When Apple introduced the world to the iPod and iTunes, I immediately bought a magical white music box and set out on a quest to create the ultimate playlist for jogging. I wanted to get in shape to run a marathon again, and I knew the key to my sticking with daily workouts would be a massive collection of songs that could ratchet up my energy level when I felt like giving up but knew I still needed to keep running for another mile or three. "Headlong" is that kind of song. With this song cranking in my ears, I could not only continue to run when I got tired, but I could even pour on the speed to see if I could get three laps around the track in before the song ended.
Although the song came out on their second-to-last album, it hearkens back to their early albums that featured some tasty hard-rockin' jams. This song showed that after all the years of eclectic music-making, they still had the chops to make good on their promise that "We will, we will, ROCK YOU!"
Besides the adrenaline pumping guitar music, this song also has some really fun lyrics to sing. Who can resist singing along with lines like these?
He used to be a man with a stick in his hand.
Hoop diddy diddy - Hoop diddy do.
She used to be a woman with a hot dog stand.
Hoop diddy diddy - Hoop diddy do.
Now you've got soup in the laundry bag.
Now you've got strings, you're gonna lose your rag.
You're gettin' in a fight.
Then it ain't so groovy
When you're screaming in the night
"Let me out of this cheap B-movie!"
Oh, yeah! That's Queen at its best--songs that rock while still maintaining a sense of humor and fun. And that humor comes in real handy around mile 18 of a marathon when iPod-less old grannies twice your age start passing you on the route and there's nothin' you can do about it, nothin' you can do, no, there's nothin' you can do about it, no, there's nothing you can, nothin' you can, nothin' you can DO about it!
This is a 1978 song that I associate with my junior year of high school in 1982-83. That's when cousin Randy came to live with our family and we shared a bedroom. Randy brought three albums with him, which I'll now list in order of popularity with me.
1. "Van Halen" by--you guessed it--Van Halen
2. "Diver Down" by Van Halen
3. "Cat Scratch Fever" by Ted Nugent
Listening to the Nuge is best done in small doses. While I liked the song "Homebound," you just can't listen to the album repeatedly over and over like you can other albums. Otherwise, you'll want to kill somebody after the third playing of "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang"--which is somehow appropriate since the song that follows Wang Dang is "Death by Misadventure." That's why I encouraged Randy to play "Van Halen" whenever I could.
One of the things we enjoyed doing while listening to this album is that we'd play air guitar to "Eruption" to see if we could make the other one laugh. It was kind of a lead-in to the next son, so at the end of "Eruption" we'd pause and hold the pose for two seconds and then rock out to "You Really Got Me" while singing the lyrics.
Here's a 2015 video of Eddie playing the real guitar and Dave singing lead. They reunited, and it didn't feel so good. Dave's got a bandage over his nose because just before they played this song he whacked himself in the face with the mic stand and busted his nose. They had to wait for the medics to patch him up before he could return and finish the gig. Eddie played for the crowd while they waited.
I'm sure Randy would have got a huge kick out of seeing Dave with a broken nose still singing on stage. He always said he wanted to be either Dave or Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." His favorite Spicoli saying was, "All I need are some tasty waves, cool buzz, and I'm fine." Also, at the end of the movie, there was a note on the screen that said Spicoli had saved Brook Shields from drowning and blown the reward money on having Van Halen play at his birthday party.
Shortly after Randy arrived in Arimo and began working for Spencer, he bought another album--Pink Floyd's "The Wall."
It was the best out of all of Randy's albums, but it didn't prompt the wild air guitar moves like Van Halen did. By the time Randy left in May of 1983, he had turned me into a Van Halen fan, and when their "1984" album came out, I immediately liked it all. Whenever I listened to it I always wondered what Randy thought of the songs. I'm sure he royally rocked the air guitar to "Panama," "Girl Gone Bad," and "House of Pain." But I didn't. It just wasn't as fun to do that anymore without Randy there to both laugh at and make laugh.
And that's why I've got a song from Van Halen's debut album on my Top 200, but not anything from 1984. That album came out in January of 1984, so it was quickly adopted by those of us in the class of '84 as a popular album to listen to. And "Jump" was a big hit, but it's been so overplayed since we graduated that I will not always stop changing the radio station when I hear it. Of course, "Panama" was a real contender for the list, but I really don't want to have to think about what Diamond Dave was doing during that pause after he reached down between his legs--------to ease the seat back. I'm sure it wasn't playing air guitar. The only other Van Halen song that had a shot at my Top 200 was "Happy Trails" from Diver Down. Randy and I used to sing along whenever it played, and we'd sometimes break out into the song while we were out doing chores. One of us would sing the song while the other would "bom-ba-de-da" through the lines. And that's the song that really sums up my feelings about Randy now--happy trails to you 'till we meet again!
