Category Archives: Songs from 1982

Album: single 1982, Trio and Error 1983

Justification: OK, technically this song is called (deep breath) ‘Da Da Da I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me Aha Aha Aha’. Or, more accurately since the band were German, ‘Da da da, ich lieb’ dich nicht du liebst mich nicht aha aha aha’. But let’s just go with ‘Da Da Da’, shall we?

"You need a cover now? Really? Um, got a pen and a bill of some sort?"

Trio were basically rockin’ mad art pranks, brilliantly describing their music as “Neue Deutsche Fröhlichkeit” (“new German cheerfulness”, which sounds like the potential Mountain Goats song title) and having exactly one hit with this song. Their whole thing was basically trying to see how few elements they could get away with and still have a song: minimal drums, Casio percussion, simple guitar, monotone vocals.

They never had another hit outside of Germany. Even so, I do have their ‘Boom Boom’ single, the cover of which is a truly heroic rack.

Elastica did an unexpectedly rad version of this on their second and final album, ‘The Menace’. It was a pretty sweet way to indicate that they no longer gave a shit.

Oh, and of course the song was given extra dignity when used for a Snakata commercial. That’s because existential hopelessness in the face of the myth of romantic love is perfectly aligned with the commercial aspirations of purveyors of biscuits that taste like peppery cardboard.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Do Re Mi were introducing Deborah Conway to the world via the still-amazing ‘Man Overboard’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

430. Shonen Knife: Riding on the Rocket (20 Feb)

431. The Chills: I Love My Leather Jacket (21 Feb)

432. The Bluetones: Slight Return (22 Feb)

433. Ben Lee: Cigarettes Will Kill You (24 Feb)

434. Babylon Zoo: Spaceman (27 Feb)

Album: Shabooh Shoobah, 1982

Justification: Despite – or perhaps because of – having been born in Australia and spending my entire life here, I probably think of myself as a secret agent more often than I think of myself as an Australian. The whole idea of patriotism seems entirely arbitrary to me, unless you’ve made an concerted effort to live in a nation. As far as I’m concerned the only people with any right to wave flags about how they’re proud to be an Aussie are those who, say, risked a treacherous ocean voyage with only the clothes on their back to make a better life for their families, not the red faced morons bellowing about stopping the boats, presumably because they’ll take all their jobs and marina berths.

Anyway, all that being said, there are certain songs that are so ingrained in being an Australian of A Certain Age that fire up a response from deep in the reptile brain rather than because they’re necessarily good. I have a little tingly moment every time I hear ‘Wide Open Road’, for example, or ‘Cattle and Cane’, or ‘Great Southern Land’, but those could be explained away on the grounds that I really like the Triffids and the Go Betweens and Icehouse. It’s more noticable in the songs by artists that I’m otherwise more-or-less indifferent about that still do something to me, like Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ or the Cruel Sea‘s ‘This is Not the Way Home’ or this, an early INXS single that’s been covered to death by dozens of bands and has yet to lose its lustre. When Grinpoon fail to fuck your song up, you know you’ve written a classic.

It’s unique among the examples cited above in that it’s not about the Australian landscape (and, specifically, driving through it – dear god, there’s a lot of ground to cover between our cities). In keeping with most INXS songs the lyrics are vague and not terribly good, but there’s something in that that wistful suspended fourth harmony in the hook “don’t change for you/don’t change a thing/for me” that’s both hopeful and impossibly sad. And just look at the video: don’t they all look so young and enthusiastic, compared with the arty/seductive video personas they’d spend the next 15 years developing? Well, aside from Andrew Farriss who’s apparently trying to spearhead “mid-north property owner checking the back paddocks” as a fashion statement.

They had their moments, INXS, but they’d never capture my heart like this again.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Weekend, so have a dance through the 1982 archives. C’mon, you know you wanna.

Album: single, 1982; Monte Video, 1983

Justification: First, it’s a truly, truly awful song and I delighted in such things in the early 80s. Oh, who am I kidding? I STILL love awful music, which would explain my large and glorious collection of “outsider” records like Hi, God! and The Kids of Widney High, not to mention my brief though terrifying obsession with Riskay’s ‘Smell Yo Dick’.

Second, I remember how delighted I was when I found the 7″ of this in a thrift store in Goolwa. I’m pretty sure it was when the Undecided played a gig in Victor Harbor as I recall being in said store with my bandmates Nick and Jeremy, which would place it around 1995-96ish. I also got ‘Antmusic’ by Adam and the Ants, if I’m not mistaken. Truly, it was a treasure trove.

