Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirly You Can't
Be Serious podcast. I am here with my good buddy Jason.
We are doing kind of a limbo episode. This is
not really season three anymore, but not quite season four.
This is a Hey, we're just gonna have some fun
and do some more episodes.
Speaker 2: Let's do it, man. This didn't take a whole lot
of research. We just kind of having fun.
Speaker 3: Basically, we missed each other.
Speaker 1: We didn't like being away from each other over Christmas,
having to spend time with our families. We wanted to
see each other and talk about eighty stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're actually celebrating the fortieth anniversary of nineteen eighty
three a lot this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just to think about all of the
things that were going on in eighty three.
Speaker 3: I know. My key memories are.
Speaker 1: Return of the Jedi, first Star Wars movie that I
remember seeing in the theater, seeing boobies for the first time,
three movies in a row on a glorious, glorious day, vacation,
trading places in risky business all on the same day.
At seven years old, I was changed boy at that point. Beautiful,
beautiful year. That's a special year. But what we're going
to talk about today is not movies. We're going to
talk about songs. We're gonna talk about the best five
songs of nineteen eighty three. And I've got my top
five and Jason has his top five, and we have
not discussed. We don't know if there's any overlap. We
don't know how it's all gonna play out. Will We'll
ultimately just have to see what happens as we go along.
But just I mean, if you think about nineteen eighty three,
the other memory I have from that year is Michael
Jackson Motown in the Moonwalk for the first time, and
I was like, wow, wow. And I told you when
we were talking about this, I'm like, literally, the case
could be made that every single one of the top
five could be off of The Thriller. I mean, it
is the album that left all other albums behind. And
eighty three was its year. Came out in eighty two,
but it was November of eighty two and eighty three
it was a mushroom cloud in the music scene.
Speaker 2: I told you, in my fifth grade year, I was
known as mister Thriller right right in my fifth grade class,
Mister thriller, And so my fifth grade self would be like,
there's no way to do a list other than Michael
Jackson's song. She just started off, you know, want to
be starting something, you know, Thriller, Billy Jean, beat it,
human Nature.
Speaker 1: Just go right down the list and it's all Michael Jackson. Yeah,
my list is not gonna be all Michael Jackson. Well good,
that's good. You fear musical tastes have expanded since you
were nine a little bit, a little bit. Did I
tell you that I was so into Michael Jackson at
this point in history that my grandmother sewed me a
white sequin glove and it was all like the silver
sequence like he had, except in the middle she did
colored sequence and it was the letter D for my name.
I wore that thing out, Grammy out, love you, thank you.
That was it was something special. That's very sweet, Actually
it was. It was. It was my prize ession for
the longest time. Okay. So in addition to in addition
to stop looking at my notes. It's my notes.
Speaker 3: You can't look I'm looking right, all right.
Speaker 1: So in addition to Michael Jackson, we've we've got soundtracks
like from Flash Dance, we've got Bonnie Tyler, We've got
some rockers like Quiet Riot.
Speaker 3: And Golden ear Ring.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's all kinds of genres of music that
are exploding into the stratosphere in nineteen eighty three, and
I think is now time for us to jump in.
So I'm gonna defer to you, honors to you number five,
what is your what's your pick?
Speaker 3: And you We're gonna tease this.
Speaker 1: Up a little bit, right, Okay, yeah, yeah, see who
if I can figure out what you're talking about before
you get there? Okay?
Speaker 2: All right, So this is a song that hit number
one in March of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so big song, Okay, I mean huge, okay song. Okay.
Speaker 2: This song was written about a real life stalker who
accused this artist of fathering one of her twins.
Speaker 1: Okay, not both one. It's an interesting and underum right
there were they fraternal?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but you know that's crazy person.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: So I mean, do I need to say anymore? I
think I know where you're going to go with this one.
You've hit the Michael Jackson right out of the gate.
It's got to be Billy Jean. Yes, it's Billy Jean
at number five.
Speaker 3: All right, So.
Speaker 1: Billy Jean is on the Thriller album which came out
in November nineteen eighty two, which we discussed. We have
an episode on this and it's actually our very first episode.
So in a little while, few days, if you will,
we're going to have that episode come out and you
can listen to all of our talk on all the
behind scenes about Thriller, Billy Jean, all of it. But
tell me what chicut on Billy Jene.
Speaker 2: Well, so you know you alluded to that episode that
was first episode out of the gate for us. We
did Thriller Versus Bad. It'll be interesting to hear that
one again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So number one March of nineteen eighty three, you.
Speaker 2: Of course have the Motown performance with the Moonwalk, which
inspired a nationwide craze of white people trying to do
the moonwalk unsuccessfully, right right.
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson as he was writing this song, If I
can say it, yeah, I was a moonwalk master. I
mean we got the video right there? Can I see it? Yes? No?
Oh my gosh, Okay.
Speaker 2: All I know is that you know, after lunch before
you know, fourth hour begans everybody was trying to do
the moonwalk.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay.
