This Film Should Be Played Loud ... 46 Years of The Last Waltz

What is Shangri-La?
It's a club house where we get together and play. Make records.
  Yeah.           
Kind of better. It's like an office, I guess.It used to be a bordello.
A bordello?
You can tell by the wallpaper.

On November 25, 1976, The Band played what was to be their last show. What they did not know was that, with the help of a handful of very special musical friends and the under the direction of Martin Scorsese, this concert film would become of the greatest concert films every produced. It captured The Band at their summit and put some of our musical greats in a time capsule of musical decadence. While there are musical politics surrounding the making of the film, all should be assured that the music fan only sees what greatness came from that night.

Where else are you going to find Dr. John, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, Allen Toussaint, Muddy Waters, Ringo Starr, and Van Morrison performing on one stage. It was an odd era of music as the grandiose behavior and decadence was beginning to wane on many. Bill Graham, concert promoter legend, spearheaded the concert at his venue, Winterland on Thanksgiving Day. Concert goers would enjoy a full dinner before the show.


If you want the full experience, you must watch the film and listen to the recordings. Some of the show's highlights were not included in the final cut. But Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson gave us 11 songs that are a snapshot of an era. The additional songs by the artists are simply the gratuitous adornments to an already glittery affair.

Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield, and Bobby Charles

From Levon Helm's passionate performance of The Night they Drove Ole Dixie Down to the classic concert closer, The Weight, each song is its own timeless masterpiece. By this point, The Band had been touring for over fifteen years and the excesses began to break everyone down. But to their credit, they ended at their best. While there were subsequent attempts - this was the quintessential The Band.

A great example of the talent of The Band that was on stage at Winterland on November 25, 1976, can be seen and heard in what is the show's opening song. The band is strong, energetic, and seems like they could go on for a few hours. This was actually their last song of the night - over five hours from when they

first started playing.

Because of technology and social media, we will never, ever have moments like these again. You bought paper tickets, probably did lines of coke off your dinner plate, and then sang for over five hours to some of the greatest musicians to play their craft. There was no simulcast or YouTube of it. Besides Scorsese's vision, this is all we have of this moment in time. Music fans had some dinner and watched an amazing show, not realizing they were a part of something so very special that would still be performed and remembered so vividly forty years later.

Levon Helm and Ringo Star

Fairytales and I Love You

November 22nd still hangs in my heart so heavy - the day Michael's smile faded into obscurity and his legend would be tarnished with the actions of his final years. But still, we grieve, we mourn, and we celebrate the rock god of our adolescence.

It's been 25 years since INXS lost their magnetic north. The band has most recently ended their reign, never coming back from that loss of their lead singer. INXS exists now only in our memories. And what glorious memories they are.

Fancy dinner parties, ballerinas on the Charles Bridge, red desert sunsets, beautiful blondes, brunettes, Mad Max underworlds, and motorcycles in Hong Kong painted the video world of INXS. Live Baby Live gave us the Michael we all know. He enthralled the 74,000 fans in attendance at Wembley, making us sway back and forth like high school lovers when we heard the first notes of Never Tear Us Apart and The Stairs. He was a musician, actor, son, brother, friend, and father. What he gave to us and to his fellow band mates are incredible memories, cemented forever in some of the best times of our lives. 

Again, I must thank my flat mates in Sydney for taking that very hot trek to see Michael's memorial. Who knew how many cemeteries there were in suburban Sydney. It was a nod to my past and the musical memories he gave me. I had to thank the man I crushed on for years. It was hard to think how quickly his bright star could quickly be diminished. In our hearts, he lives on as the charismatic lead singer. In our memories, he is the sad ending of a paparazzi nightmare. In our ears, his voice will be forever golden.     

