard for her, especially leaving behind such a handsome devil like Robert John.
The object of her affection.
19 “I See Red” | Split Enz
Split Enz were an eccentric little band from New Zealand that started out completely off the map (see their newly reissued box set, Split Enz: ENZyclopedia for proof) and eventually found a landing zone in more accessible pop territory, perhaps as a survival tactic. Thankfully, they never completely dispensed with their weirdness even then. "I See Red" is a bonkers single ("Squeezed me out of your life like molten toothpaste" weird enough for you?), as frantic a pop song as you're likely to hear, and it ushered in a new era for the band that would result in their 1980 breakthrough album, True Colours, a year later. But you can't go there until you've stopped here. New Zealand may be a long way away, so you best enjoy every second of this wild card of a pop single.
18 “Here Comes the Summer” | The Undertones
One of thee quintessential summer songs for me, the Undertones' “Here Comes the Summer” captures the delirious feeling of the last day of school before a three-month break. Singer Fearghal Sharkey's voice seems to be quivering at the thought of a beach filled with tanned girls and his enthusiasm spills all over this 100-second racehorse of a track. Who needs a long debate over the new song of summer every year when you have this one already in the can?
17 “On the Radio” | Donna Summer
I was a straight white teenager, Chicago White Sox fan, and avid Steve Dahl listener back in 1979. For the uninitiated, Dahl was a wildly popular DJ on the Loop, FM 98 (“Where Chicago Rocks!”) and the host of Disco Demolition Night, a promotion/publicity stunt at Comiskey Park where fans could get into the park for 98-cents and a disco record, which would later be blown up between games of a scheduled doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. Well things went off the rails to say the least, as Dahl infamously destroyed the records, crazed fans stormed the field, and the Sox had to forfeit the second game as a result. It has since gone down in history as one of the low points (depending on whom you ask) in Major League Baseball history. Since then, the prevailing historical take on the evening’s events is that it was both racist and homophobic due to disco's prominence in those represented demographics. This opinion has been mostly proffered and/or supported by critics and writers who weren’t around when it happened or by others who have since bought into that point of view. This default storyline has been perpetuated so often that it is now stipulated as irrefutable fact. Dahl has often rebuffed that view, stating it was just a bunch of kids “pissing on a music genre.” If that’s so, why were they “pissing on” disco, exactly? I didn’t poll every person who attended the game, but I can honestly say that we (me and my pals) never thought about the event with a race or sexual preference slant at the time. What I do know: We loved classic rock in the 70s. When disco hit and people started entering dance contests, wearing white suits, silk shirts, and tight pants, all while preening in front of a bathroom mirror, it seemed antithetical to my limited experience with music. At least for me, Disco Demolition had nothing to do with artists being gay or someone’s skin color. I wasn’t even aware that the music was even associated with gay or black/brown culture. I knew disco mainly from watching 1977's Saturday Night Fever (which we snuck in to see), a movie where most of the dancers were white and straight and on the hunt for a blowjob (from a girl) in the backseat of a car. (I speak mainly from the male perspective here, because I am one.) I didn’t listen to disco on the radio because I was a rocker at the time and that’s what I liked. The records blown up by Dahl, in retrospect, were heavily made by artists of color and gay people, yes, so I get the correlation and why people would be wary of an event with such a theme. But I'd bet most of the kids there were just stupid, ignorant kids without set biases against anything but a style of music (as Dahl claimed) that they’d been told was the enemy. I doubt a lot of deep sociological thinking accompanied most attendees that night. I could be wrong.
The ironic truth behind the matter for me was that the seeds of disco had already been sown for me when Disco Demolition happened. I, like everyone else, couldn’t deny the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and many other disco classics released during the genre’s late-70s heyday. Those songs didn’t play an active role in my world at the time, but they have since. To this day, I'm not a disco aficionado, but I'm all-in when a great disco song comes on at a party or wedding reception—places where quality dancing are the exception and not the rule. Which brings me—finally!—to Donna Summer’s “On the Radio,” her romantic ode to the miracle of radio and the irresistibility of a strong disco beat all in one place. Where had this song with the bursting, celebratory chorus been all my life? This explains everything! So, in the end, I’m on both sides of this coin and I’m comfortable with that position. Two things can be true at the same time.