Speaker 2: So, as Michael Jackson was writing the song, he was
driving on the highway one day and he was thinking
and thinking and thinking about this song. Is so absorbed
with Billy Jean. His car actually caught fire. His rolls
hoist was on fire. Had a motorcycle guy pull up
next to him like, hey, mister, your car's on fire.
He had no idea, he was so like into thinking
about the song. This song is made up of twelve
or more different hooks. The drum is a hook, the
baseline is a hook, the synths. I mean, it's hop
gold masterpiece of the eighties.
Speaker 3: Pop goold masterpiece.
Speaker 1: No argument here, and yeah, I mean obviously a big
inspiration for me is it was the song he was
singing when he did the Moonwalk at Motown. Yeah yeah, okay,
hey wait wait wait okay.
Speaker 2: So what if you're not deferring, that means it's not
on your list.
Speaker 3: It's not on my list.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that. Well, okay, all right, keep your seats,
all right, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: If the Girl is Mine is on this list, we're
gonna have words.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, So are you done with Billy Gene?
Speaker 1: Yes? Okay, So moving on, this is my number five.
Are you ready? Yeah? So this one also involved a fire, okay,
and it involved a song that we've covered on one
of our Patreon episodes. Actually a couple of Patreon episodes.
We've talked about this. Okay, the knack and my Sharona
was the key to inspire this song from producer to songwriter.
Go ahead, do you know what it is?
Speaker 2: Obviously this is Michael Jackson's wonderful masterpiece.
Speaker 1: Beat it. Let's talk about that one in a few minutes. Okay,
all right, all right, yeah, no problems. That's good, all right, Okay,
So to you to number four for you? Actually, I
guess since I didn't get to go on my number five,
I should go to my number four, shouldn't I? Yeah? Good, okay,
all right, So to start this, this can be a
little trickier. You're gonna have a little more trouble with
this one.
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe maybe not.
Speaker 2: Don't look at my list, Okay, I'm not now I.
Speaker 1: Gonna look at your list. So nineteen eighty three was
a memorable year for multiple reasons, right, multiple reasons, but
one that probably most of the people around here are
not familiar with. Was a pretty big upset the United
States had. Okay, yeah, So in nineteen eighty three it
was the one hundred and thirty second America's Cup. Okay,
the boat race. Okay. In that time, America had won
every single one of the races for that entire one
hundred and thirty two years. Okay until nineteen eighty three.
September of nineteen eighty three when the team from Australia won.
Speaker 3: The captain of the ship was a.
Speaker 1: Guy named John Bertrand he won the America's Cup in
the ship called the Australia two, and he dubbed this
song the battle Hymn of the Ship.
Speaker 3: If you got any idea.
Speaker 2: It's one of three possible songs. Okay, I'm gonna say
this song is down Under.
Speaker 1: You got a buddy, Okay, yeah, man, it worked, there
you go. So my number four song is down Under.
Speaker 3: By minute work. It actually came out.
Speaker 1: I think they recorded it even in nineteen eighty just
a different version of it, and then they had their
normal version that we know came out in eighty one,
but it did not hit the charts in the US
until nineteen eighty three and Boy in nineteen eighty three.
It was all over the place, like Billy Jean, like
beat it. It had a video that went with it
that people were obsessed with. Right this one hit number one.
It was their second number one hit. First number one
hit was who Can It Be Now? Okay, which was
charted for one week, and then this one hit and
it was number one four four weeks January to February
nineteen eighty three, right at the beginning of the year.
The origin of this song is that their guitarist, a
guy named Ron Streikert, would fill bottles up with different
amounts of liquid and then bang on them to get
a different rhythm, and that's where you get the okay
cool And then he Allo So came up with this bassline,
and so Colin Hay has got this music that's in
his head and he just thinks about living in the
land down Under. It's that hook in his head, goes home,
puts the guitar chords to it, and history is made.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't get away from the song now.
I mean, this song's I still hear it all the time.
Speaker 1: It is one of those four chord Champions of the eighties,
just like Toto's Africa, just like Don't Stop Believing. So
the lyrics of the song, I'm going to decipher a
few of them for you, okay, because it is a
bit confusing for.
Speaker 3: US state side folks, right, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So fried out Combay is referring to a VW Combi
van which is broken down. It's a popular van with
surpers and hippies and so a fried out Comba. That's it, okay,
And in the video you see them falling out of
the van, right, yeah, okay. Head full of zombie Zombie
is a really strong marijuana that was making the rounds
down to Australia back then. All right, head full of
zombie grass, right, okay. Vegemite sandwich at this point, everybody
in the US knows what vegemite is, but probably very
few of us have had it. It's actually a fermented
yeast spread which is very popular down in Australia. Does
not sound delicious, it does not, And even down there
it's like.
Speaker 2: Hey, yes, we ought to take the Shirley Podcast on
the road sometime to the lounddown Under and have a
vegemite sandwich.
Speaker 1: And then finally where the bear does flow and the men. Chunder.
Chunder is not a word you heard.
