January 17, 1981

Thirty one years ago, I was seeking out music for – really – the first time.

Sure, there had previously been songs here and there that had captured my attention and a few 45s that I’d prodded the parents to purchase, but I would have had barely enough material to compile a desert island list.

Weeks earlier, on New Year’s Day, I had, inexplicably turned on the radio and tuned in to Q102, a Top 40 station from Cincinnati that was popular with my junior high classmates. I didn’t listen to the radio much, if ever, but as I listened I realized that the station was counting down the top 102 songs of 1980, the year that had just ended.

And, even more unexpectedly, I pulled out a tape recorder, popped a blank cassette into the unit, placed the recorder up against the radio, and spent the rest of the day taping those 102 songs.

By the middle of January, I had listened and relistened to those half dozen or so cassettes repeatedly, becoming familiar with the popular music of 1980, most of which I had little familiarity.

I was also tuning into Q102 daily, especially for the station’s Top Ten At Ten, the daily countdown of the most requested songs of the day and a staple of debate amongst friends at school the following day.

It would be another year before I’d begin purchasing music on a regular basis or start listening to American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. Billboard meant roadside advertising to me.

But, thirty one years ago, there were half a dozen songs debuting on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100, some of which I knew from those nights listening to Q102…

McGuffey Lane – Long Time Lovin’ You
from McGuffey Lane (1980)
(debuted #97, peaked #85, 7 weeks on chart)

Growing up within spitting distance of the Ohio border, I’d heard the name McGuffey Lane as they were a regional act from Columbus, but I couldn’t have named a song by the band and didn’t recognize Long Time Lovin’ You by name.

But as soon as I started listening to Long Time Lovin’ You, I instantly remembered the song. I imagine that I heard it on our hometown radio station which favored light rock and country as the song has a decidedly country rock feel.

The loping melody and tale of love ruined by too much time on the road has a catchy chorus and, though a bit generic, isn’t a bad song. It’s certainly something I enjoy more now than I would have then.

Terri Gibbs – Somebody’s Knockin’
from Somebody’s Knockin’ (1980)
(debuted #94, peaked #13, 22 weeks on chart)

I certainly knew Somebody’s Knockin’ from Q102. The song by blind Georgian pianist was a fixture on the station during the first few months of ’81 and earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song.

Somebody’s Knockin’ straddles the line between country and light pop. Its slick production doesn’t diminish the backwoods vibe and Gibb’s vocals which recount her struggle with the temptations offered by a mysterious stanger.

Slave – Watching You
from Stone Jam (1980)
(debuted #90, peaked #75, 6 weeks on chart)

Slave is a name I know that I’ve seen at one time or another rifling through bins in record stores, but I’ve never been a major R&B devotee. As a kid, there wasn’t a lot of soul on the stations to which I was listening.

Like McGuffey Lane, though, Slave was an act from Ohio, Dayton, to be specific. I do know that there were a number of funk acts from that city during the ’70s and early ’80s like Ohio Players, Lakeside, and Zapp and Watching You is a snappy bit of mid-tempo, light funk, an playful ode to watching girls pass by.

Queen – Flash’s Theme
from Flash Gordon soundtrack (1980)
(debuted #79, peaked #42, 10 weeks on chart)

There seemed to be a lot of hullabaloo about the movie Flash Gordon prior to its release and, then, it bombed. I think that I caught a bit of the campy flick on cable years ago but not enough to care one way or another about it.

Queen was a band that we did care about, though, at the time. The legendary band was coming off of the spectacular success of The Game and, as I recall, both Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Another One Bites The Dust had both been in the top ten for the year on that year-end countdown I’d taped from the radio.

I don’t remember actually hearing the band’s dramatic theme (complete with melodramatic dialogue from the film) to Flash Gordon on the radio in 1981, but it did appear on Queen’s Greatest Hits release from later that year. The cassette version of that album was one of my initial purchases when I joined the Columbia Record & Tape Club a year later.

Pat Benatar – Treat Me Right
from Crimes of Passion (1980)
(debuted #68, peaked #18, 18 weeks on chart)

Pat Benatar’s rise to superstar status coincided with my teenage years and she was fetching in spandex, so she could have been singing Bolshevik work songs and she’d have had the attention of me and my friends.

