You're all that's left to hold on to

When I purchased a cassette of The Joshua Tree in November 1987 and for years--decades--of listening thereafter, I barely paid attention to side two of the album. It wasn't until a drive across West Virginia and Virginia (possibly with my sister) in the mid- to late 2000s that JT was put on and, somehow, the sounds of side two--"One Tree Hill," "In God's Country," and especially this one--merged with the ribbon of highway unspooling through the Applachian Hills. 

No wonder it sounds like a landscape: the album was inspired by their views of America, good, bad, ugly. Apparently, though, this track was such a disappointment for the band that they remixed 30 years later with some restored horn-y-sounding synths and re-recorded vocals by an older Bono.

Oh, no. This sounds flat, shiny--and with treated vocals?! Come on! Oh, I'm going to pretend I never heard this. Bono, guys, you didn't need to go back to fix something that was real, human, not tech-manipulated, but more importantly, the choices of your younger selves. 

Maybe that's why I tear up when I hear it--inexplicably, since the source material is really pretty far removed from life today. Maybe it's how I felt about Bono back then, having a poster (not this one, but like it) on my dorm room wall freshman year, my Bono For President campaign of one, how distinctly I remember the start of the Joshua Tree tour stop at Rupp Arena (23rd October 34 years ago) when I could see him emerge in the dimness from the side of the stage during the long wind-up of "Where the Streets Have No Name." I can go see him and him alone now, on a smaller stage, for a small fortune.

But, I don't want to see my hero now. I want to hear him then.

Some day we will both look back and have to laugh

I can't believe I haven't written about this one yet, but BJ's not really been in my daily orbit for a long time. Also not considered in a long time: my junior prom, for which this was the theme (song). "This Is the Time" was the theme song because it was not the students' choice by vote, "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Never forget: though my high school was close to the center of the horsey-preppy universe (the actual center being Sayre), we were (mostly) pretty damn cool kids. Not saying that we were Shermer High-caliber or teenage Beastie Boys- hanging-at-Danceteria cool, but this is more than I'd expect based on the high school experiences of friends who grew up in bigger, hipper places than Lexington, Kentucky.

The voting results were scuttled and the school leadership or whichever faculty worked with the prom committee provided this alternative: a mid-chart-peaking hit (that hit some five months before prom) from a guy closer to our parents' age that was destined to emanate from office desk radios tuned to lite-FM stations for years to come. 

I remember snippets of prom day/night, from the picking-up-photo-session that in the background featured my dad in a tie with his Saturday lawn-mowing clothes, dinner at the restaurant owned by my great-uncle, so everyone in my family was up in the business of this, sheer exhaustion at the end of the night (I was allowed to stay out until 1:00? Probably 1:00, surely not 2:00). The event itself, eh, proceeded like the usual dances at my high school--in fancy clothes. 

What's clearest (aside from my awesome black lace-and-taffeta, sweetheart neckline, tea-length dress custom made by my mother) is the moment worthy of the biggest screech of the needle across the jukebox record in human history: when the band playing prom, Velvet Elvis (major score to host a true indie rock band mere months before they got a label deal), stopped playing whatever song they were playing so that Billy's mellow synth chords and meditation on middle-aged love could blare over the crinolined and tux'ed crowd. 

But, damn it all, this was the right song choice. 

I know it now, because, this is, perpetually, the time.

Wouldn't it be good if we could live without a care?

This one never got its due. It didn't break the Top 40, and was not included in the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, instead covered by Danny Hutton Hitters--a lame-ass move as inexplicable as the changed ending. Roughly ten years earlier, Hutton crooned "Black and White" when he was in Three Dog Night. It's a long way from consciousness-raising cowbell to synth squiggles. 

Obviously, the original is the superior version, and Nik got to perform it at Live Aid . I distinctly remember seeing this part of the concert. How goddamn incredible that was, to watch all of my heroes ally day long. Including, hero though he wasn't at that time, Phil Collins on two continents!

It has such an angular and "aggressive"--and, yes, alien--sound for a longing and introspective song.

Whatever the form, it's just right for now, for figuring out where to go now that there feels like there's spaciousness, and the here where you have been is turning into someplace else. 

