50 to 50
51 to 51
52 to 52
53 to 53
55 to 55
Fiction
54 to 54
Day 54 -1985 (Bowling For Soup)
October 27, 2019•0 commentsIt’s back and it’s HANGRY! Yep, it’s 54 days until my 54th birthday, so today begins my 54 to 54 countdown. Music is a huge part of my world, always has been, likely always will be, and every year I think I don’t have enough favorite songs to fill another countdown, I prove me wrong. No surprise that this year’s countdown is ballad heavy, but I am starting it off with a happy pop song from the new millennium about the old millennium. Talk about feel good songs, this one basically speaks to my inner eighties self, the mustachioed boy with the perm who dreamed of being John Oates. I picture Tawny Kitaen as the Debbie they’re speaking about, and if you remember her the way I do, she was everything in 1985. Aside from all of this, the song has a catchy bop that I just really happen to enjoy. I have to say, I can identify that music just isn’t the same as it was in the eighties. The eighties were incomparable, and that’s just that, and this song points a magnifying glass on that fact. Every band listed in the song is considered classic and are still in the public zeitgeist: Springsteen? Madonna? Not going anywhere anytime soon. Hope you enjoy the earworm that is 1985!
Read More >
Day 53 - Unchained Melody (The Righteous Brothers)
October 28, 2019•0 commentsProbably one of the most romantic songs of all time, originally released by the Righteous Brothers in the year of my birth, Unchained Melody was reintroduced to the world in 1990 in one of the most romantic movies of our generation. When this song comes on, most people can close their eyes and see the ghost of Sam cradling Molly as she spins pottery in their NYC loft apartment. There is something hauntingly beautiful in the silence at the start of the song, and as it builds to a swell, you’re taken away, with godspeed, to a place of harmony and comfort.
Read More >
Day 52 - Just Another Day (Jon Secada)
October 29, 2019•0 commentsThen there’s the song of the year for 1992 (in my opinion, not according to Billboard charts or anything). From Miami Sound Machine back-up singer to pop crooner, Jon Secada provided the world with Just Another Day. Secada’s ambiguously beautiful tenor made you saunter softly in your seat, no matter where you were sitting. As with Under The Bridge by the R.H.C.P. (same era, coming up later in the countdown), this song transports me back to a time just before. Little Angie lived in Aunt Pat’s basement and I could visit her anytime I wanted. One of those times, she handed me a cassette single that was delivered with the Newsday; it was this song. I’d heard it a few times on the radio in passing but now I would play it in my car repeatedly (as is my M.O., for anyone paying attention). Something about the steady beat was like rain on my shoulders, warm and consistent and palpable. I think back now on all the lessons life has taught me, and wish I could spirit myself back to that moment. Hold the hand of those you have very tightly; they won’t be around too much longer. Special shout out to my nephew, Christopher Pandolfo, whose birthday was yesterday, for recently reminding me how great a song this was/is.
Read More >
Day 51 - Touch Me (Cathy Dennis)
October 30, 2019•0 commentsHere’s a happy song from the early nineties that always makes me smile, and throw my arms up into the air when she says, Et’s DO It! Not much substance to (Touch Me) All Night Long by ingénue Cathy Dennis, but that’s ok, not every song has to have meaning and depth. It does, though, remind me of my days working in the coat room at Grand Central, back when there were gay bars on Long Island, and I would go home relatively wealthy after a 6 hour shift of hanging coats and handing them back to drunk dummies. I met a lot of people back then, some of with whom I am still in touch (thank you, Facebook), and some who are now just long gone memories. Et’s DO It!
