Tag: 1984

Wednesday’s Theme Music

It was a blah night of sleeping. Weird dreams, of course. At a convention. I’d brought my own coffee. Had a huge bag of roasted beans. They kept spilling out of the bag, but also my coat and pants pockets. That was just one of many bizarre elements.

After I rose, I remained groggy. Rainy and chilly outside, but I liked that. Wanted some upbeat music but the stream found nothing. Started drifting through Foreigner, Free, Foghat. Like, why am I going through groups that start with F? Can I buy a clue. Then Canned Heat, the Doors, and The Allman Brothers played a bit.

Wasn’t until I was making breakfast when something suitable, something that  arrived for this low-energy hump day.

Here’s Prince, ’84, “Let’s Go Crazy”. Let’s get nuts.

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Monday’s Theme Music

How ’bout a little new wave on a Monday morning? Something slightly enigmatic from Duran Duran, something from 1984.

Nineteen Eighty-Four, la novel, had a heavy impact on many of us. False information from the government? Perpetual war, and war as a marketing tool? Big brother, and being spied upon, marked as an enemy of the state if you didn’t conform, with everything constantly monitored?

Fortunately, we avoided all of that, didn’t we?

Here’s “New Moon on Monday”.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

When I think of “Jungle Love”, I usually think of Steve Miller first. His song came out in 1977.

But today, I’m mentally streaming a song that came out over six years later. Performed and released by the Time, “Jungle Love” is a funk-pop rock tune with a terrific chorus and Prince playing several of the musical instruments. The song’s beat always gets me moving, which was useful for today. Two cups of coffee wasn’t enough to get me dressed and out of the house. “Jungle Love” pushed me further.

Hope you enjoy it (enjoy it), (oh we oh we oh).

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s song started streaming when I awoke and thought, “Ah, heart is still beating.” I was amusing myself, and not worried about health.

From that, though, came Huey Lewis and the News, and “The Heart of Rock & Roll” (1984). I’m not a fan of the band or the song, but one, I had friends who were (and presumably, still are) fans, and their songs proliferated on Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) FM stations when I was in Asia and Europe.

Now it’s stuck in my head. I’m passing it on to you. You can thank me when you see me. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is from 1984, when Madonna was a new phenom.

I started streaming it because of a dream. In the dream, people were constantly chastising me for crossing the border, or crossing the lines, or crossing the borderlines. At first, I responded with confusion, telling them, I didn’t see, or, I didn’t know. Sometimes I apologized because they were upset. But as I grasped what they meant about borders and lines, I realized that they were the offensive ones with their false conformity-based or racially/sexually biased borders. As I encountered more people, I discovered more ridiculous borders and demands to recognize and accept the borders. That all pissed me off because their borders were predicated on childish fears and outlandish ideas. I was prompted to declare that I was against their borders, and I was going to cross them. That led to a huge, ugly, hostile confrontation.

So, awakening and thinking about the dream, I streamed a few things involving borders, like Taco Bell’s old commercial line, “Run for the border.” I then streamed a little CCR, “Better run through the jungle, and don’t look back to see.” But then, out of the morass came Madonna’s “Borderline”, which stayed and soothed.

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Today’s Theme Music

This little pop song comes to you from me hearing it on the radio yesterday. (I was switching through channels, trying to escape Christmas music.) The song wasn’t — and isn’t — my cuppa music, but I know it well because it seems like we were saturated with it when it came out back in 1984. I was stationed in Japan then, and it was being played often on the radio. Besides that, it was catchy, with easily heard, understood, and learned lyrics. People seemed to delight in making jokes out of the title, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”. I returned to America at the end of ’84, and discovered the saturation was worse in America.

Here’s Wham! Sorry to do this to you, but I need to get it out of my head. Nothin’ wrong with it, mind you, just not my cuppa.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Warm temperatures keep reminding me of songs about heat and the hot air. The late Glenn Frey performed this one as part of his solo act after the Eagles disbanded, and it was included in Beverly Hills Cop starring Eddie Murphy .

Here is “The Heat Is On” from 1984.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This song, “One Night Love Affair,” has been streaming off and on in my head throughout the last several days. Although it was released and became a hit in 1984 when I was stationed on Okinawa, I associate the song with Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale, California.

I was in charge of the base command post at Onizuka. We were living in base housing on Moffett NAS in Mountain View. Several of the people who worked for me were neighbors. We used to throw huge parties, playing music and volleyball, singing, dancing, grilling out and drinking for a day.

I made mixed tapes for these affairs. One of the tapes included several Bryan Adams songs, including “One Night Love Affair”. This song, in particular, would always start an argument. It followed a Boston song, “Foreplay/Long Time”. One guy loved Boston. He thought Boston and Van Halen were the greatest rock bands ever. He despised Bryan Adams. The other liked Boston and Van Halen. While he preferred Bush and STP, he staunchly defended Bryan Adams as a rocker. Once this discussion commenced, it would continue off and on until the party ended. Sometimes they’d be the last ones there, still talking about it.

The memories make me smile.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Watching Bernadette Peters in Mozart in the Jungle reminded me of the movie she did with Clint Eastwood, Pink Cadillac. I never thought much of that movie. It seemed to drag and was straightforward, without much comedy or thought. But, my synapses also linked up to a song, “Pink Cadillac” by Bruce Springsteen. Released in 1984, the song echos with a beat and sound from decades before, with a quasi Peter Gunn feel. I like it. A good song to stream while walking through a day trying to find spring.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

“I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” are the only Twisted Sister songs I know off the top of my head. Gotta love that rousing chorus of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

“We’re not gonna take it! No, we’re not gonna take it. We’re not gonna take it anymore.”

Videos for both songs start the same, with rants from a man that culminates with the question, “What do you want to do with your life?”

I like WNGTI much more than IWR as a song. It’s damn good theme music to stream through your head when you’re pissed off and have decided on a new path.

Crank it out and shout along.

 

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