It's so strange
How my life's changed
I know nothing
About the people that I touched

~Michael Hutchence - Possibilities

Tears Fall Down My Face

Michael Hutchence Memorial - Sydney 2000

25 years ago on November 22nd, the music world lost an enigmatic soul. Michael Kelland Hutchence was more than an 80s pop icon. To his fans, he was a free-spirited artist who helped to change the music and video world. He was a musician, actor, father, husband, brother, and son. And yes, he had his demons, but don't we all? 

Michael will forever be remembered as the sexy bad boy with cinnamon curls and caramelized skin. INXS wasn't a stranger to the Australian pop scene in the early 80's. It really was not until Kick in 1987 that they broke through and became known internationally. But like with any band, it was Michael, the lead singer who got all of the attention. Even today, mention Kirk Pengilly or Andrew Farriss and people will just look at you quizzically. 

From Kylie to Helena to Paula, Michael's exploits were tabloid fodder and paparazzi dollars. Once the star began to fall, everyone wanted to know his next move. His death, shocking and heartbreaking, became even more tragic when Paula Yates also died soon after, leaving their daughter without parents. It is also his death that most will remember. For me, it doesn't matter how he died. He's gone. End of story. 

While I love their earlier albums just as much as Kick, X, or Welcome to Wherever You Are, the X tour and subsequent Live Baby Live at Wembley Stadium in 1991 is when Michael was at the very top of his career. My God, they filled Wembley!  This show and tour was a testament to not just INXS, but to Michael's ability to entertain an entire stadium full of fans. 

His loss was not just felt in the world of his fans but in his music family. The band tried to go on, but the night I saw them in Sydney in 2000 was just not the same. The night I met Bono under the Brooklyn Bridge, which just happened to be November 22nd, we hugged over the memory of Michael. 

But you tore a hole in space
Like a dark star, falls from grace
You burn across the sky
And I would find you wings to fly
And I would catch you
I would catch your fall

 Michael Hutchence and Bono - Fly Away

We Have To Dream It All Up Again ... Achtung Baby

The end of something for U2 ... we have to go away and just dream it all up again.

1991 was at the precipice of a whole new world order. East and West Berlin were now free of Communism and the Wall. Perestroika and glasnost replaced repression in the dissoving Soviet Union. Our media was beginning to become global and instantaneous. And U2 decided to put aside their homage to the music they grew up  to and the music style that everyone associated with them. 

U2's massive tours associated with both The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum brought the band to the edge of some life changing decisions. Possibly as well, the altering of the world that was occurring on a daily basis. The band members were entering their thirties, they were celebrities, but they were still four friends in a band from Dublin. 

 The four fresh-faced lads re-invented not only themselves but their sound. Where Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum were filled with politics, nods to Dylan and Presley, Achtung Baby gave us questions about religion and fidelity, philosophy, and an alter-ego name Machphisto. While the skeleton of The Edge's guitar could still be heard, grungy electronic pop music infiltrated the studio, super models became their friends, and we were left trying to figure out whether or not this was a phase. The band referred to the album's musical departure as the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree. * Mueller, Andrew. "U2 – The Joshua Tree Re-Mastered (R1987)". Uncut. Retrieved 15 August 2015.

U2 rushed to get the last flight into East Germany, that is, while East German still existed. Now that U2 could walk back and forth from the East to the West, they realized that the send of West Berlin as illuminated was not an illusion. The lights were literally brighter. The streetlamps of the East were dull, dirty yellow. The streetlights of the West were golden and white, and of a higher wattage. The West had better generators, Bono was especially struck by the glow of ultraviolet lights in the windows of the Eastern buildings so crowded together that little sunlight got through. Bono had associated the purple glow of UV lighting with nightclubs and raves, but to East Germans it represented an attempt to grow flowers in the shadows.* U2 At the End of the World - Bill Flanagan. The band noted the U2 line at a particular station that allowed them to move between the old and the new: Zoologischer or Zoo Station. 
Through disagreements, arguments, and working harder than they had because they were creating something so new, songs were beginning to take shape. Between the Berlin and the Dublin sessions of 1991 the band worked tirelessly, through potential breakups both in the band and with spouses. Their world was being pulled in a thousand directions and on top of that they had to create that promise of going away and dreaming all up again. 