Thirdly, and most bizarrely: this wasn’t a one-hit wonder from the UK, as I’d long assumed – this was a one-hit wonder from New Zealand, which is somehow both sadder and more awesome all at once.

Fourthly, I can’t recommend the Wikipedia entry for the song highly enough. The author explains, in magnificent detail, exactly what the song is about (a cheekily new-wave retelling of ‘Lola’, apparently). I realise you’re busy people, so I’ll allow him/her to summarise the meaning of the title:

The definitions as provided by the video (which may be approximate to the authors original meanings) seem to be

Shoop Shoop—singing and dancing at a distance
Diddy Wop—drinking together
Cumma Cumma—dancing together, with some touching…
Wang Dang—close dancing

So there you have it. Thank you, anonymous hero of Wikipedia. Thank you so much.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Devo were starting to outlive their welcome with the mainstream via ‘Beautiful World’.

Album: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84), 1982

Justification: What were the damn numbers about, Simple Minds? The album came out in 1982 and you had another disc out by 1984, so it was hardly representing everything you did in a four year span. That said, it was the 80s when bands were supposed to appear profound – and that’s what Simple Minds did, at least at this point. Jim Kerr was still yelping instead of crooning, the songs were poppy and upbeat (like this, their biggest UK single to date) and the cod-U2 stadium-filling profundity was yet to come, via the massive ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’, which wasn’t written by the band but was just a job they were hired to do. That fact, by the way, kinda ruins the song for me.

Simple Minds never really meant that much to me as a band, although I always loved this song. For most of the early 80s they were neck and neck with Echo & the Bunnymen at this point and Ian McCulloch made it very clear in interviews that you were on one side or the other. By 1988, of course, those sides were “still existing” and “not existing”, which made things a lot easier.

Anyway: this is another song that should be played in more clubs, and I found Kerr to be a lovely interview last year when Simple Minds were doing a handful of very, very limited shows for idiotic amounts of money – and given the band’s sophisticated pop, hearing him speak in a thick Scots burr was both unexpected and entertaining.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: It was a weekend, so rediscover some Icehouse, Joe Jackson, Yazoo and Cure in the 1982 archives.

Album: Primative Man, 1982

Justification: I’ve previous talked about how freakin’ much I adore the first Icehouse album, and I’m hugely looking forward to seeing them do said album live at Homebake later this year. And if ‘Sister’ had a video, I’d probably have put this in here instead, but there doesn’t appear to be one.

Still, that album and this one were huge favourites of mine when I was in high school but, unfortunately, I had to keep quiet about it because I’d discovered Icehouse just as they got huge with Man of Colours, which I loathed with a passion. Even then I knew that I could never knowingly support a man with so huge a mullet, and so Icehouse and I parted ways. Still, I was just thinking about their stellar run of singles – there’s a compilation coming out next month that’s likely to kick my arse with awesome.

Oh, and ‘Great Southern Land’? It’s easy to forget how good it is since its become one of those too-familiar tunes that have been co-opted by dickheads and advertising campaigns, but like ‘Wide Open Road’ this song captures something of the space of Australia, though with the Triffids I picture red dust and scrub whereas this is mountains and endless coastlines. There aren’t many songs about Australia that make me anything by embarrassed, but this one actually sounds a bit like a place I know.

THIS TIME IN 2010: The Chills made their greatest statement to the world with ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’.

Album: Upstairs At Eric’s, 1982

Justification: Vince Clarke was the co-founder and main songwriter for Depeche Mode, responsible for all of their first three singles (‘Dreaming of Me’, ‘New Life’ and the mighty ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’) and most of their first album Speak and Spell. However, with stardom beckoning in the UK, the US and Europe, Clarke decided to leave in 1981 for reasons that never been entirely clear and ranging from “didn’t like the music” to “fighting with the others on tour” and the bizarre “it was too successful”. So teamed up with his buddy Alison Moyet with a bunch of songs that he’d written with the ‘Mode in mind (including ‘Only You’, which they turned down) and, um, formed another immediately successful band called Yazoo. They were also very shortlived, splitting after two albums in 1983 with Moyet going on to a successful solo career and Clarke recording as The Assembly before forming Erasure with Andy Bell, but their effect on music was profound.