But Benatar had a string of inescapable hits during the early ’80s that made her a staple on most of the crude mixtapes I was making from the radio. I was a fan, but Treat Me Right never quite hooked me the way that stuff like Heartbreaker, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, or Shadows Of The Night did.

John Lennon – Woman
from Double Fantasy (1980)
(debuted #36, peaked #2, 20 weeks on chart)

In mid-January of 1981, the world was a mere five weeks out from the brutal murder of John Lennon. My interest in music, just beginning to take root, gave me little perspective on the death of Lennon and I had little reaction. It would be years before I would mourn the event and the loss of Beatle John.

However, I imagine at the time it was difficult for folks who had grown up with The Beatles to hear the music from Lennon’s just-released Double Fantasy album and his death provided added poignancy to the gentle, lovely ballad Woman.

The Union Jack

“You look different,” Paloma said.

As I had done nothing new with my hair, I countered her comment with a quizzical, gape-jawed stare.

“You’re standing up.”

It was true. I was vertical as opposed to the horizontal posture I had been prone to adopt for much of the past week as the result of sharing my immune system with some miserable, little bug.

And several times during the week, too enfeebled with fever to do more than slump on the couch, too weary from coughing fits to even turn my head toward the television, I stared straight ahead to the wall where I’d zone out in the pattern of the large Union Jack flag hanging there.

The flag has been with me for a long, long time, acquired during one of the many high school treks into Cincinnati with friends to roam through the malls searching for girls, music, and Orange Julius.

It was about this time of year, a couple weeks after the new year that a handful of us were on such a venture.

It was frigid outside and, inside, there were “sidewalk” sales during which the stores would take the crap that they hadn’t been able to unload at Christmas weeks earlier and piled the wares onto tables at discounted prices.

Outside one of the storefronts, I found my buddy Streuss, in his hand he clutched a Union Jack.

“You’re buying a British flag?”

“Five bucks, man. I’m hanging it up in my bedroom.”

England was some faraway land and I don’t recall much Brittania in my life as a kid.

A television station out of Dayton would air Benny Hill reruns late on Saturday nights. My neighbor Will and I would watch the hijinks through the snowy reception on the Magnavox in his family’s den.

In junior high school, I might have actually thought England was little more than slapstick, double entendres, and scattily-clad women.

But I soon discovered music and, especially in the early ’80s, there was plenty of it arriving in America from England. Even before I ventured far from Top 40 and mainstream rock radio, I was hearing The Police, Human League, The Fixx, A Flock Of Seagulls, Duran Duran…

And, of course there was the previous twenty years of exports from the British isle with whom I would become increasingly familiar.

I grabbed the remaining flag from the table. It was only five bucks, marked down from sixty-five (which would have been like twelve-thousand dollars in today’s dollars).

It was too good a deal to pass up.

And, for the past twenty-five years, that Union Jack has been hanging on the wall wherever I’ve lived.

Perusing the Billboard charts from twenty-five years ago, there were more than a few acts hailing from the U.K. Here are four that I recall…

Pete Townshend – Give Blood
from White City: A Novel (1985)

Had I been ten years older, I might well have associated the Union Jack with The Who, but the first truly iconic use of the British flag that I noted was when Def Leppard exploded onto the scene in ’83 with Pyromania.

Coincidentally, at the time I bought my Union Jack, Who guitarist Pete Townshend had recently released White City. These days, I’d probably favor All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, but White City is pretty stellar (aside from the hit Face The Face) and the bracing Give Blood - with David Gilmour making an appearence – was a favorite.

Roger Daltrey – Under A Raging Moon
from Under A Raging Moon (1985)

And, coincidentally, Who lead singer Roger Daltrey had also recently released a solo album that, like Townshend’s, got some attention.

There were a few songs written by Bryan Adams (and his writing partner Jim Vallance) and much of Under A Raging Moon was rather uninspired, but it did include After The Fire, a fantastic track penned by Townshend.

The title track to Under A Raging Moon, a tribute to The Who’s late drummer Keith Moon, was notable for Daltrey’s ferocious vocals and the line-up of guest drummers – Martin Chambers, Roger Taylor, Cozy Powell, Stewart Copeland, Zak Starkey, Carl Palmer, and Mark Brzezicki – that perform on it.