Speaker 3: For It means vomit.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good. Yes, So I really feel like we
got to cover this album eventually. There are several hits
off of this one, nineteen eighty three strong. I feel
like we need to go into this one. But that's
my number.
Speaker 3: There's my number four.
Speaker 1: What do you got? All right?
Speaker 2: My number four hit number twelve in July of nineteen
eighty three. Okay, this song made this artist a superstar.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: On this song, you have lead vocals from the following people, okay,
Jill Jones, Lisa Coleman, and Des Dickerson.
Speaker 1: Gotcha? Okay? Gotcha with me? So far? Yes? All right.
Speaker 2: It was also written in nineteen eighty two, during the
middle of the Cold War, as a celebratory song to
be participated in later.
Speaker 1: Yeah with me. I know what the song is, of course.
It is from the Purple One himself. It is nineteen
ninety nine by purpose.
Speaker 2: How are there eleven songs better than this in nineteen
eighty three?
Speaker 1: So it only got to number two, only got to
number twelve. Well, that's a good question. So here's the list,
Like I got it right here, right.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Okay, I'm just blown away by this list. This
is how good music was in the nineteen eighties. Okay,
So eleven was Sweet Dreams by the Rhythmics, She Works
Hard for the Money, huge hit stand Back by Stevie Nicks.
Is this something we should know? By Duran Duran? I
mean Duran Duran's huge in the eighties. Our House by Madness,
Come Dancing by the Kinks, Want to Be Starting Something
by Michael Jackson, Never Going to Let You Go by
Sergio Mendezeh. One of your favorites, What a Feeling by
Irene Kara, Electric Avenue and Every Breath You Take. That's
a who's who of eighties artists right there.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little tough to crack the top ten, but
still in my list.
Speaker 1: It's a huge song of the eighties. It has lasting
power that some of those other songs that you mentioned
do not.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, I was at a roller rink in nineteen
ninety eight on New Year's Eve and guess what song
they played at midnight?
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Well, that's cool.
Speaker 1: It was cool on the trip that we where we
went to California and I saw the Boobies for the
first time. On our way out, stopped at a hotel
driving along the way, and I can remember very clearly
seeing Prince for the first time. It was Little Red
Corvette that they were performing, but same album of course, right,
and just being like, Wow, this dude is different. This
is some different stuff. And I was entranced, absolutely entranced.
Eighty three heck of a year.
Speaker 2: Lisa Coleman was twenty two and she had just been
a piano teacher and was hired by Prince and there
she goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, my number three. I'm going to give it
away like in the first few seconds, right, yeah, okay.
It was written at the same desk that James Bond
was written at. I got it, I got it.
Speaker 2: This has to be Every Breath You Take by the police.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's okay, fantastic. So this song was a mammoth hit,
like it was the biggest hit song of nineteen eighty three.
It simply was. I mean, even with Thriller doing all
of the damage that it was doing to everybody else,
it could not stop. Every Breath You Take. It was
the number one song it was for the year. And
we talked about this in our Synchronicity episode, which was
I listened to some of it today and it was
so fun to go revisit this. And it's another one
of those episodes that we're going to have for you
coming up here in a little while, since you get
the full story.
Speaker 3: On this song.
Speaker 1: But Sting, you know, a lot of people think this
song is a love song, right, and it's not. It's
a stocker. It's a stalker song. And Sting is like,
you know, people come up like I played that at
my wedding and he'd be like, good luck, Yeah, exactly.
I love that story.
Speaker 2: And in fact, in nineteen eighty three, I didn't appreciate
this song and we talked about how when we did Synchronicity,
I wasn't a Police fan, but after we did that
Deep Dive, I became a Police fan and realized, Man,
this song it's just awesome.
Speaker 1: It just is. It has the staying power. It will
never get old. And there are so many good stories
in the episode. I mean Stuart Copeland, the drummer, his
dad was a member of the CIA that helped overthrow
the government over there. I mean it's in Iran. I
mean it was just it's just it's nuts. It's nuts,
all of the things that went into making that album.
And they build and they build and they build, and
that album Synchronicity was the peak. It was the pinnacle.
And then they were done.
Speaker 2: They were done, by the way, Andy Summers, Yeah, turned
eighty years old this week.
Speaker 1: Shut eighty front door. Holy cow. Wow. I mean, I
guess you know he got of got started late forty
years ago. He was forty Yeah, I mean, the guy
was considered to be the new guitarist for the Rolling
Stones just before he joined up with the Police. That's
he's a guy who's got chops and a guy who
was a little bit older than the other two. Yeah, okay,
that's my number three. What do you got? All right?
Speaker 2: So this song, yeah, was directed in a foreign country,
which was a new thing. It was a creative departure
because every video had been shot in the same warehouse
in New York City and MTV said, go do something different. Also,
at the end of the song, it's rumored that there's
the sound of a female orgasm at the end of
the song.
Speaker 1: Is that the rumor?
Speaker 2: That's the rumor.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the video not only was it filmed in
another place, but it was filmed by one of our
favorite directors, mister Russell Russell mckayhee and the song is.
