Well, I don't remember all I know

This debuted on the Hot 100 exactly 41 years ago. How is that even possi It's a fact. Let's leave it at that.

Having never put the line break in the right place in the lyrics, I always thought Martha was singing "Well, I don't remember all I know...but it makes me feel good now." 

It's a fact. You're the boat against the current of your memory, borne back ceaselessly (this can't be the first instance that I've quoted TGG; I don't care). Or, your memory is the boat, you're the current, and-- Muh, this metaphor.

The fact is that you've got to be a bit trapped between the walls of something to push out and make something. Even when the walls are familar and limn your comfort and safetey that you don't need any more.

The first poke of your nose outside of them can even be a rehash. Hell, Russell Mulcahy even recycled a table flip from this track's video in "Hungry Like the Wolf."

Five minutes or less: I couldn't think of what to say

Oh, the languorousness of this first single off the fifth, overall kinda meh TT album! Up to the incongruous DD-style bridge--no wonder, as with "The Reflex," Alex Sadkin produced the album/track, which Nile Rodgers came in and zhuzhed (Chic-ed?) up--it's delightful. Unlike "Doctor! Doctor!," which, when played on the radio, I would gaze up at my DD poster hung in the angled ceiling of my closet, this track was reserved for thinking about 3D humans that you'd see putting books into lockers and kicking soccer balls. The songs, Irish twins released only 11 months apart in the same year, illustrate the difference between a teen in 8th grade (and at the end of 8 long years in the same grade school) and a teen in high school. Still moony-eyed when expensive synths play exotic sounds, but with different objects of the gaze.

I was in a terrible mood today ("life seems much too long," etc.) up until (sidestepping the obvious puns) I heard this track. 

The days of DD: living lonely out on the limb

Before I go there--and by there I mean a Discogs dive to begin a completist mission for all the DD vinyl I can find--can I ask if we can go back in time and create an extended mix of this? 

I need for the gentle contours of this song to be expanded, so I can hold my wistful gazes out of windows at the rococo-pink sunset clouds just a little longer. 

It's ridiculously romantic, even without the gauzy video, even without anything in particular to be romantic about. That bassline bridge. Come on.

The days of DD: I know you're watching me every minute of the day

 In these couple of weeks leading up to my next reunion with my idols, I gotta look back before I go forward. And, look, this was peaking right at this time in '83, so this couldn't be a better time to think back on a song I did indeed like but that preceded my all-out infatuation, which wouldn't blossom until the spring of '84. 

That's right... "ITSISK" emerged in the summer. It sounded like anticipation of fun to me, of all the inside jokes that were going to come out of long pools sessions and my family's beach vacation, and slumber parties with my friend. It's, inexplicably, like laughter bubbling up. There's something actually comic about Simon's delivery in the verses, and, though the chorus is more earnest, it sounds like he's asking, but is actually starting to get over it, but, hell, gonna ask anyway: is this worth saving? Because I have one foot in the future, babe.

And it goes with August, especially, with the bugs at the peak of their noisy insistence to find a mate, the air heavy as hell, the pool getting a little dirty. It's a busy little song, a bridge between Rio and Seven and the Ragged Tiger for Brits and a this-thing-is-not-like-the-other track appended to the self-titled first album when it was remixed and released--out of order--in the U.S. 

The video was subtle, not spectacular, and a bit of a letdown after the Rio vids despite the semi-embarrassing, fully comic bit of Roger, Nick, and Andy Andrews Sister-ing in, I don't know, Napoleonic Wars uniforms:

Duran Duran Is There Something I Should Know GIFfrom Duran Duran GIFs

I haven't thought about that snippet in years, and the delight it brought my friends and I only months later when we perpetually rented a VCR and the DD video album (or, rather, Robin's mom did) for overnights. Bubblin'-up fun. I hope I hear it on the 20th. 

Come see, come see, remember me: The Top 40 of January 7, 1984

While I wish I had the time to deep-dive into items in the upper 60 like "Rappin' Rodney" (No respect! No respect!) and the months-long descent of "Total Eclipse of the Heart," this series will focus on the Top 40 as Casey K. would have smoothly enunciated between January and December of this hallowed year. 

Why this year? It's the pivotal year, it's the peak year, it's the "it" year of both my brief life until that point and in pop music. If you ask me. You didn't--but you're getting this anyway.

I would have returned to this week for the second half of 8th grade, but not yet feeling the 8th-grade-itis and seeing the horizon of a new life. That didn't happen until spring thawed out what was probably the same raw, wet, gray Kentucky winter. No, it was a return to the underlining every assignment title in red pen with a ruler, why can't I get my hair to look like Kelly Carter's when I have to wear this uniform every day kind of Catholic school experience I was going to as-yet-unknowingly-how-exactly leave behind in a few months. 