Queen – One Vision
from A Kind Of Magic (1986)

Queen had peaked in America with The Game, which was released while I was in junior high and the stuff that followed from the legendary band – ’82′s Hot Space and ’84′s The Works - were largely ignored.

But the band remained popular with me and several friends and we were stoked when One Vision arrived in late ’85. It was on the soundtrack to some action flick whose name escapes me (and I’m too lazy to look up), one of several soundtracks in the ’80s that featured Queen’s music.

One Vision sounded great on the car radio that winter when we all spent a lot of time in the car together, usually going nowhere in particular, and the result was often everyone joining in on Freddie Mercury’s closing request for fried chicken.

The Cure – Close To Me
from The Head On The Door (1985)

Streuss had discovered The Cure with The Head On The Door, most likely via the memorable video for the perky – at least musically – Close To Me. He was soon catching up on their earlier albums which made me intimately familiar with much of their catalog before the band broke to the masses.

May 1, 1982

It’s been a grueling stretch at the office – and I’m still vexed by the realization that I use the phrase “at the office” – and I think a part of my cerebral cortex is still a bit glitchy from the rabbit hole Paloma sent me down last week.

There’s also a band who have dubbed themselves Cosmic America playing downstairs and anyone who might be able to hold a coherent thought in their head while a band that would think Cosmic America might be a good moniker bashes away is made of sturdier stuff than I.

(it would be better if it was America making a mockery of my Saturday morning zen, but even that would be tedious after two hours)

So, since I haven’t done so in awhile, I pulled up the Billboard Hot 100 – opting for this this week in 1982 – and perused the chart of the most popular singles, eyeing the songs that were debuts.

At the time, I was mere weeks away from finishing up eighth grade and moving on to high school in the fall. It was during the school year that was ending that I had discovered radio and, when possible, it was on. Usually it was tuned to Q102, the Top 40 station that was popular with most of my classmates, but I was also searching the dial, exploring what else was out there.

Nine songs debuted on the Hot 100 twenty-nine years ago – only two with which I was unfamiliar – and it’s a relatively mellow lot with only a few hits that might hold my attention enough not to scroll past…

Patrice Rushen – Forget Me Nots
from Straight From The Heart
(debuted #90, peaked #23, 16 weeks on chart)

I wasn’t listening to much R&B at the time. I’d sometimes pause on The Blaze, an urban station, if I heard something familiar but the bouncy Forget Me Nots got played a lot on my Top 40 stations of choice, too.

I remember seeing Rushen perform Forget Me Nots on Solid Gold, but it couldn’t pull my attention away from the gyrations of the Solid Gold dancers. I enjoy the engaging song now, but I find it impossible to hear it and not hear Will Smith rapping about men in black.

Alessi – Put Away Your Love
from Long Time Friends
(debuted #87, peaked #71, 4 weeks on chart)

I had never heard Put Away Your Love or heard of Alessi before now. Apparently, the act consisted of twin brothers – Billy and Bobby – who released five albums in the late ’70s/early ’80s and whose greatest claim to fame was placing a song on the soundtrack to Ghostbusters.

After four albums that garnered little success, the brothers Alessi hooked up with Christopher Cross who produced Long Time Friends.

Cross was a light rock juggernaut at the time, having notched a string of hits and winning a slew of Grammy Awards over the previous two years, but Put Away Your Love is unmemorable and tepid.

(unlike Cross’ hits which, while arguably tepid, were, at least, memorable)

Bertie Higgins – Just Another Day In Paradise
from Just Another Day In Paradise
(debuted #86, peaked #46, 10 weeks on chart)

Just Another Day In Paradise was Bertie Higgins’ follow-up to his Top Ten hit Key Largo, a song that holds a strange fascination for me. I can’t say that I was (or am) a fan of that song, but it catches my attention when I hear it and I’m not sure why.

Maybe it’s because it’s sung by a man named Bertie, who now is a pirate and has fans who call themselves Boneheads. Or, maybe it’s because Key Largo strikes me as so odd, like seeing a two-headed kitten, that I’m merely puzzled by its existence.