Speaker 2: Fringy pop bold man.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's great, It's pop fantastic. Yeah. And interestingly, as
I listened to some of our old episodes, Melissa Mingle's
name came up multiple times. So I am so thankful
that we got her to come on and share with
us her love for John Taylor and the album Yeo
as a whole.
Speaker 2: Well, it's say one of our good friends and followers
of the podcast, and that was such a fun time
to have her.
Speaker 1: Great. By the way, this video shot in Sri Lanka.
Speaker 2: As we talked, they shot Save a Prayer and Lowling
Your Nightmare, all three on the same trip to Sri Lanka,
which is why those videos look so close. Simon Labond
bleached his hair in the middle of this video and
it turned out really bad, which is why he's wearing
Russell McKay He's Fedora the entire time in this video.
Speaker 1: Right, And you thought it was an Indiana Jones thing,
and it.
Speaker 2: Was clearly they were taking you know, raiders a lot
of stark approach, right. And that is Nick Rose's girlfriend
laughing at the beginning of the song. It's such a
great kickoff. As I mentioned before, this song is played
in one of my eighties guilty pleasure movies, Hot Dog,
the movie Hungry Like the Wolf. Number three all right,
by the way, by the way, how in the world
did this song only make it to number.
Speaker 1: Three on the charts? Okay, well here's the reason. Okay,
March of nineteen eighty three. Yeah, number one was Billy
Gene Okay, I mean, uh, I mean duh. Yeah. Number
two was do You Really Want to Hurt Me? By
Culture Club? Yeah? No, no, dude, I mean it was
eighty three. It is an unstoppable force. Culture Club was
a phenomenon back then. It was a phenomenon.
Speaker 2: It was boy George was kind of the person for
a moment.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a better song. Yeah, okay, do
you to me? Are so? Are we already a number two?
We're burning through this? Okay? Now we covered synchronicity, okay,
and this song I'm about to describe was a competitor
for that. It's my favorite song of this off of
this album, and it is featured prominently in a video
game that is named after the band that has the
band members as the characters in the video game. This
particular song has the guitar player shooting lasers out of
his guitar up into this you got it? I think
I've got it. It's one of two. I believe it is.
Speaker 2: Let's go down the wharf and get a haircut and
get a shirt from Target and play Separate Ways by Journey.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. So this is my favorite Journey song
and possibly the worst video of nineteen eighty three. Right,
that's true. I watched it again and I just had
to go. I just imagine them as they all just
showed up, and you know, the guy who was directed
of the beer commercial yesterday was like, Okay, guys, what
are we doing. They're like, now where we hired you?
And he's like, oh, what's just everybody put your instruments
over there, and you go pretend like you're paying your instruments,
and then we'll bring them back in and it'll be
like they just appeared.
Speaker 2: Hey, Jonathan Kane, just do this, you know, really hard,
and then we'll bring a keyboard in and out.
Speaker 1: It'll be awesome. Yeah, this song was shot at wharf
that our buddy Christopher Weber Yeah, it's like real close
to where he works. Yeah, that's right, and the wharf
actually says it on the wharf in the video. And
then the hot girl that's walking around, you know, Steve
Perry showed up with his girlfriend and she saw the
hot girl that was supposed to be in the video
and she was like, excuse me, I will be the
hot girl, thank you very much. Yeah, Sherry Songsry. Yeah,
there you go. It's tragic that that didn't work out. Yeah, well,
we've got the whole episode on that band, which is
again fantastic. I mean, guys, Steve Perry was working at
his father in law's turkey ranch when he got the
call from Herbie Herbertson or whatever it is. He has
given up music, he'd quit and when he got when
he got the call, he was like, yeah, I don't
really want to.
Speaker 2: Over does that you? Yeah, it's incredible working at a
turkey ranch. Maybe the greatest voice of the eighties and
he was like an ask, I'm just.
Speaker 1: Going to work with turkeys. Yeah. Yeah. It is amazing
to know what the history of Journey is and how
many times it was almost not a band at all.
It is basically this is weird. It is basically Santana too.
No one would think that, but that's where the seeds started. Yeah, crazy,
it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Check out our Journey Frontiers episode coming a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your number two is it to me? Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right, So this song has Thomas Dolby from She
Blinded Me with Science on keys. It was rumored that
this song was about Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1: But it was not. Okay, that threw you a curveball right there,
he did.
Speaker 3: It's Thomas Dolby's been on a few things that we've talked.
Speaker 1: About going, yes, he has okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This video features the first flying spread Eagle on MTV. Yes,
it predates David Lee Roth and a T shirt was
purchased on the way to the video shoot for like
ten bucks and it became the Rage and a Selma
concerts today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this song is photographed by def Leppard from
our Pyromania episode Piromania album. Fantastic song, love it. It's
a great song. It is a great song. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We talked about that chirp at the beginning. Yeah, and
I think you decided that it's the sound of him
plugging his guitar and to the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. For sure, Mutt Lang setting the standard
for what rock music was going to be for the
next twenty years.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a pop metal like it combines pop and
rock and mainstream rock. I mean, these guys just hit
MTV with a great song, a great video at the
exact right time, and they took off.
