Max Picks …songs from 1983

After this year, my fandom with The Replacements and REM began to accelerate because of the top 40. There is still some great top 40 coming but alternative music started to make more of an impression on me.

1983

U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday – Of all the U2 songs this one is probably on the top of my list right beside Angel of Harlem. The drum pattern sounds like they are marching off to battle. It’s raw and you can hear the conviction in what Bono is singing. The Edge’s guitar is crunchy and perfect. The drum beat was composed by Larry Mullen Jr. It was recorded in a staircase of their Dublin recording studio because producer Steve Lillywhite was trying to get a full sound with natural reverb.

“Bloody Sunday” was a term given to an incident, which took place on 30th January 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland where British Soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians who were peacefully protesting against Operation Demetrius. Thirteen were killed outright, while another man lost his life four months later due to injuries. It was reported that many of the victims who were fleeing the scene were shot at point-blank range.

The first person to have addressed these events musically was John Lennon who composed “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and released it on his third Solo album “Sometime In New York City”. His version of the song directly expresses his anger towards the massacre

David Bowie – Modern Love – This was my favorite song off of the Let’s Dance album released in 1983.

Stevie Ray Vaughan played guitar on this song. Bowie asked him to play on the Let’s Dance album after seeing him perform at a music festival.

David Bowie and Nile Rodgers wrote this song.  Modern Love peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, #2 in the UK, and #6 in New Zealand in 1983. The album was also produced by Bowie and Rodgers.

Nile Rodgers said that Bowie came into his apartment one day and showed him a photograph of Little Richard in a red suit getting into a bright red Cadillac, saying “Nile, darling, that’s what I want my album to sound like.”

How cool is that?

John Mellencamp – Pink Houses -I remember this song well but I also remember the MTV giveaway contest “Paint The Mutha Pink”. Oh yes, you could win a free house in Indiana where Mellencamp was from…a pink one of course! MTV got a good deal on the first house…20,000 dollars…there was a reason for that. It was across the street from a toxic dump. MTV then had to get another house and they finally did and gave it away. Susan Miles won the house along with a pink jeep and a garage full of Hawaiian Punch…not sure how that factored in.

According to a 1991 article in the Herald times online, it turned out that Susan Miles had only kept the house long enough to reap some tax advantages from owning a property. She never actually lived in the house. She went back to Bellevue, Washington after the contest was over.

Inspiration for this song came when Mellencamp was driving on Interstate 65 in Indianapolis. As described in the first verse, he saw a black man sitting in a lawn chair just watching the road. The image stuck with Mellencamp, who wasn’t sure if the man should be pitied because he was desolate, or admired. After all, he was happy.

MTV Contest

Big Country – Big Country – I love the drums in this song…they are so BIG…no pun intended. In America, this was their only song that hit big. Stuart Adamson was inspired to write “In A Big Country” after hearing what producer Steve Lillywhite was able to achieve on Big Country’s “Fields of Fire” single.

I thought this had bagpipes in it but it doesn’t. The guitarist, Stuart Adamson, used a technique called the “e-bow” to achieve the sound that resembles bagpipes. This technique involves using a handheld electronic device to vibrate the guitar strings, creating a sustained, bagpipe-like sound. For almost all of their music, Big Country was an all-guitar band.

Van Halen – Jump – This song was unusual for Van Halen because of the Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer. Roth didn’t want to use it because he was afraid people would look at it as selling out to get a record in the charts. ZZ Top was doing the same thing at the time.

Eddie wanted to use it and had written the riff in 1981. Songfacts said: 1984 was David Lee Roth’s last album with Van Halen before he left the band in 1985; the video for “Jump” inflamed the tensions that led to his departure. The video was produced by Robert Lombard, who wanted to show the personal side of the band on stage. Roth, however, wanted the performance intercut with footage of him in various hedonistic pursuits, so they shot him doing things like riding a motorcycle and getting arrested while wearing nothing but a towel. Lombard edited the video and used none of the extra Roth footage, taking it to Eddie and Alex for approval. Two days later, the band’s manager fired him for bypassing Roth; Lombard says he never received the award the video won from MTV.

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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.

46 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1983”

    2. Eden…I feel so rude because I haven’t been to your site…I’ve noticed that I don’t get any more posts in the reader. Has your site changed?

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  2. I like your selections here Max. I have no recollection of the MTV contest, that pretty hilarious, I kinda though it just a joke, but no it was a real house! I had forgotten about SRV playing on that song, my fav is China Girl. SRV guest appearances would be a great series of posts!

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    1. That contest was a lot of fun. I was hoping to find her today… that had to be a fun time. The alternative music starts in 84 at least for me.
      Randy…that would be an excellent post idea!

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      2. Randy I really appreciate it! I love learning new words…never in my life have I heard bailiwick! Ballpark yes…bailiwick no…I must remember that.
        I haven’t thought of that song in so long. Thats a good one…and a future post.

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      3. It’s a great word and out of common speech these days I do use it when I can. I think it’s of British origin and I might have picked it up in the 80’s from my old business partner who was a Cockney and had tons of great sayings like “I’m going to rip your arm off and beat you with the soggy end”. He was not a violent man but that’s a funny one.

