One of the best things to happen to our car in the last year was the addition of an XM Satellite Radio, and not just because it further negates the chances either of us will fall asleep at the wheel. It provides is a real time machine back to the 1980s by playing the actual playlists from that era, and not some cooked-up horseshit "80s night" heard regularly on normal FM radio. The "80s revival" wasn't for those of us who were in high school and actually bought copies of Freeze Frame, it was for kids who were born the year it came out (1981, for those playing at home). Which is why the 80s revival was really only a revival of about 35 songs, including "99 Luftballons," "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Borderline," most of which I hated the first time.
Nope, the 80s station on the satellite plays all those in-between songs that didn't quite make it across the decade, stuff like Planet P's "Why Me?", the Payola$ "Eyes of a Stranger" and "You Ain't Worth the Salt in My Tears" by Martin Briley. Those other obvious 80s songs ("Take on Me," "Down Under," etc.) have been ruined by repeated bludgeoning, but the lesser ones are the true emotional time machines that can still afford you the djà vu of 10th grade biology homework. "Turn Me Loose" by Loverboy came on today, and I swear I felt like I had a algebra quiz tomorrow.
That song in particular was part of a genre of 80s songs that made me feel as though "growing up" meant "fucking everyone I possible could" and it all seemed very scary. Mike Reno of Loverboy sings "I'm even on my knees, making love to whoever I please, I gotta do it my way or no way at all." Then Foreigner would play "Urgent" and Lou Gramm would sing "I'm not looking for a love that will last – I know what I need, and I need it fast" and I pretty much surmised that I'd better get used to a life full of hard, fast wanton sex, because that's what growing up was all about. When Jackson Browne sang "out on the boul-e-vard, they take it hard" and then Bruce Springsteen talked about having hungry hearts and heading out on the back of a motorcycle, I further imagined that growing up meant having hard, fast, wanton sex under neon lights in the parking lot with a host of emotionally inaccessible characters, but that was okay, because I would be hard, fast and loose and ready to do it my way or no way at all.
Meanwhile, I didn't even touch a girl in four years at my prep school, and it took me almost four more years after that to lose my virginity. More on that some other time.
Posted by at October 7, 2002 8:16 PM