Speaker 1: So nineteen eighty three, you are a little kid who's
obsessed with Michael Jackson. Yes, and what you remember this story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm sitting in my fifth grade class and
my buddy says, hey, listen, I've got a song I
really want to play for you, and I'm like, listen,
I am into Michael Jackson. I don't have time for
anything else, right, And he's like, no, I think you
like this one. I'm like, no, really, I'm strictly Michael Jackson.
He's like, well, can I just play this one for you?
And he plays Photograph for me and.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this song is so freaking good.
Speaker 2: Like instantly I'm a deaf leopard guy. Yeah, and that
shifted me into def Leppard really for the rest of
the eighties, and like Hysteria.
Speaker 1: Is my all time favorite album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so absolutely fell in love with def Leppard, the
mainstream rock guitars, and just the fun joy of rock
and roll infected me from that minute forward. Love it man,
it was that was when the match hit the flame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those those moments in our youth where where our
eyes are suddenly opened. It's amazing time to think back too.
It's great, great, good story. I'm surprised we had too
much crossover so far.
Speaker 3: No, we haven't.
Speaker 1: Okay to you, sir. Okay, So we are at the
point in the show where we're about to talk about
what our number one song for nineteen eighty three was,
and we got to do some honorable mentions here.
Speaker 2: Okay, how many honorable mentions are you gonna do? Would
you like to change the rules on this? They always
accuse me and changed the reals.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I just I and I didn't do it mid episode, mister.
I at least suggested it to you. So we'll do
two honorable mentions and if you've got one one song
that you had forgotten about, but when you started looking
at nineteen eighty three, you're like, oh yeah, I remember that,
so oh yeah, I do. Okay, so honorable mentioned for
me number one. It's got to be Quiet Riot. Come
On Feel the Noise off of Metal Nose. Okay, that
was an iconic album in that time in my life.
I remember my brother had it. I remembered that the cover.
Speaker 3: I can still see the cover.
Speaker 1: In my brother's room album cover of him in the
leather straight jacket with the metal face on. Fantastic headbanging,
hard rock, heavy metal song. Absolutely, come on, Feel the Noise.
I remember the video.
Speaker 3: I remember being.
Speaker 1: Big in my fifth grade class.
Speaker 2: So absolutely deserving to be your honorable mention, absolutely all right.
Speaker 1: My second honorable mention very similar. It's making Love out
of Nothing at all by air Supply. It's a catchy dune.
I love air Supplies a right, and I am unapologetic
about it, all right. I know that it's mushy, gooshy
weenie songs, and I don't care. I love air Supply.
The guys can sing man. That song is freaking fantastic
nothing at all.
Speaker 2: We got to listen to that right here. I know
just whisper and cry, I know just when had a
fine answers, and I know just out a live.
Speaker 1: If this song was not on your makeout list of
nineteen eighty three, you weren't doing it right. You didn't
understand the assignment.
Speaker 2: I have to stop this. I'm gonna start weeping.
Speaker 1: You you put that in the right move and as
my brother says, that's a panty It's a panty dropper
for sure.
Speaker 2: Great great choice, Okay, great choice.
Speaker 1: Okay. So those are my two honorable mentions, and you
do your honorable mentions. Then I'll tell you the song
that I rediscovered. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2: So my number one honorable mention has Bobby Kimball with
the sweaty vocals singing Africa by Toto. The chorus is
so infectious that when it comes on the radio, I'm
turning up every time. It doesn't matter if I listened
one hundred times in a row. No, it's a great,
great song and I love it. Another Raiders of Lost
Art video by the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly right with the spirit chucking and black
Lady in the library. So so not twenty first century
of Robria, but at the time, ooh Africa like it?
All right? It's so good, hey that the history on
that song and the times that we've covered it is
it is a song that will live forever. Great mention. Okay,
what do you got.
Speaker 2: That Toto episode, by the way, is one of our
all time favorites, and I wouldn't have thought that.
Speaker 1: And we started that episode and that was the one
that we compared to Duran Duran's Rio. That was a
great matchup because those are two killer album.
Speaker 2: Those albums are twenty forty one this year. That was
a great matchup that we had Toto four versus Rio
Duran Duran one of my favorite episodes that we've done.
Speaker 1: Love it, Okay, my second honorable mention. You ready for this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It is a pop song with a message. There is
no course in the song and the name of the
band is from her nickname when she was a little girl.
She went to Spain and they called her Nina Ah.
Speaker 1: The ninety nine left falloon, I left Balloons. You gotta
tell his story about you and your wife on this.
Speaker 2: We need to do a Patreon on this song because
I had a discussion with my wife one time and
we were talking about this particular song and she's like,
you're talking about that song, that German song, and I'm like, no, no,
the English one.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: She's like, that song's in German. I'm like, no, it's not.
It's in English. And we had a knockdown, drag out.
That freaking song is in English.
Speaker 1: It's both, it's it's bold's two different verses of the song. Yes,
I had the stupid ninety nine Red Balloons was the
one I had just heard. So anyway, I love that song.