And what was playing from the Top 40 while my first teenage January plodded?

40. "In the Mood" - Robert Plant. This moody (oof) second single from his second solo album The Principle of Moments always grabbed me, even if I didn't really understand this was the same man who sang "I wanna give you every inch of my love" 15 years prior. That Phil Collins drums on this track makes it even more of the moment. Stayed at 40.

32. "Gold" - Spandau Ballet. The follow-up to the number 3 "True," released in the US in November, this elegant soarer will land only three more spots on the chart, though it gets kudos for the video, a more posh "Hungry Like the Wolf."

30. "Think of Laura" - Christopher Cross. Imagine my crushing disappointment to discover that this mournful last top ten hit of the Soft Rock Maestro wasn't written for (nor requested for, even) General Hospital's star-crossed Luke and Laura when she returns after having gone missing in their gripping late '83 storyline.

26. "Pink Houses" - John Cougar Mellencamp. One of JCM's finest compositions, in my opinion, that birthed the catchphrase of the ages (11-18, in the first half of 1984), "...and then we paint the mother paink"

21. The Curly Shuffle - Jump 'n the Saddle. Never in my life have I heard or heard of this song. Can someone explain this to me?  Okay, possible explanation: the group is from Chicago, which at least may explain why it sounds like "The Superbowl Shuffle."

16. "Church of the Poison Mind" - Culture Club. Not their biggest hit (though number 10 ultimately), but bloody rager, made so by Helen Terry's backing vocals.

14. "Major Tom" - Peter Schilling. This one's sandwiched in the middle of the German-to-English u-boat (forgive the mixed metaphors) of hits, from Falco's "Der Komissar," rerecorded by After the Fire in early '83, and the gold standard "99 Luftballoons" by Nena. It's best known as my first-one-on-the-dancefloor track always played early in New Wave Thursday nights at Neo two decades later. 4-3-2-1.

9. "Undercover of the Night" - Rolling Stones. It's political, it's violent (in the lyrics and the video), but with Robbie of Sly and Robbie on a whopping bassline and a helluva video, it's a wholly underrated Stones barnburner. Personally, I think it sounds like a Dylan story song filtered through a thousand Marlboros.

3. "Union of the Snake" - Duran Duran. This is where it all started for me. This was the first recording by DD I ever purchased, the 45 with picture sleeve. Not sure when I bought it, but this stayed on the chart a good while, ten weeks, and this was as high as it went. I'm going to say February, when days started to lengthen and when I probably couldn't get this Beyond Thunderdome precursor video out of my head, liking, at that time, all things remotely Indiana Jonesian or hammered-brass jewelry / safari wear-ian. It just sounded like...the rich, exotic world out there.

1. "Say, Say, Say" - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. Who doesn't love this? It's far superior to "The Girl Is Mine," and who can resist this pair as medicine showmen who are also Robin Hoods who are also vaudevillians? 

You can almost hear time slipping away

No memory associated with this one, though in February of 85, it would have been a cool older brother of this song, less dissonant, though, and not as troubling since Arcadia signaled trouble in DD paradise. 

Also, you didn't hear me say this, but Peter Cox might just have a naturally "better" voice than Simon. Though GW certainly didn't nab a Grace Jones vocal bridge.

Maybe this is something I should scrutinize. Might as well, since I am all about rabbit, mouse, mole, and info-infinity holes these days at the expense of all else.

'Cause when all the curtains are pulled back we’ll turn and see the circles we've traced

Losing your freedom to move may result in acute nostalgia. Ask your doctor (self). Symptoms may include shopping for t-shirts that you can cut the neck out of, air drumming bongos, requesting that your friends play songs for you on the radio, and wanting to feel like you felt before when you felt/heard/saw things that you didn’t fully understand but knew were unconventional enough to make you, maybe, unconventional, too. 

Causes may be Side B deep cuts that never became singles that you can repeatedly listen to that begin with the sound of a cigarette lighter (probably Silk Cut because that just sounds like what they would smoke) and include vibraphone and make you feel like palm trees are rustling overhead and you’re wearing something gauzy that looks like this.

Funny, it’s just like a scene out of Voltaire.