Lyrically, the album is a gift of art and religion, a study in carnal existential crisis, and a statement on the world both blossoming and decompressing on itself. 

 
Zoo Station
We all remember the gentle opening of Where the Streets Have No Name. There is a lot going on in the first 10 seconds. The song is being electronically strung along until Edge's guitar and Adam's bass string us into the first strained chords 
I'm ready. I'm ready for the laughing gas. 
It's the band giving us their opening statement. It's alright. There is a lot going on and there is a lot going on with us. 


 
Ever Better Than The Real Thing
You'll see a lot of play on capitalism with this decade of U2 and it started right here. A demo of this was recorded at the same time Desire was, pointing to the fact that the band was really ready to move on for quite some time. 
There is also one repeating theme that begins with this song ... forgive me ... give me one last chance. Sounds like the band was having a crisis of love and forgiveness.

One
Called one of the greatest songs of all time by many music critics, this song miraculously kept the band together. This song has been interpreted so many ways and any one of them doesn't lessen the impact of the song. 
It's about love, the world, the band, it's about an AIDS patient on their death bed talking to his father...doesn't matter. The message is clear. 

One love we get to share it and leaves you baby if you don't care for it. 

 
Until The End Of The World
While this song is without a doubt about the relationship between Judas and Jesus, there is still the underlying theme of sex and adultery if you look between those prison bars. The bands in depth religious knowledge lends itself to the beauty of this song. 

In the garden I was playing the tart. I kissed your lips and broke your heart. 

Who's Gonna Ridge Your Wild Horses
Written by Bono for The Edge, most claim it was the most painful song to record since there were so many nuances of music technology on it and it was constantly re-mixed.
Lyrically, a song to a soon to be old lover, maybe ... the memory of a relationship that still has some meaning. Can we still be friends?

So Cruel
Hope, love, hate, surrender, compromise, contempt, and sadness. This song is love. This song is about a love gone horribly wrong. Unfortunately it was The Edge's love story. Haunting but so damn true. 

  She wears my love like a see through dress. Her lips say one things. Her movements something else. 

The Fly
The Fly was introduced before album and have a glimpse into the wild around ahead for the band and fans.  It was in this video that we met The Fly, cross between Bono and his devil character, MacPhisto. The Fly is Bono's alter-ego, saying all those things we don't expect him to ever say.

It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest
It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief

Mysterious Ways
A funky departure from the album's sound. It's an homage to women. This is also the third time a reference to oral sex is mentioned in this album (Until the End of the World and Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses). It's

Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World
Oh these songs that seem so simple but U2 throws in some amazing quotes. It's a song about stumbling home drunk...you know that moment when you do feel like you can throw your arms around the world. Or when you're drunk with love that you feel the same. The world was changing and who didn't feel like that? 
And a woman needs a man
Like a fish needs a bicycle
When you're tryin' to throw your arms around the world

Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
Music trivia, Larry drops one drumstick during this song but damn it, he keeps going. 
A reference to those lights that once signified party and glamour to Bono, were a means to survive and find happiness in East Berlin. 
But more importantly, this crisis of love theme exists again in this song. Love, god, and women. There is an undercurrent of reference to the Book of Job and a line borrowed from Raymond Carver. 
There is a silence that comes to a house
Where no-one can sleep
I guess it's the price of love, I know it's not cheap
Oh, come on, baby, baby, baby, light my way
Oh, come on, baby, baby, baby, light my way
Ultra Violet...Ultra Violet...Ultra Violet...Ultra Violet...
Baby, baby, light my way
I remember when we could sleep on stones
Now we lie together in whispers and moans
When I was all messed up and I heard opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb hanging over my bed
Acrobat
This song is about not giving up. This could be directed at Bono himself. He uses the oft used from Latin saying don't let the bastards grind you down. He also quotes writer Delmore Schwartz in the line in dreams begin responsibilities. Basically, Bono is telling himself that he needs to stop listening to the critics but he also has to get his head out of the clouds.  

