4 posts tagged “80s”

I was listening to Madonna's album, Hard Candy (I know, I need to move to another album ... I promise I listen to a million other things at the same time), and I noticed how the song, "Incredible", has the line, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", which has been a famous line in music history.

I think the line originated in Joni Mitchell's song, "Big Yellow Taxi" ...

Then, the line was used as the title of Janet Jackson's song, "Got 'Til It's Gone", and Joni's song was sampled, too ...

Here is Madonna's song which puts the line in one of the verses ...

In other news, I watched the Woody Allen movie, "Scoop", on HBO today. It stars Scarlett Johansson (2 t's and 2 s's) and Hugh Jackman. It came out in 2006, and Woody Allen's other Scarlett Johansson London-based movie about murder, "Match Point", came out in 2005. The movies are not alike at all, though. Scoop is more of a comedy, and "Match Point" is pretty serious. They do both explore class in London, though. Here are the trailers ...

The last couple of Sundays I have gone to a club/bar in Austin called Elysium with some friends for their 80s music night. The music is usually very good, and the crowd is very eclectic. Here are my two favorite songs they play ...

Real Life - Send Me An Angel (this is the 1989 version, I think)

The original 1983 version of "Send Me An Angel" did not feature as much clapping in the background so it is less fun to dance to. Here is the video for the original version ...

The other song is also from 1983, and it is "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling ...

Here is the video for the song ...

Here is the link to the MCOG box set on HMV.

I used to watch the cartoon series, "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" (a French/Japanese co-production that was later dubbed in English, too) on Nickelodeon in the 80s. It would come on really early in the morning, along with Danger Mouse and Pinwheel. I would also watch Today's Special sometimes, but it was kind of lame.

Anyway, "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" had the best theme song, and it made me want to get lost in some sort of adventure (I think it's part of the reason I wanted to learn so much Spanish ... ha!) as a child. There was something really strange about three kids wandering around on their own in Latin America ... even if they did have a giant golden condor to fly them around. I always have wondered if Esteban found his father.

I actually have every single episode on my computer, but the quality is not that great. I am probably going to end up ordering this box set just to tie up some loose ends from my childhood.

Nickelodeon would show some of the weirdest shows, and I think my subconscious is full of all of these strange memories that are really fragments of weird Canadian/British stuff shown on Nickelodeon. I know there was a show where some kids get kidnapped by aliens that have taken over their town, but I probably will never find that show. It was pretty creepy, though. I think there was a short film about a girl who thinks she is living with witches, too. Again, that's a film I will probably never see again.

It makes me think of that movie Ricky Schroder was in as a kid, where his parents are inside an RV that falls off of the sound of a mountain, killing them both. Ricky's character then has to trek through a wilderness all by himself. It was horrific to watch that as a kid and wonder what that feeling of abandonment would feel like.

OK, that's off the subject, though. Back to the main topic of MCOG ... I wonder if Amazon will eventually sell this box set. I would much rather buy it from them. I may not be able to wait, though.

And to be completely random, here is a live performance of "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock ...

So a couple of days ago, I had a co-worker asking me to "name that tune" because he could not remember the name or lyrics for an 80s song he had heard. However, he could hum some of it, and he knew the main vocal was by a man. Here is what the humming part kind of sounded like ...

Yes, that's my bad humming. The tune reminded me of tons of 80s songs. Here are a few that it made me think of ...

We told another co-worker about the song we were looking for, and he thought he knew it, but it turned out he was thinking of this song(which I also remember) ...

When my co-worker was trying to hum this song, it reminded me of Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" ...

However, in the end, the song turned out to be "I Beg You Pardon(I Never Promised You)" by Kon Kan. The original co-worker remembered some lyrics to the song("There once was a time, and there once was a place" ... although, now that I have listened to the song, I know the second part is "and there once was a way"), and I did a Google search on those lyrics and found a post about it on Yahoo! Answers.

Therefore, this is the correct song that we had all been trying to find ...

After listening to this song, it made me think of these two songs ...

Anyway, the mystery is solved, but I thought it would be cool to show all the songs that went through my head while searching for the Kon Kan song.