16 “Lay It on the Line” | Triumph
I don't ask for much / The truth will do just fine
Words the world could use much more of these days, that's for sure. These Canadians were deeper than you'd expect from a 70's rock band. They could rock and think! And I loved them for that. To this day, I miss the foam Triumph trucker hat I wore back in high school. I bought it at my first Triumph concert and sported it until it fell apart. (Concert memorabilia wasn't built to last back then—it started disintegrating the moment you walked out of the venue.) Triumph was one of my earliest favorite hard-rock bands in addition to Rush, both Canucks coincidently, and the only one I knew that had tandem lead vocalists—Gil Moore for the grittier hard-rock stuff and Rik Emmett for the high-register theatrics. I particularly loved Rik's songs, not to mention his dazzling guitar chops. If you're looking for songs with that classic soft/loud dynamic, Triumph is your band. They could pacify you with a pretty verse or two before exploding into a powerful chorus fit for arenas all over North America. "Lay It On the Line" was one of the band's signature songs and a live staple from 1979's Just a Game album. It has everything you want from a Triumph track and more. In my mind, one of the three or four mid-metal songs of the decade.
15 “Overkill” | Motörhead
Overkill? No way. Onslaught? Most definitely. Even better, the song explains itself, no writer needed to expand on things any further. Let Lemmy do that for you. But first, can I get a killer double-bass-drum intro, Phil?
Irrefutable points made by Lemmy, and in convincing fashion I may add:
The only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud. (CHECK)
On your feet you feel the beat, it goes straight to your spine. (CHECK)
Know your body's made to move, you feel it in your guts. (CHECK)
Rock and roll ain't worth the name, if it don't make ya strut. (CHECKMATE)
14 “Dance the Night Away” | Van Halen
I think every high school kid in the late-70s and early-80s wanted to be either David Lee Roth or Eddie Van Halen (I've never met anyone who wanted to be Michael Anthony, although I would've loved to play the intro to "Running With the Devil" with my teeth just once). You could either be the swaggering ladies man or the brilliant technician, the choice was yours and Van Halen II had plenty of both on offer. While I love the song "Beautiful Girls," arguably the song Diamond Dave was put on this Earth to sing, it was "Dance the Night Away" that always had the most staying power for me. Maybe it's because Dave dialed it back just a bit, admiring the girl from afar as she lost herself on the dancefloor instead of chasing her across the beach with his tongue out. Maybe it's because Eddie's guitar is a bit less theatrical and show-offy on the track, but still somehow just as dazzling. Plus, the song had little touches I loved, like adding cowbell and some great backing vocals to an already great song. I'm not always in the mood for a Van Halen track these days, but one I never turn off is "Dance the Night Away."
SIDE B
13 “Map Ref. 41° N 93° W” | Wire
I cherish my youthful memories and the songs that soundtracked those moments, but my tastes in music have expanded and evolved dramatically since then. While I’ll never abandon those early favorites, I count the later discovery of more "challenging" artists like Wire (which I was nowhere near ready for in 1979) as watershed moments in my musical development. To this day, my search for new bands veers in the direction of innovation and originality over riff-rocking power. In other words, bands like Wire, who sound unlike anyone else, are what I look for on a daily basis. Wire's second record, Chairs Missing, is just such a record, ambitious and expansive with a sound all its own. "Map Reference" has always been my choice to rep the record over the years because it sounds like nothing I've heard prior or since.
12 “The Right Profile” | The Clash
As with many landmark records, where a set number of songs have become the de facto representatives on commercial radio and hits compilations, I tend to gravitate to other fabulous songs you don't often hear on the radio. While it's an impossible task to pick just one song from London Calling (which straddled the line between 1979 and 1980 due to its late-December 1979 release date), I'm going with "The Right Profile" because I love songs that include outdated pop culture references. In this case, the chorus name-checks 1950's Hollywood heartthrob Montgomery Clift. That's what put this one over the top for me. In reality, pick any song you like and slot it here. I won't mind.
11 “I Found That Essence Rare” | Gang of Four
Gang of Four’s Entertainment! came out in 1979 and that’s almost hard to believe. The album could’ve come out yesterday and it would still blow people’s minds. If I had to make a list albums with my favorite guitar sound, the short list would surely include Gang of Four's raw and clangy Entertainment!, a record that rejects pretty much everything rock guitar sounded like throughout the 1970s and builds on that principle. I love this song, partly because of its title, which I use in conversation every once in a while to this day (nobody at work has ever picked up on the reference), but give me any track from this record and I'll be one happy kid. That kind of depth is a rare essence indeed.