You’ve got to learn to live with what you can't rise above

No one told me about Bruce. It sounds dumb, but I didn’t understand fully how deep he is, how troubled, how truly bardic. See, he was the loquacious songs on the radio, the chronicler of “real” America guy of Born in the USA and “Born to Run,” and, between ‘83 and ‘84, the perpetrator of a long-ass video I had to sit through time and again waiting for “Rio” or “Union of the Snake” to show up on MTV. I’m on limited time, JJ and Alan, and, now that I think about it, what the hell were they doing playing this song from 1973 and video of a 1978 concert? At over 7 minutes, my guess is filling dead air. 

Speaking of MTV, this one’s straight from his prime time there, though I experienced it mainly through the radio, having become occupied with things other than sneaking as much MTV as I could in drips and drops and when babysitting. 

I finished his autobiography today. Now that I’m not, I can say I was inside the man’s mind for a good portion, if not all, of that book, to the point that reading it at bedtime resulted in insomnia. 

Too much to digest, and too much to discuss (yet). 

I always thought you'd be by my side

Me Now: How come u didn't go to the Purple Rain tour when you could have?

Me Then: I liked him, but I had to spend my money wisely--on L'Oreal eye shadow and Duran Duran import 12-inches.

Me Now: Gah---gackkk--ah. DUMMY!You liked Purple Rain...you liked it a LOT.

Me Then: Yeah, but I didn't buy it. Taped it off the radio...

Me Now: One lousy dime!!

Me Then: But none of my friends were going. I think. No, they weren't.

Me Now: You couldn't find a way to go?? I mean, you had to figure it out sometime. How else would you finally see U2 for the 45 (50?) dollars no one else was gonna pay to go with you?

Me Then: Yeah, but the concert was on a Saturday, and we had a speech tournament that day. We had to have. Or I had to work (and then go directly to Record Bar and buy another 12-inch).

Me Now: Just...just watch this:



Me Then: Goddamn.

Me Now: GODDAMN.

Just for one day

I remember.



I think. Actually, I remember all of this:



It's funny, though. That means almost nothing to me now.

And Bowie is...everything. Sharp, on target, on message, unifying, electrifying. And I didn't realize that until I saw it (again?) within the mesmerizing final room of the MCA show.

Also of note within these two: the Union of the Huge High-Low Backup Singer Shirts.

But this... sheer raise-funds, festival-busting perfection. Set the standard, really. And prepped me for dorm-room poster-level worship just a few years later, shifting from multiple, be-makeuped mullets to just...one love.



Still, Bowie wins. I mean:

Random Play: I've been doing some whining, now I'm doing some finding

Oh, what a delicate little gemstone the radio gave me today. Fluffy flakes fell outside my window, and these big, fluffy strings trilled and swooped. It's a composition by Denny Laine, formerly of The Moody Blues and futurely of Wings (with Paul McCartney), sung by Colin Blunstone, who also made "She's Not There" smooth as buttah for The Zombies. And Colin was clearly the teen lust receptacle for The Zombies, as this appearance on Hullabaloo shows.

I mean, I was shredding my voice and my wallet over some British boys with dramatic cheekbones and kissable lips (albeit covered in gloss) only two decades later.

Colin's still had a bit of the palpitation-causing intensity when he went solo in '72. At least I think so, today, in this tight room under a gray sky, hearing this precisely-cut voice.

Your Guilty Pleasure: I'll give you all that you need

I've always been a fan of this one (love the dresses, ladies), and research shows that I'd better get around to seeing Love, Actually since it's continually recommended to me (and because I'm not going to take time now or ever to find out what "Girls Aloud" is). And I need it for some research for that show of mine that I've had in mind for so long and that just may be--finally--coming together.

Otherwise, I've always adored this song and had every leap in the video memorized since my eyeballs were glued to MTV daily during the summer of 1984 (particularly during nap times when babysitting) to sate my by-then-full-blown Duran Duran obsession. I'd probably--and with much ecstasy--discovered and purchased this book in the Fayette Mall Waldenbooks by the time "Jump (For My Love" hit the top of everything in July.

So a random tune-in to Internet radio this morning produced this, just randomly as if I had planted myself in front of Kathleen and Steve's Zenith to scan for Duran.

However, today, I don't need to see what I thought I was seeking after all--it's right here, in front of me.

And Sudden Silence, Shhhhh

I am playing this because it is my favorite Duran b-side and yesbygod I still have this tattered 45. And, hey, look--it's also what appears to be a goth/punk vintage store in Austin.



2:48 of delicate, rhythmic synthesizer bliss. Possibly, I could tell you more but this is blacked out today.

All the talk seems to verge on hyperbole, but still, I wouldn't want a world without free knowledge.  If this happens, then I may no longer be able to bring you stuff that you want to feel good about feeling bad about feeling good about, like this: