Before we finish 1982, a very quick look back at 1976. #1 was Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven," and below it, lots of stuff we've covered before. "Play That Funky Music," "Disco Duck," "Shake Your Booty," "Muskrat Love." Casey even played a version of "Do You Feel Like We Do" with the talk box! But there are only two songs on this chart that I haven't come across in the past, so what the hell, I'll spotlight 'em both.
36 - "Like a Sad Song," John Denver
This wasn't one of this nature boy's biggest hits, and it's not hard to understand why. Yes, it's got the natural imagery and the gentle, feather-light arrangement, but there's nothing that you can grab onto, like a big chorus or a memorable line. And it's a bit of a downer, to be honest. But I kind of like it. There are definitely times and places for songs like this.
29 - "It's O.K.," The Beach Boys
The surf vets followed up their hit cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock n' Roll Music" with this breezy celebration of the summer. Of course, it couldn't match the greatness of similar songs from their prime more than a decade earlier, but it's still pleasant enough. And it's far from an embarrassment on the level of "Kokomo." God, I hate that song. I find the fact that it hit #1 personally offensive.
Okay, now let's return to the year that saw the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals meet in Major League Baseball postseason play for the first time. Coincidentally, their second such encounter is taking place right now.
20 - "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)," Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
19 - "What's Forever For," Michael Murphey
18 - "Gloria," Laura Branigan
17 - "Up Where We Belong," Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
16 - "Hold On," Santana
The second half begins with Joan Jett's rollicking cover of a Gary Glitter song that is highly creepy when you know what that guy's into. So I prefer to pretend that it's a Joan Jett original. When I do, it's a fun song about lust. It's just better for all concerned.
Next is Michael "Wildfire" Murphey with his final pop hit, a goopy country ballad that laments the fact that relationships don't last as long as they used to. He himself didn't exactly have a great track record of remaining with the same woman, but apparently, his fourth marriage has stuck for a while. Good for him, I guess. Anyway, not my cup of tea, but I guess it's not a bad song.
Then it's Laura Branigan's breakthrough hit. Originally, "Gloria" was a tender love song by Italian pop star Umberto Tozzi, but when Branigan decided to record it, she wanted to give it "an American kick," and had the English lyrics written as a warning to a woman who has gone from lover to lover and now finds herself finding paramours fewer and farther between. "If everybody wants you," Branigan sings, "why isn't anybody calling?" The change of lyrical direction worked well, as this discofied melodrama reached #2, and remains one of the decade's best known hits.
Raspy-voiced rocker Joe Cocker and smooth popstress Jennifer Warnes are here with the smash ballad about love making one soar with the eagles and such. It gained popularity after accompanying the ending of An Officer and a Gentleman, playing in the background as Richard Gere carries Debra Winger out of the plant where she works. It reminds me of when Marge Simpson decided to visit her husband Homer at work instead of going to the apartment of lusty bowler Jacques, and Homer carries Marge out of the Springfield Nuclear plant, announcing that he's taking her to the back seat of his car, "and I won't be back for ten minutes!"
Ending this section is Santana and a cover of a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Thomas, brother of Dave "Doug McKenzie" Thomas. I was disappointed that I didn't get to cover Ian's only U.S. Top 40, 1973's "Painted Ladies." Oh well, maybe it'll come up and be a 70s spotlight song. This song here isn't one of his better ones, and is only notable for being Santana's last hit until he hooked up with another guy with the last name Thomas seventeen years later.
15 - "Hurts So Good," John Cougar
14 - "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," Melissa Manchester
13 - "Break it to Me Gently," Juice Newton
12 - "Blue Eyes," Elton John
11 - "Heart Attack," Olivia Newton-John
This group is led off by young Mr. Mellencamp's first Top Ten, a driving rocker about how his relationship "don't feel like it should," but is still somehow wonderful. I like most of the Coug's 80s hits, and this is no exception.
Melissa Manchester primarily charted with ballads, but she would have her biggest hit with this dance-popper in which she encourages a friend that the woman he likes is just as into him, if not more. Nothing special as these things go.
Next is Juice Newton with a cover of a 1961 Brenda Lee weepie that pleads with a departing lover to make the separation as easy as possible. Juice does all right, but she's just not Brenda Lee. No one is. This would be her first Top 40 to miss the Top 10. The two more pop hits she'd go on to have would do the same.