10 “Barbed Wire Love” | Stiff Little Fingers
Blasted by your booby traps
I felt the blow in both kneecaps
Your eyes did shine, your lips were fine
The device in your pants was out of sight
Would "The device in your pants [is] out of sight" be a workable pickup line in the modern era? I'm thinking no. But this song isn't about a conventional relationship, so who knows? Everyone has their own kinks, after all. For the rest of us, based on the evidence presented, I don't recommend entering into any relationship best defined by such a corollary. Perhaps a picket fence would suffice instead? If you're a Stiff Little Fingers fan, however, you'll accept no substitutes. From the band's classic LP, Inflammable Material (a perfect title, I must add), this song might've lost prominence in favor of epic singles like "Alternative Ulster" and "Suspect Device" (not the same 'device' as the one referenced here), but I just love singing along to this literally edgy album track that should be a punk rock staple right next to the rest of the band's finest singles. To some, like me, it already is.
09 “Cruel to Be Kind” | Nick Lowe
While we're talking about "Barbed Wire Love" here's another classic single from 1979 that plows similar ground. Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind" is yet another form of left field love with the unsteady premise that you have to understand pain before you can experience true pleasure. Anyone out there familiar with this concept? Leave it to Willy Shakespeare to inspire such a skewed pop song (he would've made a great indie rocker if born in the 80s). The girl's defense, in the context of a brilliant pop song with an indelible hook, sounds positively logical to me. Which scares me a little, to be honest.
08 “Here Comes My Girl” | Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty has always embodied the indifferent cool of a rock star, with just the right level or irreverence and snarl. Looks and style don’t really matter. of course. It’s what you sound like that's important. You have to care about your music intensely without sounding like you care that much. It's a difficult balance, but nobody did it better than Tommy P. His spoken word intro to this song captures just the right combination of both. It's in my Top 10 Tom Petty moments of all-time and one of the great song intros ever.
07 “Life During Wartime” | Talking Heads
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.
Except it kinda is, isn't it? Who knew you could get a full body workout from hiding out in a cemetery with a tub of peanut butter? The performance of this song during Stop Making Sense (included above) ranks with the greatest video performances ever mainly because it combines covert urban paranoia, a lot of running in place, and a very potent warning to take some shit seriously for once. The dichotomy is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. The hardest thing to swallow, of course, is holing up any place where you "Ain't got no speakers, ain't got no headphones, ain't got no records to play." If this is our emerging post-apocalyptic world, count me out.
06 “In the Evening” | Led Zeppelin
The intro is sheer cinematic magnificence. A hair over fifty-seconds of dense, foggy synth from John Paul leads into Robert releasing the song's title into the atmosphere, which parts to allow Jimmy's iconic opening riff and John's heavy drums to emerge like ghosts from the darkness. And then there's the rest of the song.
05 “Dream Police” | Cheap Trick
If you grew up in Chicago, Cheap Trick, from nearby Rockford (about an hour west of the city), was just part of musical furniture. You'd think the city of Chicago would've spawned a rock band as great as Cheap Trick by now. They haven't. Chicago? Nah. Styx? Better. Smashing Pumpkins? Not in my world. Earth, Wind & Fire? Now we're getting somewhere. Naked Raygun? I'm listening. In the end...nope. No band quite lives up to Cheap Trick. Why? Because of ingeniously demented songs like "Dream Police," that's why. Its Orwellian theme is high concept, its chorus is front-, mid-, and back-loaded for maximum impact, plus it positively rocks. The moment that elevated the song for me, of course, is the bridge, when Rick Nielsen goes full padded room on all of us like an in-patient at a mental hospital. Then, as if that wasn't enough, the preamble to the final chorus is Beatlesque on steroids, a madcap moment of epic sweep before the final release into the majestic final appearance of the chorus. Sheer fucking genius every time. Listen up, Chicago.
04 “Protection” | Graham Parker
So all of you be damned we can't have heaven crammed
So Winston Churchill said I could have smacked his head
Name me another artist capable of penning such a lyric! That's why, if I had to rank my favorite albums of 1979, which I may do someday, Graham Parker’s Squeezing Out Sparks would be my choice for the #1 spot. Every song rides on a razor's edge, even the one about abortion ("You Can't Be Too Strong"). On top of that, there's humor and acerbic wordplay throughout. A true original, this guy. Sparks finds Graham going beyond the pub-rock roots that he cut his teeth on over his first three albums and lands on an electrified, spastic landing strip that's part punk, part rock & roll, and part post-punk. "Protection" is prime, cynical Parker— paranoid, bitter, resentful, jilted (So if you think that's funny I'm not really laughing honey / Your love letters are confetti I ripped them up my hands were sweaty). All he wants is protection from the cruel, dystopian world outside and he just can't get it. There's not another vocalist who could pull off this level of social despair as convincingly as Graham Parker.