Evolution time

New talisman from a 30 year-old experience. I never really did hear all of the lyrics clearly, and I didn't pay attention when I sent off to Grand Royal for a lyric sheet. 

That's okay, "I don't see things quite the same as I used to..." And I can paste them here for posterity. 

Stand Together

I don't see things quite the same as I used to
As I live my life, I've got just me to be true to
When I find that I don't know about just what to do
I turn and look within to see what I should do
Now I'm not sure what it takes to be hip
A lot of people making music that to be ain't shit
So I ask creation for rhymes for this jam
Gimme lickle solo and I'll take the mic stand

Love vibe, love vibe, love vibe, love vibe
Love vibe, love vibe, love vibe, love vibe

Yeah, as the earth spins into a brand new day
I see the light on the horizon's not fading away
Gonna shine from within, like a bright white sun
No need to hide and no place to run
Got the vibrations of the music bringing light to your mind
So you can move and groove, and feel the beat of the time
Sense the power in the air as it starts to move
You get a real good feeling that you just can't lose

Love vibe
Contemplation time
Love vibe
Intuition time
Love vibe
Evolution time
Love vibe
Resolution time

Free your mind, it's time for good times
And let yourself move, it's a time to shine
Spread your wings in the sky, feelin' good inside
Breaking fool with no need to hide
I got the music cuttin' through me
Takin' control of my soul
I can't hold back, I've got to let go

Stand together (people come together now)
It's about time (we've got to get together now)
Stand together (people come together now)
I said it's about time (we've got to get together now), come on
Stand together (people come together now)
I said it's about time (we've got to get together, y'all) 

I think we should stand together

Oh, when the cool night brings back memories of a good life

I need to write something so I can feel something. I need to pick something to write to feel about. Climbing up the wagon wheels is daunting. Oh, wait. I am mixing metaphors. I'm climbing back onto a horse, I have not fallen off of a wagon. Or, I'm climbing onto the horse that was once pulling the wagon that I was upon? Did I want to be on this wagon? 

No. No. This should, at least, be easier than clambering to sit astride a horse, but it's not when you feel like your mind is a jumble and the chutes that take you away from the jumble are ultimately unbeneficial and lead to things like watching The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour into the night, laboring over work emails, and, in fact, writing everything in the style of a work email (I hope you are well!).

Heart: Well, write something already. Pick a song!

Head: But I want to google Paul Davis AND Andrew Gold, compile a comparative synthesis of their lives/styles/origins. And paint my nails. Toes and fingers. 

Heart: *headdesk*

Head: Fine. Fine! All the best, Head.

Well, this one has been around a lot lately. You'd think SiriusXM's programming well would be infinite, but--at least in the soft/yacht/mellow rock areas--there's a lot repeated. That's okay, since hashtag-Soft-Rock-Saved-Me. Paul's gentle plea is cumulatively effective this way. Plus, my flowers are outside literally dying right now because it's the coolest Cool Night we've had since April (or May).

You don't have to take a stand, he says. Lay out any plans. Just come on over. Just be. Just do.

Hear that, Head?

The Days of DD (God Save the Queen Edition): Across the world, on radio, For anyone to hear

Did I ever listen to post-7&RT, post-Arcada/Power Station stand-off DD? Not very much. But it was always there, nearly 40 years of the stuff. I'd never really even dip in, DD would surface and sometimes take my attention when especially captivating ("Ordinary World," "Come Undone"). Be forgiving of this inartful simile, I've not been doing this for a while, but DD popping in the background was kind of like the Queen. Always there, expression always in the official capacity (she never gave interviews), recorded and captured for all time.

Since the show last month, I've made my way from '86 to now, listening to all that DD has captured of themselves since then. This one, from the latest, is delightful, and actually sentimental, though you wouldn't know from first listen--more so from the video. It's a rager, and everyone is there, including QE2, always there, always our connection to the history of the world, the bridge between the 19th and 21st centuries. 

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. 

45’s And Under: But as the sun goes down I get that empty feelin' again

Mmm, Player. They get that lonely feeling at dusk, day being done, missing whatever you're missing. 

I'm gonna go look at the August dusk and miss...I don't know what. The ease and possibility of long ago, maybe. Nowadays, I look more forward to the morning than the night. That much I know.

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.