gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Musical Age of Majority

There's a cute little meme floating around the internet right now, which I picked up via MC at Culture Kills. The gist of it: wax nostaligic about the songs you heard at your coming of age.

Here are the rules:

1. Go to http://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 song affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

MC quite wisely decided to skip #5, the chain letter part of the meme. I will too. I've also followed his lead by linking to the YouTube videos - you can watch them right in the SnapShots preview that pops up, or click on them for full size. Prepare for a time warp! The game doesn't specifically say to pick five tunes, but that trend seems to have emerged, and it works for me. Here we go...

1987

Livin' On a Prayer - Bon Jovi

OK, I never liked Bon Jovi, but there was something interesting going on around this time in the merger of metal and pop bands. Before the mid-80s, metal was the realm of those hair guys that wore all denim, smoked and took shop. But it started seeping into radio play, and turned into something different. For me, this started with Def Leppard, went through Bon Jovi and ended with Guns 'n Roses (in 1988 my friend George predicted that Sweet Child of Mine would be the Nelson Mandela of music, forging a new peace between the bangers and the preppies. Nice try.) My only memory of Livin' on a Prayer revolves around a French exchange with students from the Lac-Saint-Jean area of Quebec; the only English they really wanted to learn from us was Bon Jovi lyric translations.

With Or Without You - U2

Now here's a song I can still defend. Sure, it's overly emotional and overplayed, but there's something about the way it builds from almost nothing to a cathartic crescendo that really works. I was a pretty big U2 fan in high school, and my graduating class arranged a road trip to see their Joshua Tree tour date at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium. Afterward, the band I played in spontaneously attempted a cover of this song, which began with me playing that simple bass line on the guitar and went from there. Nobody was around to witness it - probably just as well - but it was a little moment of high school magic. But man, did I want an EBow.

Mony Mony "Live" - Billy Idol

This song defines the high school dance for me, which isn't such a terrible thing now that the scars have had 20 years to heal. When you look at the other stars of 1987 - The Bangles, Huey Lewis, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Tiffany - Billy Idol was by far the coolest of the lot. Mony Mony isn't his best (remember Rebel Yell, or that post-apocalyptic Dancing With Myself video?) and of course it's a cover of the 1968 tune by Tommy James & The Shondells; heck, even Billy had a studio version pre-1987 (the video linked in the title is a crappy 1981 TV lip synch). But MTV picked this version up and ran with it. And so did our high school. When the song came on at dances, everyone would chant something very obscene in between lines - did anyone else do this? My friend Chris pointed out, with some merit, that this simply covered up the lamest keyboard bit in history. Mr. Carruthers, our principal, pointed out that he didn't have to put up with obscenities and would shut us down if we played the tune. As our school's social convenor, I was supposed to enforce this ban. Instead, I had the piece of note paper with his edict printed in the yearbook: "The song Mona Mona is not to be played." And we never played Mona Mona.

Heaven Is a Place On Earth - Belinda Carlisle

I have a terrible secret to admit. I have always been in love with Belinda Carlisle. Yes, she of the Go-Gos, and the happy lame-o song listed above. This is something of which I have never spoken before, especially back in 1987, when I was listening to The Police and The Clash and Dead Kennedys. But there was something about the Go-Gos; We Got The Beat had a sort of punky girl power to it that was way ahead of its time. And before them, Carlise was in fact the drummer for a punk band. (My crush began with Our Lips are Sealed, a tune recently remade by the Duff sisters.) Still, I doubt Belinda's punk credentials would have convinced my high school friends. What put it over the top is that she was - and still is - fantastically, classically gorgeous. At least I think so. In fact, more than one person has commented that I married a woman who looks just a little like Ms. Carlisle. Coincidence?

Bad - Michael Jackson

Wow, there really was a time when MJ was the King of Pop, not the Wacko Jacko of the tabloids. Though I was blown away by the video for Thriller, I was always loudly snooty about disliking Michael Jackson. My sister had the LP, and I teased her about it - that white suit and fuzzy glow on the album cover was just too... well, as I would have said in high school, gay. I think it's probably OK to drop that stance now, and put the best selling album of all time back in the "very influential" pile without worrying whether people will think I'm gay (I did marry Belinda Carlisle, after all...) I'm sure I scoffed at the Jackson Five too, but you can't keep them out of the canon either. As for Bad, well, who doesn't like a good gang dance fight? Then again, knowing what we now know, you have to raise an eyebrow at the first line, "Your butt is mine...."

Other top hits of 1987:
Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now - Starship
Died In Your Arms - Cutting Crew
I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
La Bamba - Los Lobos
I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany
The Time Of My Life - Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
Faith - George Michael

So, what songs defined high school for you?