xmas song of the day – “2000 Years Of Love” | 54.40 | 1988.

Happy Holidays!  Since it’s the first year of my blog, and since it’s the last year for my Annual Holiday Show on my little 20-year-old 80s radio program, STUCK IN THE 80s (on WMPG community radio in Portland, Maine), I wanted to present to you THE 31 DAYS OF 80s XMAS SONGS, or, 31 of my favorite 80s holiday musical treats.

It’s Day 8 of the 31 DAYS OF 80s XMAS SONGS, and we’re heading up to The Great White North for the act responsible for today’s “xmas song of the day.” No, it’s Bob & Doug McKenzie, but rest assured we’ll get to their “Twelve Days Of Christmas” when we get a little closer to the actual twelve days of Xmas.

The Canadian act I’m referring to here is a band called 54.40 (also known as 54-40), named after the Fifty-Four Forty or Fight! slogan that came about during the Oregon boundary dispute in the 18th Century, which, if successful, would have expanded the Oregon Territory into the lower half of British Columbia (up to the parallel 54°40′ north).

The band 54.40 (hailing out of Vancouver, British Columbia, but sounding like they could have come from Athens, GA) has been around since 1981, and prolly their most famous song, “I Go Blind” (from their self-titled second album) was actually a radio hit for Hootie & The Blow-Me Fish in 1996, 10 years after the release of the superior original.

In 1988, when the Warner Bros. group of labels (including Sire Records, Reprise Records, Slash Records and more) was putting together a promotional double album for that Xmas, 54.40 was recruited, along with the likes of R.E.M., Ofra Haza, Daniel Lanois, Los Lobos, actress and singer Julie Brown, Throwing Muses, Lou Reed and Pee-Wee Herman, for songs covering many genres and Xmas IDs that radio stations could play at their leisure during the holiday season. 

The end result was WINTER WARNERLAND, featuring a healthy dose of 37 songs and Xmas IDs on the double album set  (replete with red and green vinyl albums).  WINTER WARNERLAND was presented to radio stations, record stores, music journalists, recording artist managers and producers as a holiday gift for Xmas 1988.  And what a gift it is.

It took me years to find a vinyl copy (my dear friend Spindle has had one for almost as long as I’ve known him), and I finally found a copy on CD.  It’s on the way for this Xmas; kind of a gift to myself.  54.40’s lovely “2000 Years Of Love” is a gift too.  If you’re not familiar with it, or 54.40, I encourage you to check the song (and the band) out…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JVpwlxB1f4

song of the day – “Hallelujah” | LEONARD COHEN | 1984.

It was already a rough week and then some with the end result (at least the electoral college version anyway) of the 2016 United States presidential election (more on that in my next blog post), but in the 4:00 hour this morning, I woke up from a semi-decent night’s sleep to find out we lost another music giant this year – Leonard Cohen.

I don’t believe this was from 1984, or even the 80s, but I love this shot…

Leonard Cohen died on Monday, November 7th, but the world didn’t find out about it until a message to fans was posted on Facebook on November 10th: “It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away.  We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.”  His son, producer Adam Cohen, said his dad “passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records [YOU WANT IT DARKER, just released on October 21st]. He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor.”

Leonard Cohen’s last album, YOU WANT IT DARKER, just released in October 2016 (and one heluva great album cover).

Born in Westmount, Quebec in September 1934, Leonard Cohen had an interest in music and poetry at a young age, and in 1967, at the age of 33, he released his debut album on Columbia Records – SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN.  The opening song on that album, “Suzanne,” ended up being recorded by folks like Judy Collins, Nina Simone, Frida (of ABBA; on her 1971 debut album), and was sampled by R.E.M. on the song “Hope,” which appeared on their 1998 album, UP.

Between SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN and YOU WANT IT DARKER (which I can’t wait to hear), Leonard Cohen released 14 studio albums, eight live albums, and at least seven compilations.  He was among an elite group of artists – including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen – who had their entire catalog of albums on one record label – Columbia Records.

Admittedly, I wasn’t the biggest Leonard Cohen fan, but I always had a lot of respect for him, especially his songwriting, and grew to love many of his songs over the years, including “So Long, Marianne” (from SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN), “Bird On The Wire” (from 1969’s SONGS FROM A ROOM), “Famous Blue Raincoat” (from 1971’s SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE), “Chelsea Hotel” (from 1974’s NEW SKIN FOR THE OLD CEREMONY), “First We Take Manhattan,” “Tower Of Song” and “I’m Your Man” (from 1988’s I’M YOUR MAN), “Democracy” and “The Future” (from 1992’s THE FUTURE), “The Letters” (from 2004’s DEAR HEATHER), plus 1988’s “Everybody Knows” (from I’M YOUR MAN) and 1984’s “If It Be Your Will” (from VARIOUS POSITIONS; both songs were prominently featured in the excellent 1990 Christian Slater film, PUMP UP THE VOLUME).

