Playlist

A couple days ago I made a new mix playlist to fit my mood and satisfy my craving for 1982 top 40 radio. I’ve since added a few more items and it now edges up to 1985, but the feeling is the same.

Today is pretty great; it’s about 60 degrees and raining (I know, I’m crazy no need to comment). I hopped on the train and headed to work (I know it sucks) to try and get a bunch of crap done. Since I didn’t really want to read I just stared out the window watching the rain, listening to my mix and drinking a mocha. I am sort of brain dead right now and letting my mind wander was all I could manage. I started thinking that inside my head I sounded like and itunes Celebrity Playlist. You know how the celebrities pick a bunch of songs, and then are supposed to give you a reason why. This will make you feel like you’ve just gotten a glimpse into their soul or that at the very least you can confirm that they are totally lame.

Private Eyes, Hall and Oates
Back in 1981 my friend Patty (last name forgotten) spent hours in her bedroom “choreographing” (I use the word very loosely) a wicked dance to this song, we were convinced we would do it for our schools talent show. Before you laugh too hard, I will say, to my benefit, at this point I had been in ballet for about four years and was doing some tap and jazz as well. Sounds brilliant doesn’t it?


Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Queen
Before the age of 12 a large part of my musical tastes were based on my dads records, my favorites were AC/DC, Abba, David Bowie, The Monkeys and Queen. I had a one-speaker cassette player from Sears and had tapes of my favorite songs. I spent a lot of time making Barbie clothes, coloring her hair with water color paints, giving her faux-hawks (although we didn’t actually use that word then) with a large amount of hairspray while listening to my mix tapes. This was my favorite Queen song then and I played it over and over while in the playroom.


Young Turks, Rod Stewart
I love Rod Stewart, I don’t care what any of you say. For years I wondered what the hell a “Young Turk” was. I knew it was something like a rebel because of the context but had no idea where the phrase came from (I have since looked it up). Anyway, before there was easy access to videos I had it all worked out in my mind what this little story looked like, it was mini movie in my head and I can still see it. I loved narrative songs, and still do. One other note, E.G. Daily was is in the video, E.G. was Dottie in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.


Synchronicity II, The Police
When I first heard “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” I was in a car with my Dad, and the DJ said the song was by The Police. I honestly believed for about a year that it was a bunch of cops singing. I imagined them in blue uniforms with hats and guns. I kid you not, I was 10, give me a break. Then when Synchronicity came out it was one of the first cassettes my dad bought me (until then I had all vinyl) it was a novelty, until then my dad made copies of the vinyl on cassette but we didn’t buy prerecorded cassettes (the other one was the Thompson Twins). Synchronicity II was one of my favorite songs on the album, again it was a narrative I could make into a little movie in head and because of two lines “Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes” and “Many miles away something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake”. Lemmings are awesome and I was fascinated by their death marches over cliffs, hence, mentioning lemmings in a song was brilliant. And, as for the second quote, it isn’t a stretch to figure out that I liked a reference to some kind of monster in a Scotland. And he says “loch” instead of “lake” a few times which was cool to me at the time.

Others on the list include, Golden Earing, Def Leppard, Asia, Meat Loaf, Toto, Air Supply, The Alan Parsons Project, Prince, The Tubes and Journey.