Love Is Blindness
Sorry to anyone that I have disappointed when I explain this song to them. It could be a song about love of person. But, it is love of hate and nationalism. This is a love song of a

car bomber.  The opening church organ ties this to religion. And only Bono can get away with this.

In a parked car
In a crowded street
You see your love
Made complete
Thread is ripping
The knot is slipping
Love is blindness

Love is clockworks
And cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel
Squeeze the handle
Blow out the candle
Love is blindness

Written seven years before the peace agreement was signed, violence in Northern Ireland and around the world was still in turmoil. 

The band successfully went away and dreamed it all up again. Now four men in their thirties, the world still their stage, there was no shortage of topics to sing about. Their seventh album was beyond successful and gave us many songs that are still on heavy rotation. It was fitting that U2 re-invented themselves as the world was as well. The subsequent Zoo TV tour, threw the media and information overload in our faces. They prank called the president, paraded around belly dancers, Bono's alter ego ran amuck, Trabants hand from the stage, it was grandiose on every single level. 

Sources: 
Bill Flanagan - U2 At the End of the World
Niall Stokes -  Into the Heart - the Story Behind Every U2 Song

INXS Shabooh Shoobah

We made a crazy video at home in Australia for The One Thing. We fed valium to a few cats and had them running around a table while we had a feast with sexy models and Playboy centerfolds, ripping apart a turkey. Next thing we knew we had a top 40 hit in America and were opening for Adam Ant. ~ Tim Farriss*

October 13, 1982, INXS released their third album and first world-wide release with Shabooh Shoobah. Face it, most of you have never heard of this album. Unless you are either a serious INXS fan or live in Australia. This album would bring Gary Gary Beers, the Farris Brothers (John, Andrew, and Tim), sax legend Kirk Pengilly, and Michael Hutchence to US shores and into video mainstream. The One Thing, Don’t Change, To Look at You, and Black and White were the albums singles, with Don't Change being the song that would put this Aussie band in the ears and hearts of the world. 

Lyrically maturing since Underneath the Colours, but not fully developing the sound that defined them for year until those pre-Kick vibes on Listen Like Thieves, Shabooh Shoobah delivers the music of a band still finding itself. It's sexy, 80's, and uniquely INXS. 

The One Thing

This incredible seductive video would introduce the masses to the sensual prowess of Michael Hutchence. The song is close to the INXS that most are used to of the late 80’s. The keyboards are toned down, but the guitar is spot on and Kirk soars on the sax. It’s a top song for many INXS fans.

To Look at You

This is my ultimate and all time INXS song. It’s a sexy song with haunting 80’s keyboards and one of the best lines of any INXS song --- fairytales and I love you.

Spy of Love

Remember, the 80’s was home to some creepy videos. This song about being a magical love spy has video with a literal take on the title. Michael is smoking in a creepy trench coat, Andrew Farris is wearing a bowler hat and balancing some glass Labyrinth-like object in his hand. Catchy tune, creepy video. Oh, did I mention there is a weird moment that reminds me of the Land Down Under video sing-along scene. 

Fun fact, this song inspired the onomatopoeia that is the title of the album.

Soul Mistake

The “I’m never going to learn” love song fraught with regret and some seriously good lines: 

In this meeting of the soul 

My feelings are unknown

I learn with no regret

I'm getting what I get.

Here Comes

You want the 80’s in a song? This is it? The mysterious electronic keys and lots of echoes make this song about the questions, answers, and mysteries of love. 

Black and White

The vibe goes back to INXS’ first single Simple Simon.

Golden Playpen

This song is proof of Michael’s gifted lyric writing inspired by his love of poetry and books. It’s not a prophetic song, it’s about sex, having fun, and some odd dancing chair man.