Apart from being a big success in Scandinavia, Austria and the U.K., Leonard’s 1984 album, VARIOUS POSITIONS (his first album in five years), was not a popular album at the time, and had mixed reviews.  One of the nine songs on VARIOUS POSITIONS (and the first song on Side Two), was a song called “Hallelujah.”  It apparently took Leonard Cohen five years and 80 draft verses to write the song.

Of the song, Leonard Cohen said, “Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means ‘Glory to the Lord.’  The song explains that many kinds of Hallelujahs do exist.  I say, ‘All the perfect and broken Hallelujahs have an equal value.  It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion’.” 

“Hallelujah” went relatively unnoticed for several years until Welsh singer / songwriter John Cale (a founding member of The Velvet Underground) heard Leonard Cohen sing an updated version of the song live in New York.  John Cale enjoyed the song so much that he decided to record his own version.  That version appears on the wonderful 1991 tribute album, I’M YOUR FAN: THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN, which features 80s and early 90s Alt-Rock royalty like R.E.M., Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch, Pixies, That Petrol Emotion, James, The House Of Love, Lloyd Cole, and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. 

John Cale’s 1991 reworked version features just vocals, piano and lyrics that Leonard Cohen had only performed live.  He asked Leonard Cohen to send him those lyrics, and Leonard did -15 pages’ worth!  According to a 2010 piece in THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, John Cale claimed he “went through and just picked out the cheeky verses.”  It is this version – used in the first SHREK film in 2001 – that has inspired most of the covers of “Hallelujah” that you know and love today, including one I’ll come onto in a moment.

Prolly the best Leonard Cohen tribute album I’ve ever heard, 1991’s I’M YOUR FAN was not purchased by many, but, according to a piece I saw online today, one person who purchased the album was a woman from Brooklyn, New York, and the person who used to house-sit for this woman was a singer named Jeff Buckley, the son of multi-genre singer / songwriter Tim Buckley, who died in 1975 at the age of 28.

He loved the version on I’M YOUR FAN, and reworking the song from John Cale’s own rework, Jeff Buckley performed “Hallelujah” in a bar in the East Village of NYC, where an executive from Columbia Records (Leonard’s Cohen’s longtime record label) was in the audience, heard the song, and signed Jeff Buckley right away.  Jeff’s studio version appeared on his 1994 album, GRACE.

GRACE would turn out to be Jeff Buckley’s only album.  In late May 1997, while in Memphis, Tennessee, Jeff Buckley went for a swim – fully clothed – in a channel of the Mississippi River and died of accidental drowning at the age of 30.  His version of “Hallelujah” took awhile to find an audience, but when it did, you couldn’t escape it.  It’s been widely used in television shows and films, and on April 20, 2013, just days after the Boston Marathon bombing, it was played at Fenway Park at the home opener for the Boston Red Sox, for a tribute honoring the victims of the bombing.  Jeff Buckley’s version has sold well over a million digital copies. 

On my little 20-year-old radio show, STUCK IN THE 80s (on WMPG community radio in Portland, Maine), in 2006, to mark the tenth anniversary of the show, I compiled a list of the 80 BEST 80s COVERS (1980-2005), and both the John Cale and Jeff Buckley versions were tied at No. 3 on the list.

A long way from Leonard Cohen’s dirge and gospel-influenced original version of  “Hallelujah,” the song has been covered over 300 times in 32 years, including covers by Rufus Wainwright, k.d. lang, Bob Dylan, Regina Spektor, Willie Nelson and Bono of U2.  In 2010, as part of the HOPE FOR HAITI NOW benefit album, Justin Timberlake, Matt Morris and Charlie Sexton took a version of “Hallelujah” to No. 12 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100, and most recently, the Texas A Cappella group Pentatonix took their version to No. 32.

Leonard Cohen has an incredible amount of accolades which spans decades, and was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2008 by Lou Reed, who said that Leonard Cohen was in the “highest and most influential echelon of songwriters.”  Of Leonard Cohen’s songs, Matt Johnson of The The said, “When I listen to his songs, it’s a simple, stripped-down naked soul.”  On Matt Johnson’s Twitter page for The The, he said, “I was lucky enough to have dinner with #LeonardCohen when I was a young songwriter of 22.  He gave some great advice. RIP x”

A photo of Leonard Cohen via Matt Johnson’s tweet tribute on The The’s Twitter page…

Leonard’s also in the Rock And Roll Songwriters Hall Of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame, recipient of a 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2011, was named a Companion Of The Order Of Canada, which is Canada’s highest civilian honor.