03 “One More Time” | Joe Jackson
Before Joe got all jazzy and eclectic he was capable of dishing out live-wire singles on an equal level to the likes of Graham Parker and Elvis Costello. "One More Time" has an absolutely wicked opening 20-seconds of edgy, cold-stringed tension as a guitar riff sets the mood for some angst-fueled lyrics from a spurned man in disbelief over his treatment by an ex-lover. Rarely has a rebuke sounded so thrilling.
02 “Stay in Time” | Off Broadway
I hope you didn't think we were done with power-pop yet, did you? Well, two more to go before we wrap, starting with this one-hit wonder (Billboard #51, but #9 on WLS-AM Chicago) from Off Broadway, surely the best single ever released by a band from my birthplace of Oak Park, IL*, a suburb of Chicago that can be reached by crossing Austin Avenue on the city's far west side. The song's hook is mostly verbal, thanks to a repetitive chorus from Cliff Johnson that intentionally overuses the word "boy" to great effect while offering advice to a teenager on how to survive in this cruel world. To "stay in time" is to be focused on keeping your head and heart straight with consistency and moderation, never getting too high or too low. Sage advice, especially when set to a beat with an irresistibly bouncy cadence. Sadly, the band didn't stay in time very long after this and soon broke up, but not before opening several dates on UFO's 1980 tour, one of the oddest pairings of opener/headliner in recent memory. Wish I had been there.
Postscript: Many years later, a friend and I stumbled into an Off Broadway reunion gig at Chicago's Subterranean in Wicker Park by accident and they still sounded pretty damn good. Oddly, they played "Stay in Time" early in their set as if it were just another song. The good news is that their 1979 debut album, cleverly titled On, was deeper than most assumed and the rest of the set was thoroughly enjoyable and fears that they would be playing "Stay in Time" twice (the lamest move possible for a band**) went for naught.
*Competition is light, but not insubstantial: The Fiery Furnaces hail from there. So does ultra-talented singer/songwriter Kara Jackson. If you expand outside of music, the list of famous alums (not albums) is daunting: Ernest Hemingway, Ray Kroc, Betty White (born in the same hospital as me!), Bob Newhart, and the voice of Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta (who was also my pizza guy for several years before he landed his Simpsons gig—not kidding).
**The only time I remember this being done was at a Lowen & Navarro gig, where they played their radio hit "Walking on a Wire" twice in the same set. It felt as pathetic then as it sounds writing about it now.
01 “Good Girls Don’t” | The Knack
Power-pop's reign of terror comes to an end, finally! And, believe it or not, "My Sharona" is not the choice for our #1 song of 1979. Instead, it's the logical, but more overt, follow-up to Billy Joel's 1978 single, "Only the Good Die Young" another late-70s tale of young lust. I was a boy at this time, so both songs resonated with me to a great degree. I was obsessed with girls, so anything that provided insight or titillation to me that involved girls blipped hard and strong on my radar like a teenage erection. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and anoint this as the greatest “girl” song ever written. It may be the greatest power-pop song ever released as well. It captures the awkward, adolescent male in his natural habitat, as if he's being observed by Marlon Perkins on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. First, we spot a boy in his bedroom masturbating, visions of hot sex dancing in his imagination (“Schoolboy stuff, a sticky sweet romance”). Then we see him in biology class covering a bulge (aka chubby) with an artfully positioned notebook on his lap (“Wishing you could get inside her pants”). Shortly after, the teen male boils over with repressed sexuality, leading to delusions of grandeur (“An in-between age madness that you know you can’t erase / Til she’s sitting on your face”). Soon we realize, as we listen to the audio footage more closely, that this entire ritual was set into motion by a single overheard, and likely misheard, sentence from the adolescent female of his dreams. The audio is slightly garbled, but did he really hear what he thought he heard? “Good girls don’t...but I do.” Surely that's what he wanted and longed to hear, but did he really hear it correctly? You can almost feel the excitement ejaculating through the speakers whenever "Good Girls Don't" plays. On another note: How exactly did this song get on the radio unedited again? Whatever, the answer, I'm glad it did. Pure power-pop nirvana through and through.
Don't grab that snake too tightly, boys.
________________
My apologies to the Little River Band. You're the lonesome loser this time.
Cheers,
The Priest