Max Picks …songs from 1980

1980

We are entering the new decade. This is the year I  became a teenager and I was looking forward to the 1980s. It started off terrible in December of 1980. John Lennon was murdered for no reason. As the decade went on my love for the top 40 practically vanished in around 84-85. This is the decade that I found alternative music like The Replacements and R.E.M. This is the decade of big hair, one glove, parachute pants, synths, and yes some good music came out of it.

John Lennon – (Just Like) Starting Over. Great song but every time I hear it…it’s December 1980 again and I’m watching news stories about Lennon’s death. Double Fantasy was a strong comeback album for John…a little more Yoko than I would have liked but a good album all the same. John would have been 83 if he would have lived. 

When it was released Ringo had said John Lennon sounds like Elvis at the beginning of this song…then he said no…he doesn’t sound like Elvis…he IS Elvis. John Lennon himself said: “All through the taping of ‘Starting Over,’ I was calling what I was doing ‘Elvis Orbison.’ It’s like Dylan doing Nashville Skyline, except I don’t have any Nashville, being from Liverpool. So I go back to the records I know – Elvis and Roy Orbison and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis.”

ACDC – Back In Black -The album Back In Black was very popular. I think it was a requirement for every teenage boy to own a copy or two all over the world.

The rock band I was in my Sophomore year in high school played this song in our first gig in the school theater. We had the only singer around who could actually sing it. The riff to the song is one of the more memorable ones in rock.

This was the first AC/DC single and album featuring new lead singer Brian Johnson. He replaced Bon Scott, who died on February 19, 1980, after a drinking binge. Scott’s father made it clear to the band that they should find a new singer and keep going.

Bruce Springsteen released The River this year. The title track of the album is one of the most depressing but best songs ever…the reason is because it’s so true.

Bruce saves the best for last though. He is talking about the dreams we have when we are younger about what we are going to do in life until life wakes us up with a bang…at least that is what I interrupt.

Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse

Queen – Another One Bites The Dust – Supposedly Steve McQueen is Steve in the opening lyrics. Steve died the year this was released on November 7, 1980. You couldn’t go anywhere in 1980 without hearing someone sing, whistle, or hum this song. I remember the high school band did a version of it. Queen released The Game in 1980 and it was huge here.

Brian May: “Freddie sung until his throat bled on Another One Bites The Dust. He was so into it. He wanted to make that song something special.”

Motorhead – Ace Of Spades. I’m not a huge Motorhead fan and it’s a bit harder music than I usually listen to… but I do like this song. I also like any interview of Lemmy I’ve ever listened to. After playing this for years, Lemmy admitted he was sick of the song, but said he kept it in the setlist because, “If I went to a Little Richard concert, I’d expect to hear Long Tall Sally.”

 

 

 

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

35 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1980”

  2. It’s like Dylan doing Nashville Skyline, except I don’t have any Nashville, being from Liverpool. So I go back to the records I know – Elvis and Roy Orbison and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. Ironically the records and artist John talks about going back to recorded most of their biggest hits in Nashville.

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  4. Very representative of 1980. My BF had Double Fantasy, and played it constantly. I was at his house when the breaking news came on about him being shot. One of those moments I’ll always remember. It seemed to me that Queen was working hard at keeping disco alive. I was never a fan of that song, but it was truly everywhere. I didn’t hear AC/DC until 1981, I don’t think. I don’t remember The River being that old. Wow.

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    1. I’ll never forget 1980…it’s odd because that night I was playing albums…I remember playing albums…why that night for? I didn’t hear about it until the next morning. I guess I kept the memory of that time in general…I was 13 and crushed.
      Not my favorite song of Queen…but I did like it at the time.

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  6. Ah! Takes me right back to the small staff room at Bank of Scotland, Jordanhill , Glasgow branch. We’d all debate the music of the day – especially with the lad who was into Dire Straits!
    A great cross section there, Max. Everyone a winner! ( No wait – that was Hot Chocolate. from a couple of years earlier.) 😉

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    1. Oh I love that song also! I had to take it off to make room for The Clash I believe.
      The early eighties I really liked…but we will reach a point where alternative bands will pop up…1980 was really the continuing of the 70s.

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  7. “Starting Over” has a timeless sound. “Back in Black” brings bad memories of coming home from work to a 13 year old playing it at an ear-splitting volume. He’d put headphones in when I came in. “Another One Bites the Dust” was the cadence I learned in CPR class. (Other teachers used “Stayin’ Alive” but if I were receiving CPR, I would love to wake up to someone singing “Another One Bites the Dust”.) “The River” reminds us that Springsteen was called the next Bob Dylan when his debut album came out, and here he earns that title.