Back in the early 80s, Leonard Cohen once said of himself, “I get tagged as an art-song intellectual, but I’ve always tried to have hits.”  Well, Leonard, within the next couple of weeks, you’re gonna get your wish.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least a half-dozen versions of “Hallelujah” flood the Top 50 of the BILLBOARD Hot 100 (including his original) and other singles charts around the globe.  Hallelujah indeed. 

R.I.P. Leonard, and many, many thanks…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttEMYvpoR-k

song of the day – “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)” | PET SHOP BOYS | 1986.

One of the first things I learned about WMPG community radio in Portland, Maine when I started my little 80s radio program, STUCK IN THE 80s, there in 1996 was the Begathon.  WMPG gets approximately 1/3 of its funding from the University of Southern Maine, approximately 1/3 from underwriting, and approximately 1/3 from listener donations.  A large chunk of the latter comes from the Begathon.  What started out as a 2-week pledge drive in which volunteer radio hosts would “beg” to raise money for the station is now split up into two 1-week pledge drives, one in the Spring and one in the Fall.  It’s come a long way since my first Begathon in the Fall of 1996.  My very last Begathon for WMPG will be on Sunday, 9.25.2016.

One of my favorite “money” songs (at any time of year) is the second worldwide single for London’s Pet Shop Boys – “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money).”  From their debut album, PLEASE, “Opportunities” was the follow-up to their global No. 1 hit, “West End Girls.”

“Opportunities” was written and recorded in 1983, before their big break a couple years later.  The re-recorded version (for PLEASE) was produced by super-producer (and Portland, Maine native) Stephen Hague. It debuted on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 in late May 1986, when “West End Girls” was still in the Top 15.  “Opportunities” would go on to spend a week at No. 10 in early August 1986.  It was the band’s second of five Top 10 hits in America.

From the original video for “Opportunities.”

Around the globe, “Opportunities” reached No. 2 in New Zealand, No. 3 on BILLBOARD’s Dance chart, and the Top 20 in the U.K., Ireland and Spain.  There were two videos for the song.  The first version (included in the link below) is my favorite of the two, is a bit haunting and darker, and features the song’s original spoken outro ending: “All the love that we had / And the love that we hide / Who will bury us / When we die?” 

The second video version of “Opportunities” was directed by renowned Polish director,  Zbigniew Rybczyński (and MTV Video Vanguard recipient), who has directed memorable videos like “Close (To The Edit)” by The Art Of Noise, “The Original Wrapper” by Lou Reed, “Time Stand Still” by Rush (featuring Aimee Mann of ’til Tuesday), and Simple Minds’ “Alive And Kicking” and “All The Things She Said”(the latter of which used a technique that was used again in the second “Opportunities” video, where Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe appear duplicated over and over, passing to each other symbols of different statuses they represent, like a top hat, a trophy, a brick, and a sledgehammer).

From the second video for “Opportunities.”

“Opportunities” might not be as well-remembered as other Pet Shop Boys hits like “West End Girls,” “Always On My Mind” or “It’s A Sin,” but I’ve loved this song since the first time I heard it.  If you need a refresher, take this, um, opportunity and check out the video link below.  I can’t guaRONtee you’ll make lots of money, but I hope you’ll enjoy it just the same…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di60NYGu03Y

song of the day – “Seconds” | THE HUMAN LEAGUE | 1981.

On Sunday, June 12, 2016, my dear friend and former Portlander Michelle Fire Eater will make her first appearance on my little radio show, STUCK IN THE 80s (on WMPG Community Radio), in 9 years, and with a kick-ass theme show she thought of a couple of years ago – THE HEAVY 80s – it wasn’t all bubblegum, you know…

THE HEAVY 80s will feature songs that actually had substance to it, and covered a vast number of subjects including drug abuse, rejection, racism, homophobia, bullying, teenage depression and suicide, alcoholism, feminism, child abuse, homelessness, poverty, difficulties for farmers in the Midwest, media sensationalism, Apartheid, The Cold War, The Vietnam War, AIDS, the Kennedy Assassination, and protests against war, dictators and more.

This week on the blog, I’ll highlight some of the songs Michelle and I will be featuring on THE HEAVY 80s. 

For a long time, I thought that “Seconds,” the B-side to The Human League’s No. 1 hit, “Don’t You Want Me” (from their 1981 album, DARE) was just a kick-ass Synthpop gem that should have been a single in its own right.  But there was more to it than that.  A lot more.

“Seconds” is about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, calling out Lee Harvey Oswald matter-of-factly (“it took seconds of your time to take his life”) without even saying his name.  For whatever reason, it took way more than seconds of my time to figure out what this song was about, and when I finally did (during one of my radio shows, no less), it was in November on or near the anniversary of JFK’s assassination.  Kinda freaky, actually, but I’m betting it was nothing like witnessing it in Dallas or on live TV on November 22, 1963. 

