Year 19: 1991

 

Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana

Gather round children and let me tell you the story of grunge, when Seattle was the center of the musical universe, college students were rifling through the clothing racks of thrift stores for flannel shirts, and the kings of it all were omnipresent on MTV with this banger. I hadn't watched the video in years, but I know it as if I had seen it just yesterday--the hazy gymnasium, the rough looking cheerleaders, the bizarre janitor, the song with the indecipherable, non-sensical lyrics. I've been sitting with my fingers hovering over the keyboard for the last couple minutes, absorbing the memories of how significant this all was for college kids in the early '90s with the sad and shocking culmination of Kurt Cobain's suicide, delivered  through Kurt Loder of MTV News. Of all the songs on this count-up, this is the one that feels most like a time capsule for me.  

Year 18: 1990

 

The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground

I previously mentioned my good fortune in being born the year that Stevie Wonder released Superstition; in a similar vein, I believe entering college during the year of The Humpty Dance was magical. His antics in Burger King bathrooms notwithstanding, Shock G provided a template for the raucous and carefree days that were the early years of college, when the GPA and blood alcohol level was only distinguished by the placement of the decimal point. 

Year 17: 1989

 Bust a Move by Young MC

 

"She's dressed in yellow, she says hello, come sit next to me you fine fellow"

You're welcome for this ear worm.  As they go, you could have a much more annoying lyric bouncing around in your head all day.  

Year 16: 1988

 

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

At this point in my life, I was still digesting most new music through Top 40 radio stations and amidst a sea of sugary pop songs and hair metal ballads came this quiet acoustic song with the most powerful lyrics and imagery that my 16 year old self had encountered to that point.  I hadn't really considered pop/rock music to contain any message of substance prior-a song's purpose was to either to move my feet, bop my head, or pump my fist, but I didn't expect songs to make me think.  

Fast Car is poetic and heartbreaking and brilliant to this day.  I could identify with it at age 16 and I still can at this age. 

Year 15: 1987

 

Paradise City by Guns 'N Roses

Were Guns N' Roses the last great sex, drugs, and rock & roll band, existing on that line of excess and danger?  They followed the lineage of the Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Motley Crue blueprint and I'd venture to say they capped that era of overindulgent rock acts.  

Wherever they fall in the historical ranks, there is no doubt they charged out of the gate with their debut Appetite for Destruction and made everyone else seem tame and ineffectual by comparison.  They kicked us in the teeth with Welcome to the Jungle, both as their initial release as a single and song #1 that played on the cassette.  While that song had a visceral punch, it's Paradise City that's my top choice when all is said and done (with a tip of the cap to Sweet Child O' Mine, Mr. Brownstone, and Rocket Queen).  35 years after its release it's still pure adrenaline and if I wasn't concerned about the need to be fit for a neck brace, triggers the head banger in me.  

Year 14: 1986

 

You Gotta Fight (For Your Right to Party) by The Beastie Boys

Older generations may remember where they were when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.  I recall the first time I saw this video and heard this song.  A silly and immature comparison?  Perhaps, but whenever I hear the song and/or view this video, I gleefully tap into the catharsis that these juvenile nitwits (or so I thought at the time) allowed me to live vicariously through.  Take that, moon landing!

I'll be brutally honest-I was a good kid.  I didn't smoke, didn't drink until the summer before college, didn't curse around my parents, didn't get in trouble in school.  I annoyed myself with my choirboy tendencies. I wanted to be a bad ass, but the pragmatism of isolation (living six miles out of town with no means of transport until I got my driver's license) and the fear that my dad would send me to a reformatory (overactive imagination, perhaps) kept me toeing the line.  

While there were other rebels of rock who I could have affixed my enthusiasm towards, no one hit like The Beastie Boys when they released Licensed to Ill.  I first heard and saw them on MTV while visiting cousins and it wasn't long after that where I purchased the cassette and wore it out listening to the asinine rapping of these guys-out of earshot from my parents, of course.  I could shout the refrain from their songs inside my head, silently fighting for my right to party, such as it was for an awkward 14 year old.  

The amazing thing about The Beastie Boys was that they didn't fade away into obscurity and tabloid fodder.  I can't imagine anyone listening back in 1986 or 1987 would have seen the day where they were considered pioneers in hip hop or leading human rights activists, but fortunately they grew and matured.  They turned out to be deserving of my emulation when all was said and done. 