Writing about my "Eye in the Sky" first slow dance experience has put me in the mindset needed to write about the next song on the countdown--"How Much I Feel" by Ambrosia. This song belongs to a particular oxymoronic genre of we-broke-up-but-I-still-love-you songs. The lyrics in these songs have many lines--and especially the chorus--that express how the singer will always have a place in their heart for a former girlfriend/boyfriend even though the two just couldn't seem to muster enough love and commitment to figure out how to stay together in the first place.
Don't get me wrong. Even though these songs don't make logical sense, I think it's a great genre, and I really like a lot of them, including:
You've already seen a few songs like this on this Top 200 list (Quiche Lorraine?), and you'll see many more before its finished. In fact, the closer we get to number #1, the more likely you'll see a song of this genre.
I did NOT include "How Much I Feel" on my list because when I heard it the first time it reminded me of a girl that I broke up with but still loved. It was 1978 when this song started playing on the radio. I wasn't even a teenager then. I hadn't yet lived long enough yet to meet any girls that would like me enough to get to the point where anything resembling a break-up was even possible.
This song is on my list because it is the one with the most Ambrosia sound that produces a potent time-travel effect that I can't help but enjoy in my adulthood. If I lay on my bed and close my eyes while I listen to this song, I am transported back in time to 1978. It feels so real that sometimes, when I open my eyes during the song, I see bell-bottoms and perms.
Other late 70s songs with this time-travel power include, but are not limited to:
Mmmmmm! So good! These songs even bring back the smell the chlorine from all the swim team meets I went to in the summer of 77. With Pablo Cruise, I also smell Solarcaine.
But even though I like sentimental old-lover-I-still-love songs, I have to admit that there is something about these soft rock songs that I find disturbing and, in some cases, physically discomforting. If I'm lying on the bed with my eyes closed with visions of old girlfriends in flared jeans and crocheted halter-tops running through my head, and if my wife decides to join me and snuggles up to me while she listens, there's this moment of hesitation where I have to wonder if I should snuggle back. That's because the music sounds romantic on the surface, but the singer's professing love for an old flame, and it's kind of weird to snuggle back when the lyrics make me think about old girlfriends and not my wife. Then that thought begins to make me wonder if she might be thinking about old boyfriends while she's snuggling up to me. And like most people I know, I really don't want to snuggle back if someone's using me as a snuggle proxy for an old flame. Consequently, these songs are basically snuggle kryptonite to me. And if the playlist isn't quickly changed to another genre of soft-rock songs about people that actually love their current lover, there's a real danger of experiencing severe snuggle-interruptus. And it takes at least two cans of Solarcaine to take away that red-hot pain!
So caution is in order as you continue on with this Top 200 list. Whenever a song like "How Much I Feel" comes up, it's probably best not to listen to it while you're resting in bed with your current lover and/or spouse. If you do, you'd better have a first-aid kit handy, and it better be well-stocked with salves, lotions, ointments, oils, petroleum jellies and/or sprays with prescription-strength benzocaine! Otherwise, you'll find out just how much you feel. And it will feel something like this--
119. "Sirius/Eye in the Sky" by Alan Parsons Project
The Chicago Bulls pretty much ruined the song "Sirius" for all Jazz fans, but it is another one of those instrumental segue songs that make the following song even better, so I can't exclude it, even though it causes flashbacks of late 90s anguish.
There is no official video of the song that includes Sirius as a lead-in, so here's a live version featuring Alan Parsons singing with his old-man-singing-live voice, which is obviously not as smooth as the studio-enhanced voice we hear on the studio recording of the song. But to be fair to Alan, he wasn't the voice on the studio recording. It was his partner Eric Woolfson. Alan started out as a producer, not a singer. And he brought in lots of other people to sing on the songs, so he never really took the attitude of "I'm the best singer in the world, so listen to me dammit!" In fact, it was Woolfson, that gave it the name "Alan Parsons Project." Alan was supposed to be the engineer and producer on the records, and Eric was going to write the songs and be the lead musician in the "project." When the project first got started, they never toured. It was just studio work by Alan and Eric and all the other musicians they invited to join in on the songs. But now Alan is old and needs money, and Eric is off doing something else with his life with music theater, so Alan formed a touring band, and he's singing the songs, because that's what the audience expects.