This was their second single and one of their biggest hits (‘Only You’, ‘Situation’ and ‘Nobody’s Diary’ are the other songs of theirs that you know), and had a massive influence on the direction of pop music, more or less by accident: Clarke’s analogue synths were obviously an important element to 80s electronica, but Moyet’s powerful, bluesy voice was the duo’s secret weapon – never mind obvious descendants like La Roux or Republica, I’d argue that you can draw a r’n'b-meets-electro line straight through to the likes of Rihanna and Lady Gaga. James Murphy has also cited them as a starting point for what he wanted to achieve with LCD Soundsystem.

Not only was this a huge hit at the time, it also re-entered the UK charts in the wake of the duo’s 2008 reunion.

Incidentally, I’d been long confused by the references to Yaz in American sitcoms until I discovered that they were not, in fact, referring to the lead singer of the Plastic Population, responsible for the hi-NRG hit ‘The Only Way Is Up’, but to Yazoo: they couldn’t use the name in the US as it was a trademark of a blues label.

THIS TIME IN 2010: Weekend, so pop through the 1982 archives.

Album: Night and Day, 1982

Justification: This came on in the taxi last night and I remembered when it seemed like the world was about to belong to snidely literate English songwriters like Joe Jackson, Graham Parker and Elvis Costello. This was the first single of Jackson’s most successful album, Night and Day, and this brilliantly-observed skewering of gender roles lay the foundation for his much bigger hit, ‘Steppin’ Out’. But this manages to walk a rather more difficult line, raising questions of identity and behaviour within a neat four minute pop song. It also contains the line “don’t call me a faggot, not unless you are a friend” which would probably get it banned from radio in Canada these days, if ‘Money for Nothing’’s recent experience is any guide.

Fun fact: Jackson’s regular bassist Graham Maby would later join They Might Be Giants.

THIS TIME IN 2010: The Sugarcubes made their triumphant debut with ‘Birthday’.

Album: Songs of the Free, 1982

Justification: Sometimes we’re forced to choose songs that have any sort of video rather than what we’d necessarily like to have here at SYSRTBIIA – which is my little way of saying “Yeah, ‘Damaged Goods’ and ‘Anthrax’ are fucking amazing, don’t you think?” But this is still a great song, and shows where Franz Ferdinand got their chops. Also, the reunited Go4 were fucking amazing live. Dear god, what a show. Content’s a really strong album too.

This listing, by the way, was hurridly put in to cover for the first ever double-up in this list. Which was, in the spirit of making my fuck-ups known, Lambchop’s ‘Up With People’. We’re none of us perfect, really.

THIS TIME IN 2010: Glorious Sydney indiepop with The Hummingbirds and ‘Blush’.

Album: The Hurting, 1982

tears for fears – Mad world

Justification: Fuck you, Gary Jules. Yeah yeah yeah, you reignited interest in Tears for Fears via your haunting cover of ‘Mad World’ and thus celebrated the art-rock genius of one of the UK’s most weirdly serious hitmakers and blahdee blah blah blah. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve you’re responsible for:

1. 90% of people thinking your version is the original (what I like to call the Jeff Buckley Didn’t Fucking Write ‘Hallelujah’ And Don’t Get Me Started On Soft Cell effect), and

2. the fact that when I saw TfF play with Spandau Ballet on the Pre-Retirement Cashtravaganza tour earlier this year they just bunged a pre-recorded choral version of the song on the PA as Curt Smith came on stage and pretended like that was a legitimate way to present the song. I wanted to hear this live, dammit.

Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, the dance Roland Orzabel does in this clip was parodied in The Cure’s ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ video. As it happened, I discovered both bands via those two songs, which were next to each other on The Breakers 83, a compilation which my sister Sarah owned. It also had ‘It’s Raining Men’ and ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. What an album.

Album: Happy Families, 1982

Justification: “You keep me running round and round, and that’s all right with me.” Remember that? Yes? This is that song.

Yeah, it’s another one of those freakishly big Australian hits that didn’t really translate elsewhere – but it was also successful enough in the UK for the Middlesex-based synth duo to get onto Top of the Pops in 1983 (where they had to change the line “I’m up the bloody tree” lest it offend viewers and, presumably, cause a national uprising). Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe are reportedly working together again, as it happens, having apparently sensed that public demand for a Blancmange reunion is at a fever pitch. Or maybe because they have nothing much better to do. Who can tell?

Also, I’m pretty sure this was on a radio station in one of the Grand Theft Auto games. Just listening to it gives me an unquenchable desire to drive around a city, start a mission, almost complete it before dying and then having to start from the fucking beginning of the mission again. It’s enough to drive you up the bloody tree.