Year 13: 1985

 

Life In a Northern Town-The Dream Academy

Man, there's a lot of great songs from 1985-Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears for Fears; Your Love by The Outfield; Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds-but my choice comes down to this winsome tune that made me nostalgic for a time before I was born and for a location that my teenage self was itching to depart. Pretty effective job of song making I'd say. 

Year 12: 1984

 

Boys of Summer by Don Henley

Woo, this was a tough decision, perhaps the most difficult of all the years.  On one hand, this timeless ode to lost love and unforgettable memories versus Prince's enlightment on what it sounds like When Doves Cry.  There's not a wrong choice here. 

Ultimately, it was the year 2020 that pushed this song over the top.  As pandemic restrictions advanced from days to weeks to months, the opening lyrics of this song ("Nobody's on the road, nobody's on the beach; feel it in the air, summer's out of reach") would play on an internal loop in mind as I gazed from our fifth floor balcony onto the surreal stillness of our usually vibrant neighborhood.  Those lyrics served as a mantra, somehow calming me in those peculiar days.  

Year 11: 1983

 

All Night Long by Lionel Richie

When introducing yesterday's selection for 1982, I made reference to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown, which brought back a flood of memories for this child of the early '80s.  For the younger crowd following along, what I'm about to recount might seem akin to the horse & buggy days of transportation, but for those from my era, you may recall the struggle-positioning your portable cassette player next to the radio, closed off in your room to minimize any background noise, fingers poised on the record and play buttons, true masters of the art pushing them down in synch just as Kasem or whichever DJ was providing the lead-in stopped talking and the song began.  The intensity would not let up until the final note was hit and the buttons would be stopped, salvaging a clean recording of the song without the intrusion of the DJ.  These tapes begat mix tapes which begat mix CD's which became archaic once ITunes entered our existence. We live in a world now where you can hear any song you want at any time, provided you have an internet connection.  If you had told 11 year old me that this time would come, I would imagine we were listening to these songs on demand in our flying cars. 

That leads to a story and the choice for 1983. Truth be told, this is another instance where this isn't my favorite song from the year--give me Night Ranger's Sister Christian, David Bowie's Modern Love, or The Call's Walls Came Down.  That said, it's still a catchy song that puts a bounce in my step and who can find fault with Richie's stylish leather pants.  But the reason it's the choice is the absolute struggle I, along with my cousin Dan, found in getting this song onto our DIY cassette tapes.  For whatever reason, we had let the song pass us by when it was on the weekly Top 40 and we were now in the wilderness, obsessed with our elusive prey, relying upon good fortune or the advance notice of our local DJs which never seemed to arrive.  When we would see each other, we would recount our tales of woe-seconds late on pressing the record button, interruptions from an older sister, and other obstacles.  It seemed like All Night Long would fade away from preservation on our 99 cent cassette tapes, until one day. . .I think it was Dan, maybe it was me, but we achieved that clean recording and then shared with the other.  The chase was no more and as I type out this memory, I ache a little bit for those simpler times. 

Year 10: 1982

 

Jack and Diane by John Cougar Mellencamp

A little ditty that fires up the nostalgia machine for me-this is the start of songs that I recall hearing when they were released, charting on Casey Kasem's weekly Top 40 or scattered through radio airplay.  I liked this song from the beginning, imagining myself to be the football star with a girlfriend sitting on my lap when I reached high school in a few years, which alas, wasn't meant to be.  And while I didn't absorb the sentiment at the time, I now understand the advice to hold onto sixteen as long as you can (although I'd argue the age--bump it up to 18 or 19).  

Year 9: 1981

 

Watching the Wheels by John Lennon

Some of you in the audience may recall that this was the song accompanying my solo portion of the slideshow from Marianella and my wedding (if you don't recall and you were at the reception that night, well. . .I won't hold it against you).  I didn't realize it at the time, but it was released posthumously following Lennon's murder and was the final single released of Lennon's work.  

While the song was Lennon's response to those who questioned his choice to take an extended sabbatical from recording new music in the late '70s, so he could raise his children, I have long identified with it for entirely different reasons.  Specifically the lyrics, "people say I'm lazy, dreaming my life away" is an internal argument that I've been squaring away with much of my adult life.  I've appreciated the sentiment from one of our musical luminaries that indeed, it's fine to sit back and watch shadows on the wall and wheels go round and round. 

