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I like this song for the call and response, and weird title, but this line always bugged me:
You like a four letter words when you’re ready to
But then you won’t ’cause you know that you can
Really? “You like a four letter words…?”
Yes, of all the things out in the world that’s wrong in music, this is the piece wedged in my grammar craw. I always believe the title part, “Armageddon It,” was a piece of misheard words, like “D’yer Mak’er.”
Are you getting it? Armageddon it.
I was at a meet and greet in Germany in early 1988 when I first heard of this group. The meet and greet was with allied military services who were in a similar business to my unit. Among them were a couple of Australians. We had a beer together, talking music as we drank. They mentioned a group called The Church.
I’d not heard of The Church but said I’d look into them. The Church was supposed to be new wave. A few weeks after this, I hear this song on the radio, “Under the Milky Way.” The DJ says it’s The Church, from Australia. I thought, I must be confusing something, because that song didn’t sound new wave. I figured I must have misunderstood someone, or two groups named The Church existed. Eventually, as the Internet developed and things could be looked up, I checked out The Church, and reconciled myself to understanding this was the group the Australians mentioned.
I like this song, but I honestly have heard little else by The Church. I always enjoy Australian pop music — which is the comment I made that night, which got the conversation rolling.
*snark alert* I’m plagued with Christmas music for some reason today. I heard some good songs yesterday. They’re good to me; your preferences are probably different. The performers included Burl Ives, Johnny Mathis, and the Eagles. The person I was with said, “I like this song. They’re playing good music today.” Like they were telepathic, innit?
“Yes, I like Burl Ives and his cover of “Frosty the Snowman,”” I said.
“I don’t know who that is,” the other said. He’s about thirty-five years old. “Is that who it was?”
Oh, generation dagger! I’ve slipped it into others, when I was young. Now I try keeping it sheathed. I asked him about the previous two songs, by Johnny Mathis and the Eagles. They knew who the Eagles were, but didn’t know that was them playing. Johnny Mathis was another dagger.
Out of this morass, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts arrived with a song for the day. Her group hit the music scene as we were living on Okinawa. Music coverage by AFRTS was split among all the genres, so information was sparse. Most rock/pop tidbits were delivered via Casey Kasem and American Top 40, played on Sundays. When I eventually returned to America (after a few years) and saw Joan Jett on MTV at a friend’s house, I realized that she’d been part of the Runaways. Yes, that’s how slow I can be.
“I Hate Myself for Loving You” is one of my favorite J2 offerings. It has fine hard-rock harmonics, with ironic lyrics that are revealing about human nature, and the nature of our desires and attractions. You can hear Desmond Child’s influence, and recognize the similarity of the songs he wrote/co-wrote for Kiss, Aerosmith, Bon-Jovi, and others. Give it a listen.
From nineteen eighty-eight.
A-O was a navigator I hung around with in Germany. He loved this song. I really never understood why, but it was on the jukebox in the base’s hotel bar. The juke box was loaded with CDs instead of vinyl by that point in life, nineteen eighty-eight. A-O always selected this song several times through the evening. I haven’t heard it in years, but sometimes, I stream it in my head, remember A-O, and smile.
Here is Edie Brickell & New Bohemians with “What I Am.”
Continuing with the theme of the nineteen eighties as a time that I believed happened, and that I either vicariously, virtually, or actually experienced, I thought I’d go with a song that speaks to our times. No, it’s not Pink Floyd with “Money.” A good suggestion, but it’s the wrong period. For these times, when principles continue their long fade, and people endorse personalities, I started streaming Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality.”
I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your TV
I’m the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I’m the cult of personality
This is a good rainy Wednesday song. It starts slow, and builds.
“Give Me One Reason” by Tracy Chapman came out while we were stationed in Germany in nineteen eighty-eight. Her style and voice struck me as astonishing. The lyrics are poetic and insightful. I find this song boils down the complexities of a relationship, and how currents and energies swim around words and hope. When all is said and done, just give me a reason to stay. I want you, and you want me, but I need a reason to stay.
Here we are, cruising the quirky oceans of life. It’s relatively calm waters for me today, slight swells. Faint, high clouds and a spring blue sky don’t presage any tempestuous weather, but I haven’t read the news yet or checked the emails. That’s where my weather indicators arise.
It’s Wednesday. Used to be the “hump day,” as in get over this hump in the middle of the week, and the downhill slide begins toward the weekend. That was when I was a standard Monday through Friday nine to fiver. Now I work for myself, writing and editing. Any day can become a hump day. It depends on what I encounter. For now, I’ll take up Bobby McFerrin’s musical advice from nineteen ninety-eight to, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” He was following Meher Baba’s poster advice.
Chill. Don’t worry. Be happy.
I’m surprised that it’s been twenty-five years since ‘Baby Got Back’ came out, but time and its accumulated movements often surprise me. I’m still surprised that when we’re talking about the century, it’s the twenty-first.
Sir Mix-a-Lot wasn’t part of my normal streaming music. ‘Baby Got Back’, was one that crossed the standard radio airplay lines back then. Its lyrics and beat make it the butt of many light night and sitcom jokes. I used to sing it around the office. What can I say? I had fun at work.
His song that really fascinated me, though, was ‘Iron Man’. Black Sabbath’s original ‘Iron Man’ was a listening staple in my teen years, a song that usually elicited Mom’s irritation. She always wanted to know what I was listening to, and told me to turn it down. With backing by Metal Church, Sir Mix-a-Lot included elements of the Black Sabbath song in his hiphop take.
That was nineteen eighty-eight. I lived in Waldorf, just outside Frankfurt. I remember listening to this song while awaiting my friends; we were headed to the Paul McCartney concert in Frankfurt. I enjoyed that juxtaposition of time and music.
It was a good night, walking to the train station and taking the U-Bahn and S-Bahn to reach Frankfurt’s Festhalle. Sir McCartney put on a good show for us aging boomers. I was thirty-two. I though I knew what aging meant, but I was wrong.
This isn’t a song that I normally stream in my head. The cloud in my head is filled with ‘classic’ rock, with some R&B, Motown, Brit Invasion and Top 40 childhood memories. –
‘Push It’, by Salt N’ Pepa, was a hit in nineteen eighty-eight. It certainly left an imprint in my cloud, but then, the song received a lot of air time. My wife, a Jazzercise zealot in that era, found its beat and energy worthy of some of her work-outs. It’s also a song that became used in commercials, and on television shows and in movies. It doesn’t really stream to me when I’m walking around, though, because its energy isn’t a good fit for me.
See if you know it.
Michael Seidel, writer 