Jan’s Song

The first of a few times INXS gets political. Jan is clearly an activist. The song is Clash-y with those familiar 80’s vibes.

One World New Order

Pseudo political/cultural message of listening to what existed millennia before us. Gotta remember, the 80’s were flashy, gaudy, over the top, save the rainforests times.

Don’t Change

While INXS saw many of their hits off their sixth and seventh albums, Kick and X, this song continues to be an anthem for the band. This is such a positive song with a driving beat

Cash Box reviewed the "Don't Change" single saying "churning rhythms and swirling guitars provide a straight ahead forward thrust for singer Michael Hutchence's philosophical pronouncements.

^{*Rob, Tannenbaum; Marks, Craig (2011). I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution.} 

A Man Who Knew the Blues Too Well

"He just sort of kicked everybody's ass and nobody seemed to fight back," Jimmie remembered. "Stevie was on a cloud or something." Buddy Guy didn't know where it was coming from, just that whatever Stevie was doing worked a strange number on even him. "I had goose bumps," he said.  

August 26, 1990 Alpine Valley Wisconsin

August 27th, 1990, a foggy summer night, Stevie played at the Alpine Valley Amphitheater in Wisconsin before boarding a helicopter just after midnight that would never land at its final destination. Stevie left this world at the top of his game. He played the last song of that night with his heroes, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and his brother Jimmie. He played the last song of his life surrounded by guitar players who would soon revere him as one of the best blues guitar players that ever lived.

Stevie Ray, I believe, was so good at playing the blues because he'd been to hell and came back to tell the world about it. He overcame addictions and a broken heart and was proud to tell anyone that God got him through it. He believed that music could heal - that music was a part of everyone's soul. I think that is so true.

For me, it's personal. It's also been just as many years years since my dad passed, and Stevie Ray helped me stay strong through tough days at the hospital and nights when the house seemed so empty and life so alone. You could hear the heartbreak, soul and passion in Stevie's guitar. Tin Pan Alley, Rivera Paradise and Lenny speak for him. Life Without You was my song of mourning, You Better Leave My Little Girl Alone was my security blanket and Riviera Paradise was my song of meditation.

I think that saddest part about Stevie's death that he had made it from the bottom where he everyone was convinced he was going to die. Now, he was clean, in love, and playing the best he had ever played. He won the dance with the devil - only to be taken away by the angels.

I wish I had seen him play, to hear those notes sing in person, to watch his hands blur with the speed at which he played his emotions on his guitar Number 1. I cannot believe it has been so long since that day. I still cannot believe what emotions his music still brings to me, what memories they provoke.

Thank you, Stevie Ray Vaughan. You have unwittingly become a legend, one of the best blues guitarists that ever lived, an inspiration to those who face addictions and want to recover. To memorialize you, over 100 scholarships have been made possible for students who want music education in the Dallas area through events attended by fans such as myself. You will always be remembered.

Thank you for sharing your gift of music with us - we will never forget you.

"In the song 'Tick Tock,' he sings the refrain, 'Remember.' And what Stevie was trying to tell me, and I guess all of us.. he was trying to tell me, 'Nile, remember my music. Remember how important music is to all of us. And just remember that it's a gift.' Stevie was truly touched by the hand of God. He had a powerful gift. And through his music he can make us all remember things that are very, very important, like love and family. " ~ Nile Rodgers

Sing and Rejoice: Faith No More Angel Dust

On the wings of their quirky, psycho-rap hit single Epic, Faith No More’s third album, The Real Thing, flew past the platinum mark. So what do they do for an encore? They create what is probably the most uncommercial follow-up to a hit record ever. [i]

 

Before June 8, 1992, if someone said Faith No More, you automatically would have thought, did the fish die? It was the MTV generation and the California band with new lead singer Mike Patton had found fame with their two biggest hits to date, Epic and Falling to Pieces. Beyond that, not many knew the sound or songs. While their third studio album, The Real Thing, put them on the map, it would be their fourth album with Mike Patton sharing creativity and writing credits for the first time that would give them their most respected album to date. Think Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain when you want to try to categorize each song on the album. If the album cover yin yang of a blue egret and a butcher shop doesn’t forewarn you about what’s to come, shame on you.