Year 8: 1980

 

Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division

There are those who make a claim that this is the greatest rock 'n roll song of all time and you know, I could be persuaded by that argument.  Straddling the fence between punk and new wave, this song was released a month before the lead singer, Ian Curtis committed suicide. The other band members would regroup to form New Order, who had a string of great songs and albums in the '80s.  

I wasn't aware of this song until well into my twenties, as it wasn't making the rounds on the classic rock stations of my teen years nor the jukeboxes in the college beer halls.  I can't tell you when I first heard it, but it unlocked something and has caused me to continually seek out and uncover the new wave bands and artists who I was so dismissive of their first time around, when they were omnipresent in the early days of MTV (and for this cable deprived boy, Friday Night Videos).  For my money, this song will always represent the apex of new wave, it's haunting vocals and lyrics matched with the propulsive rhythm that makes me want to cue it up again right now.  

Year 7: 1979

 

Brass in Pocket-The Pretenders

There's a lot of bad ass women in rock & roll and a lot of great debuts by bands, but I do believe Chrissie Hynde fronting The Pretenders is the perfect axis of these two factors (if what I just said sounds like garbled nonsense, my defense is that I'm totally faking any math intellect).  Hynde's back story is fascinating-she grew up in Cleveland, attended Kent State University during the time of the anti-Vietnam protest which ended with four students killed by National Guard members. She moved to London in the early '70s and immersed herself in the punk rock scene, hanging out with members of The Clash and The Sex Pistols and nearly marrying Johnny Rotten to get a visa to stay in country, but ultimately she returned to the States and became the lead singer of The Pretenders.  Ohh, and she had a child with Ray Davies from The Kinks and was married to the lead singer of Simple Minds.  She's like a punk rock female version of Forrest Gump for the '70s and early '80s. 

So, why this song for 1979?  Besides being an earworm that I never tire of listening to, she sings with such sassiness and confidence, particularly the refrain of "I'm special, so special", well, how can it not carry you along in its exuberance?

Year 6: 1978

 

Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty

The bookend to 1976's Year of the Cat. As the one ends with a saxophone solo, the other begins--such is the circle of '70s soft rock gods. 

Year 5: 1977

 

The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

Is there a more timeless band than Fleetwood Mac (or specifically the version with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham)? Their peak was in '77, when their album Rumours was released, I listened to them endlessly during my college years (shout out to old pal Jason Ligday, the biggest Mac fan I know!), and just last year their song Dreams went viral when it was set to a video of a guy skateboarding to work while drinking cranberry juice.  While some of my favorite bands from the '60s and '70s sound as if they're straight from a time capsule, I believe Rumours could be released today and sound as fresh and incisive as when I was five years old.  

The most difficult decision for this particular year was which song from the album to pick-the aforementioned Dreams? Gold Dust Woman?  Go Your Own Way? You Make Loving Fun?  It was a difficult and easy choice at the same time-The Chain has been the song from the band that has resonated with me in most recent years.  Perhaps it's John McVie's solo bass line before the crescendo that closes the song.  We'll go with that.  

Year 4: 1976

 

The Year of the Cat-Al Stewart

I adore soft rock from the '70s.  It's my four packs a day, my crack cocaine, my black tar heroin.  It was the first music I heard coming through the radio and it carried  into my teens until I rebelled against it for the cooler and hipper music of my 20's and 30's.  And as my hairline has retreated, my affinity for the safe, tame and comforting music of this time period has returned full force.  

Amidst the sea of endless songs from this genre, there are two that serve as my bookends, the Kareem & Magic, Laurel & Hardy, Peanut Butter & Jelly.  If you wished to torture me by allowing me to only listen to these two songs the rest of my days, I would chuckle and respond, "Yippee Ki-Yay. . ."

This is one.  The other will arrive with the year 1978. 

Year 3: 1975

 

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover-Paul Simon

So, this isn't my favorite song from this particular year, not by a long shot-it can't compete with Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here or Bob Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue.  Why is it featured here then?

Simple-it's one of the very first songs I remember coming through the radio and it's probably the least embarrassing of the lot. I recall singing the chorus with my older sisters-slip out the back, Jack; make a new plan, Stan; don't need to be coy, Roy, just hop on the bus, Gus; drop off the key, Lee--early language acquisition set to a song about skipping out on your gal.  You have to love the '70s.  