Okay. Enough with the project trivia. There's a really good reason this song is on my list.
It was my first slow dance ever!
It was August around the time school started. Randy had come to live with us. A stake dance had been announced for all 16-year-olds and older, and I was told I needed to go and take Randy with me so that he could meet all of the nice Mormon girls and they could meet him. The dance was out in some sagebrush field in the lava rocks between Arimo and McCammon, which I thought was a ridiculous place for a dance, but since I wasn't on the planning committee, I didn't get to choose the place. Randy came to the dance reluctantly, but I was more reluctant to actually dance than he was. I had always avoided slow dancing at school or church dances I had gone to in the past, but I couldn't avoid it with this one. It was inevitable. I was going to have to slow dance with someone, and there was nothing I could do to avoid it, and I knew it. I was dreading the moment because I had no idea who was going to be the one to ask me, and I didn't have the guts to ask the girls I really wanted to slow dance with. And that's why I breathed a sigh of relief when "Eye in the Sky" started playing and Mary Barlow walked up to me. She didn't ask as much as just grab me by the hand and pull me to the dance area where we proceeded to slow dance for four-and-a-half minutes.
What was I thinking during that song while I was dancing with Mary? I was thinking about a previous time when Devon Maughan had, for reasons I don't know, stopped to pick up Mary Barlow and took her with us to go tubing down the Portnuef river at Lava Hot Springs. It was the only time I can remember that a girl joined us on those trips, and Mary seemed to always be trying to get her tube closer to mine. But I knew the river and could go wherever I wanted lickety-split, and she didn't, so I pretty much kept her at more than arms length. After ending our tubing at Lava, but before we took Mary home, we stopped at a swimming hole by the McCammon turnoff, which is about half a mile away from the dump. We all plunged into the hole, where I had had been swimming before, so I knew where to jump in and where I could swim to.
My favorite stunt was to swim out into the middle of this swimming hole, do a surface dive while someone was watching and then swim underneath this small waterfall nearby. I'd stay there where nobody could see me for a few minutes, and then I'd dive down and swim back out to the middle of the swimming hole and pretend like I'd been underwater the whole time. I don't remember if I was able to pull this joke on Mary at the time, but she somehow found out about the waterfall. And when I had swam underneath it this one time, Mary swam in to join me. I started to move away from the rock ledge I was holding onto like I was going to swim away. She then said, "Daren, don't you like me?"--because I was leaving as soon as she got there. I said, "Yeah, I like you," and then I dove underwater and swam away.
At the time of the waterfall encounter, I didn't know if she asked me that question because she wanted me to be her boyfriend or just what that was about. But while I was dancing with her to Eye in the Sky I reflected on that incident and thought, "You could have been slow dancing with her under the waterfall, you dipstick!" And after the dance I considered asking Mary out to see if we could ever make it back underneath that waterfall again. But she ended up getting a steady boyfriend, and I never pursued it any further. I figured she'd found the boy she liked, and I wasn't going to be able to convince her she'd have a better time with me.
I do have a few other good memories of Mary, mostly surrounding the Mz. Marsh Valley contest, which she produced, and some encounters in the hallway where I'd crack a joke and she'd laugh. The last time I saw Mary was at the Smith's grocery store in Logan when I was in graduate school. She worked there as a clerk, and I ran into her by the salad section. We exchanged niceties about what we were doing with our lives and what was going on with our families. Then she needed to get back to work, so I grabbed a bag of lettuce, said it was nice to see her again, we smiled at each other for a second, and then I walked away.
(Cue Dan Fogelberg "Same Old Lang Syne" song.)
And so now whenever I hear "Eye in the Sky," I think of Mary and how grateful I am that she was my first slow dance. If she could have read my mind during it, she might have found out the real reason I swam away from her at the swimming hole--I was afraid if I stayed there with her under that waterfall for any longer, I'd make a fool of myself by trying to make her my first kiss.
In 1981 this song topped the charts at #1. In Canada. And in our barn. For reasons I will never fully understand, when I hear this song, it triggers memories hearing it on the old clock radio I had installed in the barn to entertain me while I milked the cow, fed the calves, and did whatever other chores happened to be on Dad's list of things that needed to be done every day but don't really get noticed when they don't. I remember being really happy when this song came on the radio because I had wanted to hear it while I did my chores that day, and I turned it all the way up and started to dance around in the barn while I fed the calves and mucked the barn--kind of like that dance scene in that Footloose barn at the end of the movie, only without all those girls and glitter and gymnastics. And a hell of a lot more manure. But the exact same number of black people.
