Come see, come see, remember me: The Top 40 of January 28, 1984

"...but I can't trace time" is roiling in my mind because of the tardiness of this post. I'm getting behind--but isn't that always the way it is three or so weeks after you've looked at the fresh slate and snow of the new year, thinking you have plenty of time to grow, build, create, bake, or organize every idea and morsel. 

I don't have any memories of the start of the new year before age 20 or 21, when the party was the thing. I was plodding through the remainder of 8th grade and not really possessing the agency to take any big steps. Life was structured, slow, same--and wearing the same uniform five days each week. Maybe that's why what was the radio at this time is the most tangible essence of this time for me. Colorful, bold, weird, unreal and real.

35. The Sign Of Fire - The Fixx. This ominous last single from The Fixx's breakthrough lp Reach the Beach didn't go very far, only to 32, but I always enjoyed how it sounded like what's playing behind a witch as she stirs her murky cauldron. And the preceding singles--wow. What else sounded like them?

28. "Time Will Reveal" - DeBarge. When the "Dean of American Rock Critics" marks this one in his personal top ten of the 80s, nestled between X and Public Enemy, you know it's something special. I think we took DeBarge for granted in the 80s--it wasn't Jacksons- or Prince-level spectacular, but it also wasn't a lightweight front for some older dude songwriters like The Jets or New Edition. The DeBarge family wrote the songs. Giving the whole album a listen now, it does what it says--holds up to time.

21. "Middle Of The Road" - Pretenders. I distinctly remember continuing the count during the bridge while sitting in the backseat of the car in Gatlinburg, TN, waiting in the parking lot of Chalet Village cabin rentals (again, but different trip!). Also, I loved Chrissie's cat purr and growl before the harmonica solo.

5. "Break My Stride" - Matthew Wilder. An unlikely-looking pop star for the time who looked like he migrated from earlier 80s yacht rock, Wilder became an industry pro, producing things like No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom. Even then I knew this would be a one-hitting anthem, which got as high as the fifth spot. Nevertheless, you can't not stride when you hear the awesome loping, circusy melody. I miss earnest positive pop like this song, a sort of precursor to the Howard Jones positive zen hits to come in the next couple of years.

Come see, come see, remember me: The Top 40 of January 21, 1984

Everyone old is new again this week. Of course, not just this week, but throughout the 80s. The original rock and pop revolutionaries beat on against the newer currents, bringing us back ceaselessly to the past--and to extend this unnecessary Fitzgeralism further, they weren't gonna be the last tycoons to do this. What would change is that the music moved from airplay to the arena, though some also hung on to the lower rungs of the decade charts.

If April is the cruelest month (gotta use this English major somehow, come on now), then January is the longest. I like January because it's a new start and we're coming out of the darkness and obligations of autumn and winter solstice seasons, but my god does it drone on. At least it's broken up by deliberate events and adventures undertaken when the snow and cold relent; in '84 that would have been dances and speech tourneys, the school cafeteria a sweat lodge of fun and traveling to less-bumpkinish-than-you'd-think county high schools in a rattling, frigid school van (dubbed the "Magic Bus" endlessly by my friend Mikey Z.)

Yeah, I'm perpetually grateful for the chance to break through the snow for something new...or new/old.

40. "Uptown Girl" - Billy Joel. This second single from his monolithic throwback An Innocent Man chronicles the time when newly-divorced Billy finally assumed the dating-supermodels mantle of the Big Rock Star. This cat walking girl is on her way out of the top 40, having peaked in November and December at number three. Pure joy, this one--the sound of summer peeking through the bare tree branches.

36. "Nobody Told Me" - John Lennon. At first glance, it seems odd to see Lennon in the Top 40 four years after he passed. Then I remembered that Milk and Honey was the final Lennon/Ono album, released in late 1983. Though this was written for Ringo (can't you hear him cheerfully singing it?), it was completed by Yoko and became Lennon's last hit single. Imagine (sorry) hearing him return to the radio back then--with Julian to debut there months later in '84.

27. "Yah Mo B There" - James Ingram with Michael McDonald. Michael McDonald surfaces from his Doobies legacy, ultimately winning a Grammy for this one. Could I have had any clue that this and other hits on my radio and my dad's stereo would be ironically/not ironically celebrated and placed in a seaside/easy-listening firmament presided over by the trinity of McDonald, Dan, and holy Toto? This one falls on the latter and smooth R&B end of the era, produced by Quincy Jones and written by Q, McDonald, James, and Rod Temperton ("Thriller," "Boogie Nights). 

23. "All Night Long" - Lionel Richie. Now my friends, the time has come. This isn't about then; this song (from Richie's biggest and 1985 Grammy-winning album) is being present in now and future joy. It somehow hit me differently--late in the night at the bar at the turn of one of these past few banana-shit years, under the tent on the beach in banana-shit Panama City Beach. No matter what happens, life is good--wild and sweet. (Also: I want a wardrobe comprised of all the clothing in this video.)

10. "Say It Isn't So" - Daryl Hall & John Oates. At once haunting and poppy, this first and biggest single from their hits compilation Rock 'n Soul Part 1 offered not one but two videos, the first an out-of-the-box affair (literally) with John as tennis-anyone-outfitted other man, and the other, "official" video featuring a lot of shoes, shots of NYC and GE Smith doing some pre-SNL guitar mugging. The latter seems to be cut to the Jellybean Benitez et al extended dance mix--unusual for the time. Why? I got 5 pages into Google search results with no answer (except that the internet is now "optimized" for consumerism and looking at the Big Sites). The single version will climb--and stay--at number 2 in late December.

1. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" - Yes. Oh, you think you're getting pushing-40 dudes who are prog, but you're watching them on MTV, so you don't know they are prog (or what prog is), but then the drop happens at the end of the first chorus and then the video becomes a Lynchian nature fantasy which relaunches the song into one man's fate in a dystopic authoritarian state. This is the video that the parents should have been far more concerned about me seeing on cable than this. But since it predated my reading of Brave New World (and, for that matter, any F. Scott Fitzgerald) by four or so years, it was just downright creepy, an unlikely major player on MTV, much less the charts.

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?