Max Picks …songs from 1981

1981

The Who – You Better You Bet..I always thought of this song as the sister song to Who Are You. You Better You Bet was on the album Face Dances. This was the first album without Keith Moon and with Kenney Jones on drums.

Pete Townshend has said he wrote it “over several weeks of clubbing and partying” while the still-married guitarist was dating a younger woman. He said: “I wanted it to be a great song because the girl I wrote it for is one of the best people on the planet.”

Rolling Stones – Start Me Up…I was over at my friend Kenny’s house and I heard this song. Kenny loved animals and had a tarantula, piranha, and other sorts of fun animals. I think it was his radio alarm that went off but I heard this song and knew exactly who it was and I was hooked. This was before it was worn completely out. The opening riff is straight out of the 5-string open G tuning for all of you guitarists. That tuning helped Keith come up with all of those great riffs.

All the news at the time was on their tour. They were called old and over the hill…funny now thinking back…they were only in their late 30s and early 40s. Nowadays that is a young band. I went out and bought the album and loved it. The next year I bought the live (from that tour) Time is On My Side and Going To A Go-Go singles. I then broke down and bought the Still Life live album they came from. This video is amusing…it’s a video a high school band would make with one take but it worked for them. Charlie’s expressions are worth watching alone.

Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes – More than any other song at that time…this one seemed so different and I knew music was changing in the 80s. I still liked it and I bought the single. Just like with Bonnie Tyler and It’s A Heartache…my first thought when hearing this was Rod Stewart. I really like Carne’s raspy voice more than the pop singers at the time…and now. Now I’d love to hear a duet with Kim Carnes and Bonnie Tyler.

“Bette Davis Eyes” was originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon on her 1975 album New Arrangement. DeShannon wrote the song with the songwriter Donna Weiss. According to DeShannon, she got the idea after watching the 1942 Bette Davis movie Now Voyager. It was Donna Weiss who submitted the demo to Carnes, who along with her band and producer Val Garay, came up with the hit arrangement for the song.

Rick James – Super Freak..Me being a bass player…this song is impossible to resist. The movie Little Miss Sunshine used this song to great effect. When James exclaims, “Blow, Danny!,” he’s talking to his sax player Daniel LeMelle just before his solo.

The song featured backup vocals by The Temptations.  You will hear James point it out in the song when he says: “Tempations sing.” Temptation member Melvin Franklin was Rick James’ uncle.

One story bout Rick James… He dodged the Vietnam War draft by heading across the Canadian border from his hometown of Buffalo. But as soon as he got into Toronto, three drunk guys tried to beat him up for going AWOL. Some other guys came over to help Rick out… Two of those guys were Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, then playing backup for Ronnie Hawkins…later The Band. He also became friendly with Joni Mitchell and she introduced him to Neil Young…Rick and Neil would soon form a band called the Mynah Birds.

Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime… David Byrne at his visual performance best with this video. According to David Byrne’s own words, this song is about how we, as people, tend to operate half-awake or on autopilot. Or perhaps a better way of explaining that statement is that we do not actually know why we engage in certain actions that come to define our lives.

The members of Talking Heads…David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison – all contributed to the writing of this song along with the track’s producer, Brian Eno. And “Once in a Lifetime” itself originated from jam sessions. With this album the band wanted a more democratic process instead of Byrne writing all of the songs.

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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.

44 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1981”

  3. Start Me Up/ Tattoo You was the first Stones record I bought back in ’81. As you know Face Dances is one of my favourite Who albums (my discovery point) and You Better You Bet IS still a great track.
    Great picks you Superfreak!

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    1. We are similiar….I bought the Start Me Up single and Tattoo You and Face Dances was the first…well real time Who album I bought but I already had the album you got not long ago…Hooligans

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  4. Great picks, Max. Shockingly, I love open G guitar tuning (currently, fooling around with it myself!) and “Start Me Up” is my favorite of the bunch! And, yes, you better bet your life I also dig that Who song – in fact, I love it!

    Even tough it has an undeniable ’80s sound production, I still enjoy Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” – her slightly raspy vocals and that keyboard sound do it for me!

    Talking Heads have had a good deal of neat songs. This is one of them.

    Last but not least, that Rick James song is catchy and simply super freaky! 🙂

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    1. I do like Bette Davis Eyes…but giving up The Waiting pained me Christian….really bad…but it was really important. I do love this record…I bought the single when it came out.
      I had to include Mr James…lol…I love that bass line.

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  5. I enjoyed this song collection but I like the little tidbits you provided. I did wonder how James and Young team up to form the Mynah Birds. That Helm, Hudson and James story is quite incredible. Also didn’t know that it was Weiss that introduced the song to Kim Carnes.