Then it's Sir Elton with a song about how his lover's presence is felt even when she's not with him, and how he's glad to cure her (no comment) loneliness when he returns home. Sweet and simple, but a cut below his best stuff.
Rounding out this quintet is ONJ with an upbeat dance number in the "Physical" mode about how the object of her affection gives her figurative cardiac arrest. Another song that hasn't really stood the test of time.
Ten for the road:
10 - "I Ran (So Far Away)," A Flock of Seagulls
It should come as no surprise that the lead singer of these Liverpudlian New Wavers, Mike Score, was a hairdresser. Why else would he feel the need to sculpt his locks into an odd "Hawkman with an eyepatch" 'do if not to just show off? That hair alone would make sure this band was never forgotten, but fortunately, they also have this catchy, atmospheric hit about being unable to escape from a woman who makes Mike see Aurora Borealis and float in beams of light to remember them by. Definitely an essential musical moment of this decade.
9 - "You Can Do Magic," America
The final Top Ten for the patriotically-named ones was this song about a woman with certain powers, among them the ability to turn hearts of stone to...clay? Um, is that any better? Seems to me that wouldn't function much better in the body, but I'm no doctor, so, whatever.
8 - "Somebody's Baby," Jackson Browne
JB's second and last Top Ten hit was this midtempo number about being afraid to approach a girl because she's so beautiful she must be spoken for. This was from the soundtrack of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the teen sex classic that gave the world Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, and Judge Reinhold, among many others. Even the woman Phil Spector (allegedly) killed was in it.
7 - "I Keep Forgettin'," Michael McDonald
The ex-Doobie's first and biggest solo hit is this slick, stuttery pop gem (featuring musical backup from three members of Toto) about a guy who just can't keep the fact that he and a certain lady are no longer together from slipping his mind. Later, it would get a new life as a go-to sample for hip-hop artists. You just never know, do you?
6 - "Eye of the Tiger," Survivor
This Chicago band cracked the Top 40 for the first time in 1981 with a song called "Poor Man's Son." I don't remember it, but apparently it impressed Sylvester Stallone enough that he asked them to do the theme for Rocky III. What they came up with was this now-iconic rocker about struggling for success. Yes, it's a cliche, but I dare you not to hear those opening notes and not get even just a little pumped. I don't think it's possible.
5 - "Who Can it Be Now," Men at Work
These Aussies took their first American hit, a deceptively peppy number about a paranoid recluse, all the way to #1. Loved it then, love it now, and I think it may contain the decade's greatest sax solo.
4 - "Eye in the Sky," The Alan Parsons Project
The biggest hit for this studio amalgam was this song about being all-knowing and all-seeing. It's a little sleepy for my taste, and to me, that blunts it a little. But it's still all right.
3 - "Hard to Say I'm Sorry," Chicago
Another Chicago ballad, but it has a catchiness to it that makes me put it somewhat above "If You Leave Me Now" and "You're the Inspiration." I'll take it.
2 - "Abracadabra," The Steve Miller Band
These 70s stalwarts only had two Top 40s in the 80s, but the second and last was this sultry number about wanting to "reach out and grab" a woman who wears "black panties with an angel's face." For some reason, I never liked this one that much. It just seemed, I don't know, off. Can't put my finger on why.
And at the summit of the pop peak 29 years ago this week we find...
1 - "Jack and Diane," John Cougar
The Indiana heartland rocker reached the top just once in his career, and this "little ditty" about frisky teenage lovers was the one that did it. Good song, but I probably like it even more because John himself performed it in the SCTV sketch "The Nutty Lab Assistant." Anything for you, Miss Purdy.
The NotCaseys were "Pressure" by Billy Joel, "Truly" by Lionel Richie, "I'm So Excited" by The Pointer Sisters, and "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash. Casey opened the show by playing last week's Top 3, which were the same three songs as this week's, in the same order. He also played "Imagine" to mark what would have been John Lennon's 42nd birthday. And there were two Long Distance Dedications. A girl dedicated The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" to her brother with Down syndrome, and a Navy sailor sent Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" out to the wife and children he rarely got to see.
Nice looking back with you. We'll have to do this again. How does next week sound?
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