Speaker 3: Two fantastic two fantastic songs.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay. So what do you Got is like when
you discovered Okay, this one is by Jackson Brown? Okay,
So I was like, Jackson Brown had a song in
eighty three. I didn't really, I mean, and honestly, this
album that it came off of was his kind of
last big Hourrah. You know you think I can get
at So I'll give you hint. Okay, because it's not
a song that people are really talking about still okay,
But it's a fantastic song, Okay, Okay. It has my
chosen profession in the title of the song and talks
about people like me being passionate about other people like me.
I got nothing if the song is called Lawyers in
Love by Jackson Brown? Do you have anything you never
heard this song?
Speaker 3: I guarantee you've heard of it. Okay, pull it up,
pull it up. We're gonna listen to it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've heard the song. Yes, of course I've heard
this song. Just a little bit more ahead. The third is.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course I've heard the song. Yeah, I totally
forgot about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exact, exact right, Like, I'm like, Lawyers and Love.
I remember in the night the title of that song,
and then when I listened to him, like, hey, this
is a good song. Yeah, it is a good song song.
I mean, but how is a song called Lawyers in
Love Gonna last? Wow?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jackson Brown, I believe married Daryl Hannah. If I
am not mistaken, he and Daryl Hannah had a relationship
in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Really, did you know that she's married to Neil Young.
She likes us, she likes the musician. Yeah, Neil Young,
Neil Young, Hey, yeah, crusty old Young and Darryl hot
Hannah Yeah, Roxanne fucks man, Oh my gosh. Yep. All right,
So here's the song that I.
Speaker 2: As I was going through this, I just couldn't get
away from it, right, And I kept coming back. I'm like,
does this belong in my top eight?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And I just it's one of those songs where you
may not even know the title of the song, but
you probably know all the words, like if I played
it for you.
Speaker 1: You probably just spit them all out. Okay, So it's
one of those.
Speaker 2: This song reached number six early nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: I told you before I was writing.
Speaker 2: One time with my whole baseball team, we just won
a game and the coach list turned on the radio station.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we sang Harder rock and Roll by Huey Lewis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we all sang this song by Genesis.
Speaker 3: So it's the title of this the title of this song.
Speaker 2: It's just a shame is that the name of time,
title of the song is called That's All.
Speaker 1: That's all. Yeah, this that probably was the beginning in
the period of the eighties, the beginning of the time
that you could not go for a week without hearing
Phil Collins for which on the radio.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Phil Collins unstaple through the eighties, unavoidable at that point.
Speaker 1: And not I'm not complaining. I like Phil Collins too,
but heck, dude, that guy was had a hit song
every three months. Yeah, it's true, every three months.
Speaker 2: It's true. It went to Genesis had a big album
in eighty three and eighty four. Phil Collins No Jacket
Required takes us through eighty five, and then Genesis comes
right in with eighty six.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, so we've reached number one and we've got
I mean, just guys, just think about how incredible of
a year of the music this is. This has been.
This was a really hard thing to narrow it down.
I mean, we've got stray Cats going crazy, You've got
Laura Brannigan going crazy, You've got sticks, You've got Bonnie Tyler. Yes,
I mean Bonnie Tyler kept kept my song out of
the top spot in the UK. Hey Tyler. Total glimpse
of the Heart.
Speaker 2: Definitely in the conversation for this list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every time it comes on, I'm like, hey, yeah, yep, okay,
so number one again, I'm gonna defer to you, what
do you got?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you already know what my number one
is because we kind of eliminated.
Speaker 1: It right off the bat. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when you take the greatest pop artist of the day,
and you combine it with the greatest guitar player of
the day, and you mash it together, and you put
the greatest producer of all time, and you come up
with a song that is so catchy it's so much mainstream.
It appeals to rock people, pop people, R and B people.
It's beat it by Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: So that opening sound, that iconic opening sound, is from
a ceclavier keyboard. Right. They were doing everything they could
not to sound like anything else, but it was a
stock sound and they're like, hell, we got to change
the sound, and Michael Jackson was no, no, no, no, We're
keeping this sound. That thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, So that sound is.
Speaker 1: A sound that came programmed in, like you open the
box and there it is iconic sound. And I mean
we went into all kinds of detail when we did
our Thriller episode on this, but I uncovered multiple different things.
Michael Jackson when he wrote this song, he said, I
want to write a song. It's a rock song that
I would go out and buy. Yeah, but that's not
being played on the top forty right now. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean Eddie van Halen produced two guitar solos
for two six packs of beer, and really, I mean
a case can be made that this accelerated the demise
of van Halen.
Speaker 1: David Lee Roth. Absolutely, I mean this album kept nineteen
eighty four out of the top spot in the three
weeks that it was at number two. Thriller was at
number one the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Thriller was this juggernaut and David Lee Roth didn't
want Eddie playing for other artists and it was a
fight and it ended with Dave gone, Sammy in and
Michael Jackson being the.