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    1. Neil Young and Rick James…that just doesn’t compute Randy! They sounded great together though.
      I dropped The Waiting by Tom Petty to get the Kim Carnes song in…that hurt….but it was a milestone I believe…to me anyway…of what was coming.

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  7. Watts and Wyman are almost rolling their eyes in the video. I can almost hear them saying, “those three look ridiculous, but hey – we’re making tons of money so who am I to complain?”

    “Bette Davis Eyes” was inescapable that year. You heard it everywhere.

    I have to bring up the Neville Brothers, who released “Fiyo on the Bayou” in 1981 – mostly because I forgot to call out The Wild Tchoupitoulas when you covered 1976 – one of the greatest albums to dance to ever and the one that convinced the Nevilles to form a family band.

    1981 also brought the first release by the Stray Cats, introducing us to the great Brian Setzer.

    “Once in a Lifetime” – a song that acknowledge that you can think and dance at the same time. Even if it took “Stop Making Sense” for many to recognize their genius, this was one of the songs that out them there (though when a guy I worked with in Nicaragua started signing “Life During Wartime” on the way to work in the morning, it all took on a different meaning).

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    1. Dang it…the Stray Cats…I should have included them! Thank you because in the 80s….it was so nice to hear the Stray Cats…no electronic stuff just plain music. Leaving them off is a huge regret.
      I’ll check out the Neville Brothers album….

      I can see it taking on a new meaning there.

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  9. Another good debate-starter Max! ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ was the biggest-selling single of ’81… I find that surprising to this day. ‘You Better You Bet’ was one of my favorite Who songs, and one of the few I remember being played on “hit” radio , though I would have guessed it was from a few years earlier. Memory can play tricks on me.
    My recollection was that 1981 was a mediocre year for music. Not terrible, and had some really good songs, but overall – meh. Ones that stand out to me are the Moody Blues ‘Long Distance Voyager’ album, probably pick ‘The Voice’ off it; and Phil Collins ‘FAce Value’… at the time I was wild for ‘In the Air Tonight’ but I think radio may have spun it just once or twice too many times for me to really dig now – but ‘I missed again’ might still make my cut, or else ‘Abacab’ from his other project that year. I loved,loved loved J. Geils Freeze Frame album from late that year, but while I don’t dislike it, probably wouldn’t make my Best of now. I would look back to see what all was hot that year though – it was a big year for country crossovers so I might give a nod to Juice Newton (‘Angel of the Morning’) or Eddie Rabbitt (‘Drivin’ my life away’). Anyway, looking forward to your 1982 picks – to me, ’82 was a much better, and more diverse year.

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    1. I left my 2nd favorite Tom Petty song off…The Waiting for Bette Davis Eyes…which I bought the single to both….that pained me!
      Yes I should have included The Moody Blues in this…I’ll have them on my Missed list becasue I bought that album and it was important to me. Also the J. Geils Band was a terrible miss also.
      That Phil Collins song is my favorite by him…not counting Gensis. Yea I have a lot this year I had to miss.

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      1. well that’s the way it should be – not a good state of affairs if there were only 5 memorable or excellent songs in a whole year! Ya, looking at you, 2020-everything!

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  10. Great picks! When MTV started in August of 81, their video selections were limited, so they played this Talking Heads one a lot! Along with Video Killed the Radio Star. It’s always fun to experience the beginnings of cultural shifts like Rock and Roll, space travel, Saturday Night Live, and MTV! Sorry, I think I’m sounding like an old person!

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    1. No your not sounding like an old person!
      I do remember the same videos over and over. Eddy Grant Electric Avenue, Video Killed the Radio Star, Mexican Radio and more.
      I do remember the Bette Davis Eyes a lot of times as well.

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    1. Yes around the middle of the decade…it will get iffy on the popularity of them….but you are in a spot where you have to pick one….no pun intended lol…I’m hoping I can find some around the fringes…and alternative.

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  14. That list is dead on for 1981. I have a familiar reaction to each song. I liked the Who song. That Stones video makes me cringe, haha. I never did get the hype of the Bette Davis Eyes song, but it was huge. The Rick James song was fun. It’s great to see the Talking Heads song in there. That was a nice hint toward what was coming with ‘New Wave’.

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    1. Yea I took off The Waiting by Tom Petty for that one…and I hated to do that…but I’ll get him later on. I also missed The Moody Blues…Long Distance Voyager

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      2. Yea I wish I would have included both…I’m making a “missed” post and go through the years and see which ones I really missed….like Stand By Me

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