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    1. That 13 year old is my age now…I always considered The River one of his best songs. Starting Over I love…but unfortunately it takes me back to when he was killed but I have started to enjoy it lately.

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  9. a fine look back! It was a good year for music. Back at the end of 1980, if you’d asked me something from ‘Back in Black” would have been on my top 5 – probably ‘You Shook Me all Night Long’ or ‘Rock n Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution’… now, well, let’s say it’s something I can look back on and remember I did like somehow one time. I love ‘starting Over’ too, even without the terrible irony of it becoming a hit right when he was killed, it would be a good song. I’d never noticed before but he does sound a wee bit like Elvis on it. A lot of good songs on ‘The river’, now your pick, the title, might be my fave off it , I like ‘Fade Away’ a lot too. For me, it was a year I started to get more into new wave-y sounds and I’d be having ‘Games without Frontiers’ by P. Gabriel, ‘Same Old Scene’ fromRoxy Music and something off of Blondie’s ‘Eat to the Beat’ (likely ‘Union City Blue’ but ‘Atomic’ gives it a run for its money) on my own list… or ‘Call Me’ by them for that matter. And I’d probably drop in ‘The Raven’ by the Stranglers, but with that and the Blondie there could be debates over what year they were from, due to different release dates in different countries or coming out late in ’79 but being ‘hits’ in ’80. But that’s the great thing about lists like this – it brings back lots of great memories, some entirely personal and some more universal.

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    1. I was going to include The Tide Is High…I loved that song when it was released. The Motorhead song…I wanted to add it because yes I like it and to give a little more variety in the picks. Someone else said it…this is one of the most varied I’ve had. A little bit of everything..but I did have more new wave on the last with Cars….oh shit…speaking of THE Cars…I missed their debut songs! Dam it! Oh well..you can’t get everything.

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  12. All good tunes. Songs are like bookmarks in time and take you right back. I don’t remember associating this Lennon song with his death, but I can see where you would as you’re such a big fan. What a dirty rotten injustice to have some punk take John’s life. Especially with John being such a peacenik. Pure evil it was.

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  13. Great song picks! And Ringo is right (not that he needed to hear it from me!), John’s line, “It’s been too long since we took the time”, has an Elvis vibe, which never occurred to me!

    Even if they were a bit repetitive, AC/DC just had great songs and riffs. This is one of them. Another one I still find brilliant even though it’s been overexposed is “Highway to Hell” – all you need to hear is the three notes and you know what song it is!

    I’ve always loved “The River”. I think it also was the first Springsteen song I ever heard on the radio back in Germany.

    That Queen track is one of their classics.

    I’ve never been much into Motörhead and didn’t quite get the fuzz about “Ace Of Spades” at the time. I know Lemmy and the band are beloved among rock fans. I will add my music taste has broadened since, and I might feel different about the group nowadays, if I took the time to explore their music.

    But to creatively borrow from Meat Loaf: Now don’t be sad, ’cause four out of five ain’t bad!

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    1. Listen to a Lemmy interview…you will appreciate him…HUGE Beatles fan… he saw them in the Cavern…he really talks high about them. I’ll have it at the bottom. It’s short

      I hope this one had some variety to it anyway Christian…I try my best for variety. The River is just beautiful but depressing at the same time.
      Ringo was exactly right on this one. Here is the Lemmy one…only 2-3 minutes.

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  14. Well, well, well ..look what showed up here in 1980..Lemmy! Awesome. Two big discoveries for me that year. AC/DC B.I.B and Queen’s The Game. Both of which are my favourites to this day.. The Game is still my favourite Queen record….

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    1. The Game is my favorite Queen album also dude… I got that album right away. I knew about AC/DC from a cousin of mine who had the Highway To Hell album the year before…but this one was different…not better or worse…just different because of Johnson.

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  15. john lennon obv topped my charts and his death dominated that Xmas in a tragically sad way for me. Queen’s was a massive goodie, and Motorhead’s a rock classic. I’m also not always a huge fan of the band’s records, but rate Lemmy. Overkill is nearly as good as Ace Of Spades, and Silver Machine a massive Lemmy hawkwind track. AC/DC – for me it’s Bon Scott and Touch Too Much or Whole Lotta Rosie. Springsteen that year, Hungry Heart was my top tune of Bruce.

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