Do You Come From A Land Down Under?

Yet again I have been tagged with a meme. As you know, in general, I am not a big fan of these and I believe that there is a conspiracy afoot to tag me left and right. I have to respond to this one because I was tagged by Sanni. I would have preferred to be tagged by Sanni in the form of a nude full frontal body slam but I’m not that lucky. For those of you who do not know her, she is an incredibly sexy German uber angel who could get me to walk down the middle of town dressed only in a Donald Duck outfit without the bottom part. Here is the point of this particular meme:

1. Go to www.popculturemadness.com
2. Pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs of the year
4. Write something about how the songs affected you

I turned 18 in 1983. The first thing I noticed about the list of songs that was generated was how much bad music I was subjected to my senior year of high school. The list of songs included such ear melting, heartburn inducing “classics” such as Maniac, Pass The Dutchie, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Mr. Roboto. It also included tunes from Air Supply and enough Michael Jackson songs to fuel a Pedophile Convention for days. Looking at the list I wonder how I am still somewhat sane. The list did include a few gems that brought back and created some memories and thoughts.

Number one on the list is, It’s Raining Men. As soon as I saw that I immediately had a vision of blog friend Mo wearing his Wonder Woman costume, lasso and all. Come On Eileen is on the list and it was and is to this day one of the best drunken sing-a-long songs ever. Two completely different types of songs but two of my favorites appear, Shock the Monkey by Peter Gabriel and Love My Way by the Psychedelic Furs. The latter could be heard playing during most of my teenage sexual romps with my girlfriend Sherri. Good times, good times.

I was the drummer and lead singer of band called Iroquois at the time and there were a couple of songs on the list that we played. Sharp Dressed Man and Gimme All Your Lovin’ by ZZ Top as well as I Melt With You by Modern English and Jeopardy by The Greg Khin Band. We weren’t too bad actually, and it was a fun time regardless of not getting many gigs.

I was glad to see Down Under by Men at Work on the list. A group of us saw them in concert in ‘82 at King’s Island. A little known, yet up and coming Aussie band opened for them. It was INXS and we really got up hung up on them!! Of course Bagwine’s own Hair Care Joe’s favorite is on the list as well with Safety Dance.

It was quite ironic, and timely, seeing one song in particular on the list. I started doing something a couple of weeks ago to my son Ryno. Out of the blue I started doing a Boy George dance shuffle and singing, I’ll Tumble 4 Ya. Without hesitation he covered his eyes and started saying, “Erase!! Erase!! Erase!! No child should EVER have to see their dad doing that!!” Of course I do it all the time to him now.

So there you have it, the highs and lows of the music from 1983. One thing, they may have pre-dated 1983 by a year or two but where in the hell is A Flock of Seagulls, WTF? Thanks Sanni for including me and to all, Cheers!!

T-Minus Two Days Until Rumination Celebration. May 23rd marks the one year anniversary of Bagwine Ruminations…