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      4. I talk to a guy named Bruce in New Zealand…he gives me phrases that I never hear .
        Oh that is gold! I will have to add that to my vocabulary as well.

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  4. Good picks from a good musical year. ‘Modern Love’ easily my favorite song off ‘Let’s Dance’ too. ‘Pink Houses’ was really where Mellencamp began to come into his own & leave that Cougar persona behind, a really good song. Big Country, I used to assume they were bagpipes too til I researched the song to write about it. I got a Best Of of theirs last year which is 3 CDs! Pretty comprehensive (arguably too much so, but got it at good price) , shows that in the UK they were no One Hit Wonders, unlike here. But that still might be their shining achievement.

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      1. it is, though I think ‘New Year’s Day’ actually beats it from the same album, LOL. Both are excellent songs though and showed them really getting to be great, head and shoulders above the British ‘competition’ at the time. When I think of ’83, I first think of those huge albums – ‘Synchronicity’, ‘She’s So Unusual’, ‘Eliminator’, ‘Sports’ – all of which were good and each had some great tracks – and of course, ‘Thriller’ which owned the american charts most of the year, though to me shouldn’t have. There was a lot of good stuff being made and it was probably a return to the golden age of the late-’70s for the business with so many multi-platinum albums arriving and CDs starting to take off a little allowing for a new source of revenue on old albums.

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      2. I don’t know with me personally…that drum beat and Edge’s guitar wins it over for me…but as far as popular…I agree with you.
        Ron helps me when I talk to him with these…he mentioned Every Breath you Take…I said sorry Ron…that aint happening lol.
        I did think about ZZ Top and I will add them to my missed post. The one I hated leaving off was Salt In My Tears…for me it was great.
        It was a great year…but from here on out…I don’t know…there are some great exceptions…like Springsteen, Prince, Petty, Mellencamp, and a few others…but this is where alt saved me

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  5. “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” is undeniably powerful, especially with the video. 1983 also introduced us to Cyndi Lauper. While she may have sounded like a party girl with “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, the same album had “Time After Time” to show her range. And no one could escape the catchy “Karma Chameleon” from Boy George. Huey Lewis and the News became inescapably the voice of the Yuppie with the album “Sports”. Speaking of Stevie Ray Vaughn, he released his debut “Texas Flood” in 1983.

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    1. I liked Lauper a lot…and I’m going to try to work her in somewhere in the 80s. Money Changes Everything was the song she had that stuck with me at first. She still is going strong and singing well.
      The U2 song is very powerful…SRV should get in somewhere also.

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  7. All good picks. In A Big Country is a great track. That drummer guy Mark with that last name that I can’t pronounce is a machine. Bowie, I really like that Let’s Dance album. Even being a Canuck I recall those MTV contests as one of the guys in HighSchool had a huge dish and we would at least once a week go to his place and watch MTV in his basement..
    One more thing…
    Might as well…….!

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    1. You might as well!
      Yea that Big Country song really hit me…and yea Bowie. I wish I would have seen him. I guess U2 was the only band on the list that I saw.

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  9. Roth, however, wanted the performance intercut with footage of him in various hedonistic pursuits. Great sentence. I wonder if this is about where I get off the bus for mainstream rock too, although I like some grunge stuff and U2 kept sounding fine.

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    1. This was my line…probably. There were exceptions like you said…but this is where I started to pull away. Springsteen, Prince, Petty, and Mellencamp…and some others but this is the time alternative music started to excite me.

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      1. Petty kept sounding good his whole career, really. I enjoy Tunnel of Love a lot, but I think The Rising sounds a bit too clean. Maybe my cutoff is after this when I think about it, but it’s when I mostly gravitate off the mainstream for rock and roll.

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  11. Some good choices, Max. My faves here are U2 and Big Country. The latter’s bagpipe guitar sound defined them and is evocative of the Scottish landscape. We played them a lot in our motorhome when exploring the Highlands a few months ago!

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    1. Thank you! I always liked that song as well. When I first heard it…it exploded out of the radio with those drums. That U2 song is very powerful.

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  12. These are all solid picks, IMHO. While I’m generally not very fond of synth pop, I even dig Van Halen’s “Jump”. I always thought the combination of the synth and the metal works pretty well in this case. Plus, it’s definitely a catchy song!

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      1. If I could only pick one, I’d go with John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses”.

        That said, U2 would be a close second. Have you ever heard the live version of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” from “Under a Blood Red Sky”? That’s my favorite version of the song.

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      2. I do love that song!
        Yes I’ve heard that version at Red Rocks in Colorado….it’s fantastic! I wanted this video because of the power of it.
        Next post I’m going to dissapoint some of people because The Replacements and REM will be moving in to stay for the rest of the 80s.

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      4. I just couldn’t get into Safety Dance or electronic pop music…and alternative gave me a lifeline and it’s time for me to pay them back.

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  13. Good crop of tunes, Max, with lots of good background info. How childish is that to keep Roths footage out of it. He has more sex appeal in his little finger than Sammy ever thought of having. The video as-is is pretty boring.

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