For those who tuned into Headbangers Ball to see and hear the most anticipated
follow up, they would not be disappointed. Some were confused. And the band took the biggest gamble getting away from safe songs that would make the airwaves and MTV’s top 10. Midlife Crisis was as if someone took the video for Epic and handed it the design over to Danzig. It was darker, creatively palatable with blurred shots, closeups, and varied palettes of texture. And the song? It was a kick to the more simple sound of Epic. Patton’s vocals were both harmonious and demonic, layers of sound, samples, with that driving Faith No More sound (think Real Thing and Epic).

The album was creatively applauded and to this day still received high honors. In reality, the album was holding up a mirror to society. “I drove around a lot in my Honda,” Patton says, “Drove to a real bad area of town, parked and just watched people. Coffee shops and white-trash diner-type places were great for inspiration.” [ii] It would be the last album with Jim Martin and possibly the best Faith No More gave us.

The early 90’s were a weird time for bands. You made it on one or two videos and then the world expected you to keep churning out the same hits. Faith No More chose artistry, pushing back against what labels wanted, and took a risk. What we got was an album that reflected more of who the individual band members were and a lasting album that was more than the sum of its parts. 

Land of Sunshine

If this was the first song to be released (via or airwaves) it would have disappointed many who would have immediately recognized the throwback to From Out of Nowhere. It’s a great song, and maybe the slow peeling of the band aid, transitioning from the last album to this. Okay, down to the bass, it sounds very similar. But it’s catchy damn it, so pat yourself on the back and give yourself a handshake … cause everything is not yet lost. This song was written while sleep deprived and inspired by personality test questions and fortune cookie fortunes. [iii]

Caffeine

Sleep deprivation in a song. This is so how it feels when you’re just trying to stay awake, maybe with animal sounds.

Midlife Crisis

Otherwise known as “the Madonna song.” Hey it was the 90’s and Blonde Ambition was the rage, Madonna was wearing pointy cone bras, chasing JFK jr., and shooting her book, Sex. They called a spade a spade.

RV

Time to slow it down. This sad song makes me thing of a washed-up Elvis impersonator who lives in a trailer park, drinks too much, and speaks in stream of consciousness.

Smaller and Smaller

This is a beautifully written tragic poem – with a great bass line.

Drought makes the workers dream

Muscles and fields of green

Shovel the last few crumbs

Of generosity

Open heart, open mind, open mouth, open vein

Drain

Someday the rains will come

My blistered hands tell me

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow

Everything’s Ruined

Everything about the video is ruined, don’t watch it. It’s a wonderful song about the evils of money. Again, with the classic, driving Faith No More sound.

Malpractice

Not sure if this the song where they sample from The Wizard of Oz, but it sure feels like we’re not in Kansas anymore. It is, however, a song about a woman who loves getting plastic surgery.

Kindergarten

A brilliant song written by an angry 5-year-old. Seriously, the lyrics are brilliant and sad, the angry questioning possibly born within.

Drinking fountains are shorter than they used to be

The swings on the playground don't even fit me anymore

Folklore: Nobody's supposed to believe in the next grade

Write it a hundred times

Kingdom

Kindergarten

Waiting

Bell's not ringing

Held back again

Be Aggressive

If my mother hated that underwear poster, she really would have hated this song. Nothing like cheerleaders and aggressive fellatio, right?

 

A Small Victory

Yet another sad song about learning that there is a lot of pressure on youth to win. The video is a psychological look at that pressure of winning. They also should have saved some of the video budget on this song for Everything’s Ruined.

 

Jizzlober

Heavy, angry, ""It's written about some porno star, but I don't remember his name," he said. "I'm not the porno expert in the group!" Billy Gould. 