This may very well be the worst song in rock 'n' roll. And I'm not alone in that opinion. VH1 put it at #1 on their list of the "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs...Ever." In 2011, a reader's poll for Rolling Stone magazine voted it as the worst song of the 80s. And in 2016, GQ magazine identified it as the "the most detested song in human history." Even Grace Slick hated it.
Grace Slick(Starship vocalist; ‘Vanity Fair,’ June 2012): I was such an asshole for a while, I was trying to make up for it by being sober, which I was all during the '80s, which is a bizarre decade to be sober in. So I was trying to make it up to the band by being a good girl. Here, we're going to sing this song, “We Built This City on Rock & Roll.” Oh, you're shitting me, that's the worst song ever.
But while Grace and most of the other 7.5 billion people on the planet love to hate this song, I hate to love it. The song came out while I was in Sweden, which meant I was only supposed to hear rock 'n' roll music when I was out in public or if people played it while we were visiting them. So when I had a chance to listen to a new rock song, I really paid attention to it and tried to squeeze as much enjoyment out of the experience as I could. And this song got really lucky and just happened to play on the radio when my companion and I were riding home in the back seat of Lars Nordlof's Saab right after we baptized him. His girlfriend Annalee liked the song, so she turned it up, knowing that the two missionaries in the car would also like to hear it played loud. She was a member and had been around missionaries all her life, so she kind of figured out that a lot of missionaries liked to hear something beside the tabernacle choir from time to time. My companion and I just grinned at each other when she turned it up. We rocked the song while driving at high speed down a Swedish country road in the dark. It may very well be the happiest moment of my mission.
And that's how the "worst song ever" became a song that I can't help but love.
But even though I love the song, I do hate the video. If you took everything bad you'd ever seen in an 80s video and spliced it all together, you'd still have something ten times better than this. Human language is incapable to describing the level of awfulness that this video attains, so I won't even try. I should probably not post it here or even encourage others to watch it, but it's an 80s video trainwreck you really can't force yourself not to look at.
Fear not, dear reader, as this is the last time you'll hear a Starship song or see a Starship video on the countdown. It will NOT, however, be the last time you'll hear or see an actual starship. But none of the starships you will see will be from a Starship album cover, because for some reason beyond reason, there are no images of starships on any of their four album covers. And I'm not sure why, but I'm okay with that.
For a #1 charting song, I don't think this song is very good. The music video for it is even worse. And the movie "Mannequin"--upon which the music video is based and in which this song is played during the closing credits--is even worser. It's all one huge heap of rock 'n' roll mediocrity.
But that's a good thing.
I'll explain why after the video.
If the movie hadn't been painfully bad, I never would have gotten bored watching it the first time I ever saw it. And if I hadn't got bored, I wouldn't have started thinking about what I could be doing besides watching the movie that would be more fun and exciting. And if I hadn't started thinking about fun and exciting things to do, I wouldn't have had the idea to try to kiss my date that was watching the movie with me. And if I hadn't kissed my date, she wouldn't have kissed me back. And if she hadn't kissed me back, I wouldn't have asked her out again, fallen in love with her, and then married her. Consequently, every time I hear this song, I think about kissing my wife for the first time, which happens to be infinitely more pleasurable than the second-most fun thing I've ever done while watching a video about a paraphilia involving sexual relations with dolls--which is chuckle in bemusement at the video for this song I heard in Sweden.
So I say thank you, Grace Slick, for leaving Jefferson Airplane to join Jefferson Starship, and then leaving Jefferson Starship to join Starship, which was featured in a stupid movie that Leonard Maltin said was "absolute rock-bottom fare, dispiriting for anyone who remembers what movie comedy should be" (after which you left Starship to reform Jefferson Airplane again). Because if you hadn't done all that band-hopping, I wouldn't be married today to a wonderful woman who still lets me kiss her from time to time during boring movies. Instead, I'd probably have to satisfy my soul with a cryin', walkin', sleepin', talkin', livin' doll, which I'm sure would eventually lead to me being bashed over the head mercilessly by hammer-toting brits and/or publicly criticized and humiliated by Leonard Maltin and/or photographed by Pete Welsh.
