REWIND: The author of this column is very, very old
John Mellencamp, courtesy.
Today, the day this column runs, I am old.
OK, to be fair, I was old yesterday, too. It can be argued I was born old. But today is my 40th birthday so I’m especially old, in that way only an odometer birthday can drive home. Plus, according to Mike Gundy, it means you can come after me because I’m a man.
I’ve made that joke before and I’ll make it again. I’m old, I’m allowed to repeat my jokes and you have to pretend you’ve never heard it before. That’s the law.
Anyway, as it’s the week of my birthday as well as a four-day work week, I’m not super motivated to come up with a creative column topic and research my choices. Usually, that results in me just listing five songs I like, but I’m running out of Metallica, Ghost and Gordon Lightfoot songs—and even that’s too much work.
Join me, then, as we tour the top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 on the day of my birth, four long, long decades ago. I’m sure it’ll be terrible.
10: Diana Ross — “Muscles”
Great start! I don’t know this song. I’m gonna pull it up on the YouTubes and transcribe my thoughts, like a text-based reaction video.
I hate reaction videos. In my day we didn’t care what some stranger’s reaction was! We were too busy storming the beach in Normandy!
Anyway, where was I? Oh, this song. I like Diana Ross, I’m not a huge fan but I do enjoy her music, but I’m not digging this. It’s bland, it’s slow, and her proclamation that she wants muscles is offensive to me because I look like what would happen if Jabba the Hutt and Chewbacca had a baby. NEXT.
9: Michael McDonald — “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)”
I don’t know this one either, but I don’t like songs with parentheticals in the name, so that’s a strike against it. Let’s fire it up and see what’s what.
Wait, I know that opening. That’s “Regulate,” right? It is! This song was sampled in “Regulate,” which is a great song! I mean, this song specifically isn’t great, but it led to something great! I’ll take it!
But yeah, this song is the most generic yacht rock I’ve ever heard. NEXT.
8: America — “You Can Do Magic”
They only put singles on these charts, right? How do I not know any of these? Knowing a frankly unhealthy number of songs is kinda my whole schtick. I’ve been pulling deep cuts and associated trivia out of my head for years for this column. To be stumped on three of three to start is humbling.
That said, I’m old now, so I cannot be humbled. I’m a mediocre, increasingly old white guy, which means my confidence in my own competence is a force of nature. Every year I become an older white guy, I get more and more sure that my age alone means I’m qualified to lecture you on how to do anything the right way.
Oh, and I don’t like this song. NEXT.
7: John Cougar — “Jack and Diane”
Yes! Thank you! Finally a song I know and like. I was getting worried for a second there. Thought I was getting punk’d. Do people still get punk’d? Do you even know what that is? Get off my lawn!
Anyway, this is from the Cougar period of John “Cougar” Mellencamp’s career. Back then “Cougar John” Mellencamp would change his name weekly. You’d wake up one morning and, bam, suddenly John Mellencamp-Cougar is something else. It was hard to keep up! But that was before we had the TikSnap and whatever ruins your attention span. You kids get all hopped up on lemon drops and bubblegum and make videos of yourselves doing ridiculous dances. In my day we had respect! We did the Macarena and the Charleston! Those are dignified dances!
What was I saying?
6: Men at Work — “Who Can It Be Now?”
This one is especially embarrassing, because I know this song but I didn’t realize it was by Men at Work. I thought they just did “Down Under” then vanished, never to be seen again. But apparently they did this too! Good for them.
This is from a time when music video technology was still in its infancy, because this is shameful. It’s like if “Hot For Teacher” was played straight; I respect that video for realizing Van Halen collectively can’t dance and just lampshading the absurdity, but this one seems to think it’s good? I’m just amazed this is the take they went with for most of these shots. Amazing.
Good song, bad video. NEXT.
5: Neil Diamond — “Heartlight”
Now we’re talking! I love Neil Diamond! As long as I can remember, I’ve been told that Neil Diamond was my first concert, from before I was born. I was far enough along that I kicked mostly in time with the music. But for this very column I researched it and found that Neil Diamond played three nights at the Cow Palace in December 1981, which is too early, and at the Coliseum in 1983, which is too late. That means my whole life is a lie.
I spent, I am not kidding, a solid 45 minutes looking over concerts my mom would go to in the Bay Area around the right time, and I’ve yet to find anything. She’s pretty sure it was at the Oakland Arena and swears it was Neil Diamond. But the Scorpions, Girl School and Iron Maiden played the arena on Sept. 4, 1982, and if she lost a bet or something and went to that, it would sure explain a lot.
[Gokhman note: You want to know how young Willis is? Or how old Insert Foot is? Tony Hicks remembers seeing Scorpions and Iron Maiden at that fall of 1982 show. Check out these reviews above. He admits it].
4: Laura Branigan — “Gloria”
I do know this song. I don’t like this song. Not even a little bit! It’s like nails on a chalkboard. But I do know it.
That said, for you, I looked it up. “Gloria” is a cover of a song by an Italian singer-songwriter whose name you wouldn’t know. It was her biggest hit, peaking at no. 2. She also had a song hit no. 4 on the charts, “Self Control,” which is a cover of a song by a different Italian singer-songwriter. Which, I guess, is a thing you could do back then; just lift songs from Italy and pass them off as your own. Can you imagine doing that now? The shambling corpse of Twitter would mock you incessantly.
NEXT.
3: Olivia Newton-John — “Heart Attack”
Ugh, we’ve taken another turn. I am not a fan of Olivia Newton-John. I can’t decide if the worst thing “Grease” wrought is her or Travolta.
This song specifically bothers me because I swear her voice cracks when she says “heart attack” on the chorus. Maybe it’s intentional, but to me it just sounds like she can’t hit that note and rather than change it to something she can hit, they just rolled with it. Then made it a single. That isn’t the way I would go.
Also, I was kidding before. It’s definitely Travolta. And the best thing that came from “Grease” is Eddie Deezen. NEXT.
2: Lionel Richie — “Truly”
I wonder, would this happen with everyone’s birthday? If you plug a date into Billboard, would the top 10 songs be forgettable singles from memorable artists? I know every memorable single had to chart on a day, but I did have “Jack and Diane” among the filler, so maybe everyone just gets one.
Lionel Richie is a national treasure and we should thank him for existing. But this song is so… so… boring. It just drags on and on, somehow getting slower consistently throughout its runtime. It’s amazing! I put the song on YouTube and suddenly I’m 42. Absolutely uncanny.
We also have to consider that the only good thing to come out of 1982 was me. And Anne Hathaway.
1: Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes — “Up Where We Belong”
This one’s pretty good, even if it’s from a movie. But back then, most songs were from movie soundtracks. You weren’t even allowed to make a movie unless you commissioned a catchy pop song for the soundtrack. It was the law, until Will Smith ruined it with “Wild Wild West” and they banned catchy pop songs written for movies.
I was kidding before when I said Anne Hathaway and I are the only good things from 1982, though we were born on the exact same day. The year also gave the world Cobie Smulders, Hayley Atwell, Jewel Staite, Jodie Whittaker, Yvonne Strahovski, Melissa Fumero, Alison Brie and other actresses from TV shows I like. Also Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj!
That’s right, Lil Wayne is 40. Who’s old now?
Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.