The Way We Were

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I watch terrible music videos. Billy Squier’s career-killing “Rock Me Tonite” (1984) is a favorite of course. It has the spirit of a parody video: you keep wondering if it’s real, until they start overdoing it. The way Squier prances around the room like a teenage girl smitten with Mick Jagger, the bizarre inserts, the silky bedroom setting (what’s missing is a teddy bear in the corner): it all seems to signal that you’re looking at a sublime piss-take. Alas, it’s real. There’s no choreography, no story, it’s just someone who’s home alone on a Friday night thinking nobody can see them. Like that Jedi kid.

Squier fired his manager afterwards, which is the equivalent of saying your account got hacked when people find out you’ve been liking weird porn videos.

The song itself to me always sounds like something you might hear midway in some 80s flick. (But then again nearly all 1980s songs sound like that.)

Another awkward video I love is Bruce Springsteen’s original, unreleased video for “Dancing in the Dark” (1984). Wonderfully uncomfortable. He’s dancing like he’s making fun of people who can’t dance. After a few seconds he has run out of moves, after which a prolonged suffering commences, masked by forced enthusiasm. Fortunately someone killed this video and we got that classic “live” one with Courteney Cox instead.

When a music video is good it’s just good, but when it’s bad it’s much more than that—you see these successful people fall flat on their faces and you feel less bad about yourself.

Or how about Journey’s “Separate Ways” (1983). Such a sorry video. Without the sound on (a great way to watch music videos) the band members look like they need to pee and they can’t hold it up any longer. Occasionally they play air instruments, like children. It’s their first video, everyone is uneasy and as a result they start overacting.

By the way, many 1980s videos have the artist hopelessly chasing some aloof femme fatale. What was up with that? It always made the artist look so desperate.

One that always cracks me up is “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. The guy on the right with the glasses. Whenever this video came on, I’d point him out to my brother and say, “That’s you.” And he’d always punch me on the arm. But I had to say it, I couldn’t help it. One time the video came on and I started snickering, and he punched me right away.

Look at that gang though. Like they ate some bad food at a Chinese restaurant and are rushing to the bathroom without trying to look like they’re rushing to the bathroom.

In all seriousness, when I think of the 1980s, the music I remember best is the music I cared about the least. Bland stuff like Foreigner, Toto, Boston, Kansas, Yes. Super-powered mediocrity. Expertly crafted accountant music. The artists always looked like guys from middle management. It’s music you don’t put on and you don’t turn off, it’s just there like the sound of traffic. I don’t hate these bands or anything—I respect them for what they are, and prefer them to a whole lot of other music. They created the background noise to much of my childhood.

Really though, we remember our childhoods as this Golden Age of Wonder but it was mostly boredom and being surrounded by blandness.