Read More >
Day 50 - Seasons Change (Exposé)
October 31, 2019•0 commentsSo, the time period between 1987 and 88 was a pretty nondescript year for me. I was still in a personal holding pattern, still living my life in a closet, still hoping and wishing and praying changes would come, just not really knowing which changes I deep down wanted. I had yet to be met with the force of nature that was Vincent Alessi, my crazy partner in crime who helped hustle my ass out of my comfort zone, but I could almost sense that having him in my life (which was to be the huge catalyst I’d craved) was imminent. In comes crashing the first mega-ballad by Exposé, Seasons Change. A splashy, harmony-riddled pop song about want and need and desire and longing, all under the cover of the changing seasons. It may have been the first time in my young life I’d ever experienced an awakening, almost like a premonition. Hearing this song put my internal oven on high. And, of course, lest we forget the gratuitous eighties saxophone break, every time I hear this even still, I swoon and remember that time just before. That was perhaps the last time I was ever truly innocent, like a sleeping giant, a dormant volcano.
Read More >
Day 49 - Midnight At The Oasis (Maria Muldaur)
November 1, 2019•0 commentsThe early seventies drummed out some really good music, but it also gave way for some questionably classic, frisky moments as well. One of those quirky songs I love best is called Midnight At The Oasis, by Maria Muldaur. Her voice is sweet and appealing and the accompanying guitar work is cozy and happy, just like those golden old days are in my memory. I remember thinking how funny it was that the cactus is our friend and he was pointing out the way. As a little kid, it never occurred to me how sexual the lyrics were, but give them a listen: First rate seventies baby-making schmaltz, but oh so wondrous.
Read More >
Day 48 - lady lady lady (Joe Esposito)
November 2, 2019•0 commentsI love a good obscure soundtrack song. I’m known for that shit. And if you know me, you know one of my favorite movie soundtracks belongs to Flashdance. I already gave you Irene Cara’s Flashdance: What A Feeling in my first 50 countdown, and then last year I celebrated the magic that is the Love Theme From Flashdance. Today we have Lady, Lady, Lady. I don’t think anyone, other than maybe me and Maria, even remember this song, but when I hear it I am teleported back to Maria’s den, and we’re young again, and the whole world is in front of us. This song could go on forever and I would never get tired of the synthesizer or that consistent, mesmerizing beat. I had never seen this video until today but, goddammit, am I glad I did! Look at them both, all eighties-backlit! My favorite!
Read More >
Day 47 - Shambala (Three Dog Night)
November 3, 2019•0 commentsFor those of us over the age of 50, here’s a nice throwback treat from the same days as the song I posted 2 days ago; anyone else can feel free to scroll on by. Shambala is a feel-good classic by Three Dog Night, a happy spiritual pop song that evokes my early days in which I was my most authentic happiest. I hear this and I think of autumns in the park across the street (about which I’ve spoken at length in previous notes), carefree days with low October sunshine on our baby faces, as we owned that playground and the leaf piles we’d built. Shout outs to my childhood homies: Linda, with whom I painted rocks and gave names to random frogs. Greg, with whom I created TV-show-themed board games. Diane, in whose basement we concocted banana milkshakes. I wouldn’t trade my childhood memories for anything.
Read More >
Day 46 - Higher Love (Steve Winwood)
November 4, 2019•0 commentsI don’t think I’d ever heard of Steve Winwood until this song smacked the airwaves in the face in the mid-eighties. This was back before Google and the days of instant gratification with regards to finding information about a song or artist, but the first time I’d heard this song I remembered thinking, Holy Shit, that’s Chaka Khan singing background vocals! But back in those days we had MTV, which actually played music (can you even imagine?), and it was then that Mark Goodman and Martha Quin explained to me that Steve Winwood was formerly known as Little Stevie Winwood, and he was some kind of late-sixties/early-seventies childhood musical prodigy, and that’s also when it was revealed to me that I was, in fact, correct about Chaka, as there she was in the video! And I’ll be a motherfucker, that’s also Nile Rodgers playing rhythm guitar!!! Well, whatever. Higher Love was an amazing song in 1986 and it still is today, so much so that it’s currently being covered as a dance song by the late, beautiful Whitney Houston.
Read More >