Speaker 1: King of the eighties. Yeah, and Eddie said he was like,
I just wanted to do something nice. Like he didn't
even care about not getting paid other than the beer
they brought to the studio or whatever. He was like,
I just want to be nice to this kid. I thought,
maybe give me some dance lessons or something. My gosh,
and it's so good.
Speaker 2: I like, literally, I think this is Eddie van Halen's
greatest piece of work. Yeah, it is the most amazing
guitar solo I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: So, as we mentioned the episod, so the musicians that
are involved in almost all of the songs on this
album are the guys from Toto, Steve Lucather on guitar,
You've got Jeff Pacaro, You've got Steve Pacaro. They're involved
in I mean, Steve Pacara wrote Human Nature. Yes, And
so when Eddie came in, he heard Lucather's chord progression.
He was like, hey, can we switch this up a
little bit? And they're like, whatever you want, mister van Halen, Yeah, sure, yeah,
And so he changes it up and does two takes,
two takes, and in two takes he sets the monitor
speaker on the fire. So then when Michael Jackson came
in and Eddie's still there and he saw that he
had changed it, he wasn't upset. He was like, I'm
so honored that he cared enough about the song to go, hey,
let's let's maneuver it here and make it better. And
it was truly impressed that he took the time to
do that.
Speaker 2: You know, the video, you had actual crips and bloods
on set for the gang fight, the West Side Story thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Although I'm gonna say.
Speaker 2: It's an iconic video and it finishes strong the beginning
with Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Laying in bed singing.
Speaker 2: He improves, he gets much better, and you compare that
to like Smooth Criminal a few.
Speaker 1: Years later, where he's doing amazing things. The entire video. Yeah. Well,
the director of that video was Bob Jerryaldi Okay, okay,
And you know he said everybody thought that this was
supposed to be a West Side Story thing, And I mean,
come on, west Side Story is obvious on this right
right right? And I mean the line in West Side
Story when they're like running away because there's about to
be a fight is beat it, beat it right right?
So but he's like, no, no, no, no, it wasn't that.
He was like, I was inspired by the hoods in
my neighborhood when I was growing up in Patterson, New Jersey,
right right.
Speaker 3: So he directed him in this video. He directed him
one other time.
Speaker 1: Okay. It was for a Pepsi commercial ham Yes, oh
my gosh, yep. Okay.
Speaker 2: This song hit number one April of nineteen eighty three,
and it's I mean, I don't know how it's not
higher on your list, but let's let's see what you
got here.
Speaker 1: Well, let's let me just say, okay, this song was
on my list. This was a hard list to put together,
and I had to I had to find something. I
had to put these somewhere, right, That's true, So beat
it still. I mean, I just I could have done
all Michael Jackson, I could have done it all, okay,
but I picked the one that is my favorite. I
put it number five because this song is the perfect
crossover of pop, motown and rock. Like you take those
three things, cram them together. It's perfect and you've got
to beat it. Yeah, I a song. I fought you
not at all for putting it number one, all right, okay, okay,
So you're ready for my number one? I am, I'm ready.
I can't wait. I'm on the edge of my seat. Okay.
This song when I heard it the first time, and
I think this is probably the experience for most folks.
It's like it reaches out of the radio and grabs
you by the shirt and shakes you and then gives
you a big kiss and you fall into it. I mean,
this is the this is the classic piece from the
eighties where it's you know, the guys, the girl's mad
and they're fighting and then all of a sudden they
kiss and it's passionate. Right, that's this song. Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: This song is.
Speaker 1: By a pair that was in a group initially called
the Tourists. We talked about Australia a little bit earlier.
The Tourists had gone down to Australia on a tour
and they absolutely fell apart. The pair were dating at
the time, Okay, I mean they were romantically involved. By
the time they were flying home, they were done. But
they both were smart enough to go, hey, we're a
good combo musically. How about we just move out and
we keep on working on music, and I move out.
One of them literally moved to the floor above the
other one, right, okay, And so then they changed their
name too.
Speaker 2: I think this is the Eurhythmics, see.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Annie Lennox is suffering from depression because as
the Aeromix, they've had not a great deal of success
with their initial releases, and she's kind of in the
fetal position in the corner, and Dave Stewart is toying
around with these new electrical machines that make music like
that basically it looks like a computer. And if you've
seen the video, you've seen what he's what he's messing
around with. And she's over there crying. He's fiddling around,
and she's all of a sudden like, I don't know
what was that, And it's that it's infectious. You can't
avoid it, you cannot avoid it. And it is a
song that does it is a pure chorus song like
there isn't verse, right, it's just cook cook cook, cook
cook cook. The whole thing is hook and you just
want it to never end. You want it to never end.
It is like it's you know what it is like
to me, It's like Corey Hart and sunglasses at night.
Speaker 3: It is something where you hear it and.
Speaker 1: You're automatically like, I need to turn it up right now.