Minutes before seconds…

Over the years, there have been a number of songs recorded and released about the Kennedy Assassination, including The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil,” Lou Reed’s “The Day John Kennedy Died,” Tori Amos’ “Jackie’s Strength,” Pearl Jam’s “Brain Of J,” “The Warmth Of The Sun” by The Beach Boys, and “The Sounds Of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel. 

I’ve loved “Seconds” for a long time, and like the artists above, I applaud The Human League for taking on such a heavy subject such as the Kennedy Assassination and turning it into a somber yet brilliant Synthpop masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwpvHJN3QvI

song of the day – “Sun City” | ARTISTS UNITED AGAINST APARTHEID | 1985.

This week, Bruce Springsteen announced he wouldn’t be playing a concert in Greensboro, North Carolina on Sunday, April 10, 2016, because of the recently-passed law HB2, also known as the “bathroom” law.  HB2 is actually called the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act.  This law requires transgendered people to use the bathrooms based on their biological sex rather than the sex they relate to, and also bans state lawsuits for any type of LGBT workplace discrimination.

In his detailed statement about the reason for the show cancellation, Bruce Springsteen said that the law “is an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.”  Bruce concluded with him saying, “Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them. It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.”

Longtime E Street Band member, musician, songwriter, producer, actor and DJ Steven Van Zandt added that legislation like this has to be challenged: “This sort of thing is spreading like an evil virus around the country.  We felt we better stop this, we should try and stop this early, and hopefully other people will rise up and join us.”

Steven Van Zandt continued by saying, “ Whether it’s women, whether it’s gay, transgender, there’s no difference.  It was very important to us to take a stand early in this before it starts to spread all over the place.”

This isn’t the first time Steven Van Zandt has showed his support for a cause.  He’s been a human rights activist for more than 30 years, and in 1985, the year that gave us huge charity events like “We Are The World” and Live Aid, Little Steven focused not on Ethiopia, but instead South Africa, namely Sun City.

The Sun City resort.

Sun City is a casino resort developed in 1979 in the North West Province of South Africa, approximately a 2-hour drive from Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa.  At the time, it was located in the Bantustan (homeland) of Bophuthatswana, an independent state under South Africa’s apartheid government (not recognized by any other country).  Apartheid had been around since 1948 and is an Afrikaans word which means “separate” or “the state of being apart,” or simply put, “apart-hood.”

An apartheid notice on a beach near Capetown, denoting the area for whites only. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The United Nations had set forth a cultural boycott condemning the segregation of apartheid.  Despite this, major recording acts were lured to performing there, including The Beach Boys, Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Frank Sinatra, Elton John, and in 1984, Queen (who claimed they only played to desegregated audiences), which may have sparked interest for Little Steven to write about Sun City and later form the protest group, Artists United Against Apartheid.

In the early stages of writing “Sun City,” Steven Van Zandt met up with journalist Danny Schechter, then working for ABC’s 20/20 news magazine, who suggested that Little Steven turn “Sun City” into a different kind of “We Are The World,” or rather, “a song about change not charity, freedom not famine.”

Little Steven and Danny Schechter got to work in recruiting performers for “Sun City,” mixing it up with Hip-Hop, R&B and Rock performers.  Nearly 50 people contributed to the song, including Run-D.M.C., Grandmaster Melle Mel, jazz legend Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Ringo Starr and his son Zak, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Bonnie Raitt, Pat Benatar, Peter Wolf, Joey Ramone, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Bob Dylan, Darlene Love, Afrika Bambaataa, George Clinton, Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, Clarence Clemons and Little Steven’s E-Street “Boss,” Bruce Springsteen.  A music video was commissioned, produced by Godley & Creme and directed by Jonathan Demme.

The single for “Sun City” was banned in South Africa, but made inroads around the globe.  It reached No. 4 in Australia, No. 6 in Canada, No. 21 in the U.K., and was a big hit in Holland.

Over here in the U.S., about half of American radio stations didn’t play the song, objecting to the the criticism towards President Reagan’s policy of “constructive engagement,” or the alternative to the economic sanctions against South Africa; incentives to move South Africa away from apartheid.  “Sun City” did manage to reach the Top 40 of the BILLBOARD Hot 100, spending a week at No. 38 in December 1985 and 3 months on the chart.

Though more of a protest single than a charity single, “Sun City” did manage to raise more than a million dollars for anti-apartheid projects.  Apartheid ended in 1994, and I’d like to think that Little Steven Van Zandt and “Sun City” had something to do with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlMdYpnVOGQ