Listomania! - 1979

I started working at a copper tube factory called Wolverine Tube in October of '78. My Dad had worked there since 1967 and when it became apparent that I needed money to support my young family, he got me the job there. By '79, I was getting used to the grind of the place. It was 2 week periods of 3 rotating shifts, so with a baby at home, it meant many days of almost no sleep. You would just start getting into the swing of one shift and then have to switch over to the next rotation. I particularly hated the midnight to 8AM shift because I found that I would get a lousy sleep, not want to eat, and generally feel like crap for the whole 2 weeks. Life in that place was hard, loud and dirty, but I was young and full of energy and I didn't want to let my old man down and sully his good name by being a screw-up. I made some great friends there and had a regular gang that I would hang out with and go for beers after 4 to 12 shift and such. It was weird though, because it was my Dad's workplace and I thought it must be a serious place and all because Dad never really talked much about what it was like. That illusion was shattered early on when I came into work one day and saw a pair of legs sticking out of the garbage can by the main doors. There were a group of guys standing around it and laughing their asses off. I stopped and looked down into the garbage can and saw that it was my father that these jokers had stuffed in there head first! That's when I realized that, despite the horrid work we did and the soul-sapping existence it was, there was also fun to be had! Music was becoming my main solace from the place and I always had a song in my head or sang to myself while I was working on the furnace. Here are my favourites from that year:

Top 10 Of 1979

10. Slow Motion - Blondie

From the Eat To The Beat album, this slice of pop perfection harkens back to the Girl Group sound of the '60s. It was written by the keyboard player, Jimmy Destri, and it continues along the more mainstream path they started along on Parallel Lines. It is not a selling of souls though, but a glowing ode to the Shirelles of the world. They could have recorded Heart Of Glass 2.0, but they chose to honour their true roots with a song like this. Debbie Harry puts down one of her best vocals on this one and the band stays out of her way while grooving along in the background. It is just a to-die-for melody folks, simple as that. Sing it at the top of your lungs! "Slow motion, I can play with time. I can keep today but tomorrow's fine." Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know too soon!

9. Gangsters - The Specials

In the U.K., punks looked to Jamaica for their influences more than the Led Zeps or others of their ilk. In doing so, they resurrected forms of music like Ska and Reggae and gave them new life. One such band was The Specials, led by the keyboardist Jerry Dammers, who started his own record label, the now legendary 2-Tone Records. They specialized in Ska sounds and they released this song as their and 2-Tone's first single. Driven on by Dammers' punchy organ and sung in his usual sardonic way by the great Terry Hall, this is such a great song to skank and rank along to that you must move your feet! This song is a re-working of the Jamaican star Prince Buster's 1964 Ska classic Al Capone. The Specials give that song a special nod by sampling Prince Buster at the start of the song and with the line "Don't call me Scarface." The Specials were soon joined in the Ska resurrection by bands like Madness, The English Beat and The Selecter. "Why must you record my phone calls? Are you planning a bootleg LP?" Umm.....no...

8. It's Different For Girls - Joe Jackson

I always thought when I heard this back in the day that any song that starts with the lyric "What the hell is wrong with you tonight?" had a lot to live up to. Well, 31 years later, it sure has! I liked a lot of Joe Jackson's music from '79 to '85 or so, before he meandered off into that Jumpin' Jive shtick and this is my fave tune of his. The vocal on this is brilliant, sung with great feeling and strength, but with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It twists the age-old boy-girl relationship thing around, with the girl saying that she doesn't want anything to do with love and implying that she just wants sex, then throwing out the line "Don't you know that it's different for girls?" I love the spare drumming with its shimmering ride cymbal work and the great bass fadeout at the end. "Mama always told me save yourself, take a little time and find the right girl." I should have listened closer to Mom.

7. Even The Losers - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

What a fantastic melody! From his commercial breakthrough album Damn The Torpedoes, Petty sings this in his best Roger McGuinn voice and really hits it hard. It reminds me of the brand new townhouse we moved into and I used to dress Debbie's 15 year old brother Robbie in my goalie equipment and go down in the basement and fire pucks at him as hard as I could while listening to that album. The sound is perfect, which is no surprise as it was produced by Jimmy Iovine who was on a real hot streak at the time. This song for every downtrodden poor hack who feels like he never gets a break is one of Petty's best and Martina's top track by him. As usual, the Heartbreakers are top-notch, especially Benmont Tench and his Hammond organ. "Well, it was nearly all summer we sat on your roof. Yeah, we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon." The moon wasn't bothering me that night, Dave.

6. Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

I missed The Wall almost completely at the time. I was well past listening to bands like Floyd, dismissing them as uncool and old farty. The only song I knew was that wretched Another Brick In The Wall that the radio played 4 million times a day, so I ignored it altogether. I don't recall hearing this song until about 1985 or so, late at night on the radio. At first, it was the words I got into, but later, it was the brilliant guitar soloing by David Gilmour. This is a truly epic tune and while it is played at that typical Floydian tempo, Roger Waters really hits home with maybe the best lyrics he ever penned. This song has a gorgeous sadness to it, all alienation and disappointment, and it is one that I can relate very easily to. When I met Martina, she carried a quote book with her and she had written these words in it: "When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown the dream is gone." We'll just let that one sink in....

5. Powderfinger - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

This one comes from the Rust Never Sleeps album, with 1 acoustic side and 1 electric side. I didn't care much for that record, but this song is among my faves by Mr. Young. Apparently, he wrote it for Lynyrd Skynyrd, but they never got to record it before the fatal plane crash that killed singer Ronnie Van Zandt, along with a couple of others. This song seems to be about a young guy left alone to defend his family's property during the U.S. Civil War. There are differing views on this, but that's what I think and it's my blog and I'll interpret if I want to. (Sing that last part in your best Lesley Gore voice.) Neil's voice is even more reed-thin than usual here, but that is what clinches my love of the song. He sounds young and frail and afraid, giving voice to the fear of the hero of the song. Martina hates his singing in general and really hates this song, but she would be absolutely wrong about that. I think it is simply beautiful and I truly enjoyed singing it around the campfire at the cottage accompanied by the genius guitar playing of Mr. Jason Ball. Thanks Jason! "Shelter me from the powder and the finger. Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger." Bang bang.

4. Dancing Barefoot - The Patti Smith Group

Produced by the genius Todd Rundgren, this is from the last Patti Smith Group album, Wave, probably her most pop-oriented record. She "retired" from the music business after this record to marry ex-MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith and raise babies for the next 9 years. This feminist ode to human attraction and all its mysteries is a brilliant stream of conciousness piece of poetry that is among the most powerful statements ever put on record. I never tire of hearing this song and still play it at least once a week, helped by the fact that it is one of Martina's favourite songs. The band plays a spare part here as Patti is the star of this show. The fantastic rant at the end is something lots of overrated lyricists could only dream of writing: "The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
The mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
Grave visitations
What is it that calls to us?
Why must we pray screaming?
Why must not death be redefined?
We shut our eyes we stretch out our arms
And whirl on a pane of glass
An afixiation a fix on anything the line of life the limb of a tree
The hands of he and the promise that she is blessed among women."

Don't tell me what the poets are doin'!

3. Wasteland - The Jam

Oh, such a winsome, pensive song. I love this song a ton and I love the feelings it evokes in me when I hear it. It's a look back at childhood, at innocence, at simpler times, amid the hopelessness and decay of modern life in England at the time. The melody is quite childlike too, helped along by the playing of the most childish of instruments, the recorder. Paul Weller is all Cockney accent here and I love the way he sings this with a wistfulness that belies the abandonment of all hope inherent in the lyrics. There is nothing spectacular about the band's playing on this tune, but there need not be as it is left to Weller to paint the bleak picture for us all. "We'll smile, but only for seconds, for to be caught smiling's to acknowledge life, a brave but useless show of compassion, and that is forbidden in this drab and colourless world." Put the pills up on the top shelf!

2. Clampdown - The Clash

This is another Joe Strummer call-to-arms from the classic album London Calling. I could have chosen at least 5 songs from that giant of a record, but this is the one that still gets the old blood pumping. This was my Wolverine Tube song as I felt like such a sellout "working for the clampdown." I used to sing it out loud while I was sweating my ass off loading up the furnace with copper tube that was used, among other things, to build bombs for the army. It is a treatise on the failures of capitalism and the emptiness of working class life, complete with screaming guitars and vitriolic lyrics which still ring true to me today. As well, Mickey Gallagher from Ian Dury & The Blockheads plays a mean, swirling organ that hovers around the fringes of this anthem. "The men at the factory are all old and cunning. You don't owe nothing boy get runnin'. It's the best years of your life they want to steal." They were, I didn't, they did.

1. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding - Elvis Costello & The Attractions

What a great way to end an album! This is the last song on my favourite Elvis Costello record, Armed Forces. Again, on a record so chock full of brilliance, it is hard to choose just 1 song, but this is the one. It is a simple call for unity and love in our troubled world and it plays right into my idealistic sentimentality. It is also my son Gord's favourite EC tune, probably because I played this album all the time when he was a wee lad, and also because he shares his father's sappy sentimentality. Elvis' great emotional vocal is supplemented by The Attractions' great playing, especially the outstanding and underrated drumming of Pete Thomas. The song was written by the album's producer, Nick Lowe, who barely missed making this list with his own '79 song, Cruel To Be Kind. "So where are the strong? And who are the trusted?" Good question....