And so that awesome intro is actually two pieces, right,
It's actually him playing one part and her playing the
other part. And if you listen, you can hear you
can hear the side to side on the stereo of
the two different pieces because and they're like, people have
so much trouble because they try to play this as
one instrument. It's two people playing interesting okay. And she
had done so much. I mean you talked about boy
George and his look. She was kind of the other
side of that coin. Right here she is with her
head nearly shaved, wearing a man's business suit. And the
song is not a happy song. The sweet dreams are
made of this. It's talking about this kind of desire
that you have for fame, and then you realize this
sucks because some people want to use you and some
people want to be used by you and just this.
If you listen to the lyrics, it's really about you know,
I've travel over the world and it's crap. But then
in hearing all of this, Dave Stewart's like, well, we
can't be completely a downer. Let's keep your head up,
keep moving on, hold your head up, keep moving on.
That's good And that's how that makes it. That's how
those lyrics make it out. That's great, man, that's great.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can't I can't fault you at all. That's
a great song in it. I had it written down
on my list as near missus. So yeah, I mean,
nineteen eighty three great year in music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, guys, we're going to have episodes that cover a
lot of these things coming up here in the next
few weeks. We hope you enjoy them. We hope you
enjoyed this little journey with us. If you think we
completely missed the boat on this, or if you think
we're just off a little bit, hit us up on Twitter,
hit us up on Facebook, and tell us what are
your top five songs of nineteen eighty three? Should we
talk about what we got coming up on the schedule. Yeah, sure,
let's talk a little bit about what's in store for
season four of the Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, so our schedule is always inflex Yeah, but I
think we've got.
Speaker 1: We've got Groundhog Day coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're gonna pair that up on Groundhog on
Groundhog Day. We haven't actually decided what we're going to
pay that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, surprised.
Speaker 2: So we're in talks to maybe do the Outsiders versus Rumblefish,
kind of a Francis Ford Coppola Tulsa thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We we started talking about this and I talked
to I mentioned something to my sister in law about
this a few weeks ago, and she's like, oh, yeah,
I taught Mickey Rock how to ride a motorcycle.
Speaker 3: I was like, shut the heck up.
Speaker 1: What She's like, Oh yeah, I was in text. I'm like, nah,
so have a I have a close dear relative that's
freaking' She've lived with Meg Tilly for a couple of weeks.
I mean, it's nuts. What are you talking about? It's incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and then we're gonna cover I think we're gonna
cover Long called Winter, Long Cold Winter by Cinderella. We're
gonna cover you eight one two by Van Halen. We're
hopefully gonna tackle Billy Joel and Lionel Richie.
Speaker 1: We've got two iconic computer movies from the eighties. We've
got war Games versus Tron. We hope to have a
special guest on that one. Yes, you know which one.
I'm really excited about.
Speaker 2: Soundtrack, soundtrack, movie movie. We're gonna do Rocky Horror Picture
Show and Grease.
Speaker 1: Can't wait in the fall. Yeah, I can't wait for that. Yeah. Guys.
Speaker 3: We've got all kinds of fun stuff.
Speaker 1: In store that will reveal to you as the episodes
go on. But please hit that subscribe button, hit that
follow button so that you don't miss an episode and
don't forget if you want to hear some of our
secret episodes. If you want to hear some of our
one Hit Wonder episodes, then go sign up on Patreon.
You can do it for as little as five bucks
a month and you're able to hear all of our
one hit Wonder songs.
Speaker 3: We've covered the knack we have, We've covered.
Speaker 2: We covered September by Earth Wind and Fire.
Speaker 3: We've covered You've.
Speaker 1: Got it All by the Jets.
Speaker 2: We've covered Relaxed by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Yeah, the
Simple Minds. Don't you forget about me? Yeah, we've covered
Video Killed the Radio Star. We have course covered I'll
See You in My Dreams by Giants.
Speaker 1: Yes, and all I want for Christmas is you.
Speaker 3: We took the wind out of my there so excited.
Speaker 2: We've got some great stuff on Patreon five bucks a month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you get all this extra stuff. It's really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you go up in levels from there, we
started sending out gifts.
Speaker 1: Man, I know. Hey, by the way, Yeah, check out
my thirty movie Yes, Jason is wearing the thirty something
Movie Podcast shirt. It is completely awesome those guys at
thirty something Movie Podcast. If you just heard our most
recent episode, we were talking with John about the Superman episode,
and then even before that, we were talking with John
and Dayton Johnson from the Docking Base seventy seven podcasts
about the Star Wars Trivia Star Wars Trivia.
Speaker 3: Yes, a heck of a show.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard that one yet, and you it
goes from easy to rather hard quickly. All Right. That
was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun,
and then of course this we also I hate not
to mention this, but we've got some episodes coming up
this year with some other podcasts. Our friends over at
the film By podcast had done a whole series on
nineteen eighty six. Now they're doing one on nineteen seventy six,
and when they showed us to the list, I was like,
holy cow, there are some amazing movies. So we'll be
joining them for some of those fun. That'll be fun. Guys.
Thank you so much for listening. Please tune in next time,
and as always, thank you for being awesome. We will
see you guys. Next time you Next time
Speaker 2: You a fish