As for Just Another Day In Paradise, it’s not a two-headed kitten but rather a soft rock trip into Jimmy Buffett territory sans the quirks, booze, and cheeseburgers.

Jimmy Hall – Fool For Your Love
from Cadillac Tracks
(debuted #83, peaked #77, 3 weeks on chart)

The other song here that I didn’t know was Fool For You Love by Jimmy Hall, who had been a founder and the lead singer of Southern rock band Wet Willie during the ’70s.

I can’t say that I’m familiar with Wet Willie aside from the name (which is only slightly better than Cosmic America) and the only thing I know previously knew by Hall was his work as a guest vocalist on guitar legend Jeff Beck’s 1985 Flash set, but Fool For Your Love is pleasant enough as it shuffles along goosed by some catchy harmonica.

.38 Special – Caught Up In You
from Special Forces
(debuted #82, peaked #10, 17 weeks on chart)

By the time .38 Special released Special Forces, the Southern band was already a radio staple in our part of the Midwest with songs like Rockin’ Into The Night, Hold on Loosely, and Fantasy Girl. Unlike their Southern rock brethern, .38 Special quickly evolved into a more polished act with a decidely arena rock/pop slant.

Though hardly reinventing fire, Caught Up In You sounded made for radio and I probably heard the song as much that summer as any hit at the time. It was written by Jim Peterik who also wrote a song that would prove to be the monster track of the year for his band Survivor.

Between Caught Up In You and Eye Of The Tiger, the summer of ’82 undoubtedly bumped Peterik into a higher tax bracket.

Ronnie Milsap – Any Day Now
from Inside
(debuted #81, peaked #14, 15 weeks on chart)

JB at The Hits Just Keep On Comin’ looked at 1981 the other day, noted the number of country hits crossing over to the pop world and surmised it might have been “an admission by record labels and pop programmers that pop was out of ideas.”

Of course, a year later Ronnie Milsap was covering a song written by Burt Bacharach from twenty years earlier, so maybe everyone was out of ideas.

Despite my love for Burt Bacharach, if I want to hear Any Day Now, I want to hear soul singer Chuck Jackson’s original from 1962 which I wouldn’t become familiar with until hearing it on Bacharach’s box set The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection.

Karla Bonoff – Personally
from Wild Heart Of The Young
(debuted #79, peaked #19, 18 weeks on chart)

Singer/songwriter Karla Bonoff’s break came when she placed a trio of songs on Linda Ronstadt’s 1976 album Hasten Down The Wind as well as singing back-up for Ronstadt. Then, in 1982, Bonoff scored her lone Top 40 hit with a song written by someone else.

As much as I heard the coquettish Personally at the time, I’d have thought it was a much bigger hit.

Queen – Body Language
from Hot Space
(debuted #78, peaked #11, 14 weeks on chart)

As my attention was turning to music for the first time in the late ’70s/early ’80s, Queen was a behemoth, following earlier hits from Bohemian Rhapsody through We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions with the über-selling album The Game and the mammoth singles Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Another One Bites The Dust in 1980.

Then, the band’s now-classic duet with David Bowie, Under Pressure, was a relative failure in the States in early ’82 and that was followed by Hot Space, which alienated a lot of long-time fans with its emphasis on a sparse, funk sound.

(and, according to Wikipedia, the song’s accompanying video was the first to be banned by a fledgling MTV)

I didn’t care much for the slinky Body Language at the time, but the song – though hardly essential Queen – has grown on me over the years.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Crimson And Clover
from I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll
(debuted #63, peaked #7, 15 weeks on chart)

Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N’ Roll was such an enormous smash in early 1982 that she could have belched the alphabet and had a follow-up hit. Instead, she opted to cover Tommy James’ Crimson And Clover.

The song already been getting heavy airplay on Q102 for a couple months before it was even released as a single and I recall it causing a bit of commotion when Jett, not altering the lyrics, sang, “Now I don’t hardly know her, but I think I could love her.”

M schoolmates and I had no idea who Tommy James was. It was one of our hipper teachers who played the original for us in homeroom one afternoon (as well as suggesting that the term “crimson and clover” was code for a roll in the hay).

We preferred Joan’s version and, after seeing the sleeve for the 45, we realized that, not only was she cool but a babe, too.