Year 2: 1974

 

No Woman, No Cry-Bob Marley

I should be so done with this song-my tendency is to tire of songs that I hear over and over and over, no matter how masterful they may be (yes, I'm looking at you, Stairway to Heaven and Bohemian Rhapsody).  If I were to somehow account for the songs I've heard the most times in my life, No Woman, No Cry would be a definite contender for the Top 10 - I could have never heard it since leaving college and it'd still be in contention. 

Yet, I never tire of hearing this song, from imagining myself in the audience when it was recorded live to the buoyancy and hope that I draw from listening to it. It lifts the spirit and feels like the warmth of the sun coming through the window on a chilly winter day. How could I ever get sick of this song?

Year 1: 1973

 

Tuesday's Gone by Lynyrd Skynyrd 

There's a scene in Dazed & Confused, one of my favorite movies, where the kegs have been emptied, the night is creeping towards dawn, and the inevitable is arriving-the end of the party. It's a moment of melancholy, as the gathering of revelers is dispersing into the early morning hours.  Accompanying this scene is this song, a song that perfectly fits that moment, recalling a scene that I have long ago retired from in my social life, but that I can still taste--the warm dregs of foamy beer from a cheap, clear plastic cup and the decision to be made-continue to chase the night or tap out on the evening.  For quite some time, I've been happy to experience that feeling vicariously through this seven minute song.

Year Zero: 1972

 

Superstition by Stevie Wonder

What a year to be born, when the brilliance of Stevie Wonder was at its heights, as evidenced by this funky masterpiece which still sounds sparkling and new every time I hear it. Growing up in the '80s, Stevie wasn't associated with cool--he was Ebony & Ivory and I Just Called To Say I Love You and lampooned on Saturday Night Live by Eddie Murphy.  

I had no awareness of this song or any of his other work from the '60s and '70s until I tagged along with a friend from work in the mid '90s to a local band playing on campus at University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse (I think).  My memory is hazy-I can't tell you that band's name, I can't exactly recall the venue and this was on a night of pure sobriety (okay, it had to be on the UWL campus--where else in Wisconsin would you be able to attend a show and not be able to drink beer, but I'm digressing).  What I do distinctly remember is the song that served as the intro to let us know the band was going to be coming on stage soon. While it got everyone in the crowd moving and grooving, ultimately, it overshadowed anything the band played that night and when I discovered it was Stevie Wonder-well, it just about blew my mind.  It spurred me on to discover his back catalog of songs and albums and damn if it hasn't been about the most enjoyable journey I've experienced--there's a strong argument that his five consecutive albums from 1972-76 is the best run a modern musical act has ever had. 

So, thank you forgettable underground local band for opening my ears to one of the masters of the craft, if not for you, my musical palette would be much less joyful.  

Introduction--50 years, 51 songs

 In the midst of the early days of the pandemic, while sequestered in our apartment, my mind would run free and wild. One day the realization that I would soon be turning 50 years old hit me while I was listening to music and like the classic Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial (if you're around my age, you will likely recall), they bumped into one another.

So here's the evolution of that thought-a song from each year of my life, counted down daily, until we reach 50 songs (actually 51-more on that in a minute) on my 50th birthday.  You might say, "how passive-aggressive of you, this sly, daily reminder that this milestone birthday is approaching", to which my response is, you can take the boy out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesotan out of the boy. In all genuineness, I can promise you this is not my intent.  It's a project borne of those strange days of isolation that blossomed into a marker of time, memories and a collection of good to great songs.  

A few last words before diving into the countdown:

* A musical artist or band is limited to one appearance on the countdown.  You may be itching for a slew of Miley Cyrus songs, but alas, you will only see one featured.

* I made some very difficult choices in narrowing down one song for each particular year, but there was one year where I couldn't choose just one song. Please forgive me. 

* If you're the type that pays close attention to detail, you'll notice that the title of the blog says "50 years, 50 songs", but in actuality there will be 51 songs.  This is due to a slight mistake when I originally set the blog up and I wasn't able to change it afterward.  Blame it on my advancing age. 

* I imagine there will be songs you know by heart and songs you will hear for the very first time.  Whatever the case may be, I hope you enjoy my trip down memory lane.