 

Midnight Cowboy

I watched the movie because of this instrumental. Thank you, Faith No More, for introducing me to a beautiful movie.

---

[i] Garza, Janiss (July 10, 1992). "Angel Dust". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved July 9, 2008.

[ii] Circus Magazine 1992; Patton Enjoys the Diner Things in Life

[iii] Reflex Magazine Issue 25, June 1992; Faith No More: Angel Dust in the wind by Jem Aswad

 

The Importance of Stranger Things to the GenXers and Music Lovers

This is music! ~ Eddie Munson

If you grew up in the last breaths of the Cold War, the Netflix series Stranger Things is a nostalgic lifeline to the fond memories we collectively share about our youth. There are the unique characters, the bond of friends, the alienation of being different that creates those cliquish, the varied music that was our therapist, the constant threat of world annihilation, the roller rinks and arcades, and the pop culture references to items that sustained us.

We can all associate and name someone that reminds of us the characters on the show. Each of us has a Nancy, Lucas, Max, Will, Mike, Steve, Eddie, Dustin, or Joyce and Hopper that they can refer to from their childhood. The scenes of houses with bikes piled up in yards, going home at dark, wanting to fit in, and joining forces to save the world … these scenes so accurately depicted it’s like watching a VHS tape of our own memories.

While the show uses a lot of music, it is season 4’s use of music to save those from the evil forces of Vecna. The importance of music on the show is what I relate to most. Music is a character – let’s face it. When you hear the opening chords of The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go, Dusting and Suzie singing Limahl’s Neverending Story theme song, or Eddie summoning the demobats with Metallica’s Master of Puppets, you know associate those songs with specific scenes and characters just as many of us do with music throughout our lives.

There was something incredibly fantastic and magical about music in the 80’s. GenXers were on the cusp of freedom from the Cold War, technology was giving us cool music videos and computer games, but we still relied on our imagination, a curfew of “when the streetlights come on,” and much of our activities revolved around music. While the global world order is passively referenced (using the Hawkins lab for work against Russia or the shenanigans of Enzo and Yuri around the gulag), the plight of saving the world moves from fiction (D&D) to fact (Demogorgon, Mind Flayer and Vecna). The use of music moves from background (Twist of Fate – Olivia Newton John) to life and death (Running Up that Hill – Kate Bush). Music was just always there thanks to radio and MTV/VH1. We had a soundtrack every waking moment of our days. Music was also different in that its accessibility was either on the radio, on the TV, or in the record stores. You had to wait for albums. You had to fast forward through cassette tapes. For God’s sake you had to memorize and guess lyrics.

There's a parable to Eddie's story, really, that is poetic, powerful, and beautiful
~ Joseph Quinn

The Duffer Brothers were too young to recall the years in which the first four seasons of Stranger Things took place (they were born in 1984) but they did a fantastic job capturing the feelings of the time. From social cliques to the fear of metal music and Dungeons and Dragons, the undertone of world demise (Russians or the Upsidedown), and the importance and constant presence of music, Stranger Things is a portal for the GenXers to reminisce and bask in the glory of complex, but simpler times. 

Season 5 should take us at least two years possibly into the future which means a post-Chernobyl and Live Aid, U2 releases Joshua Tree and George Michael releases Faith to the world.

Paula’s Upside Down, Save Me From Vecna Playlist (1980-1986)

Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House

Unforgettable Fire – U2

Orion – Metallica

Love Twist – Culture Club

Harden My Heart – Quarterflash

Listen Like Thieves – INXS

Let’s Dance – David Bowie

Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears

Love Don’t Live Here Anymore - Madonna

Raise Your Hands to Rock – Motley Crue

Private Dance – Tina Turner

Safety Dance – Men Without Hats

No Myth – Michael Penn

Overkill – Men at Work

Witness – Cyndi Lauper

**All images credit of Netflix**