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Life Goes On: The Lessons We Learned from 80s Music · Children of the 80s

0:15
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Children of the Eighties.
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Speaker 2: I am one of your hosts, Jim, and I am
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Speaker 2: joined by the book connoisseur, my co host Lindsay.
0:24
Speaker 1: Wow, I don't know about that, but today I will
0:28
Speaker 1: be How does that sound?
0:29
Speaker 2: That sounds good to be So, why don't you tell
0:33
Speaker 2: the folks what we've got going on here today.
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Speaker 1: So I haven't sat down and read a book since
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Speaker 1: you and I got married until I got my hands
0:42
Speaker 1: on an excerpt from this book.
0:46
Speaker 2: So this book is called Life Goes On the Lessons
0:49
Speaker 2: We Learned from Eighties Music, and we are joined by
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Speaker 2: one of the authors, Eric Shores.
0:56
Speaker 1: Eric, how are you doing?
0:57
Speaker 3: Doing very well? Jim Lindsay, thanks for having me on
0:59
Speaker 3: the podcas cast. Great to be here.
1:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely when I heard about this book, I thought, boy,
1:04
Speaker 2: this is right up my ali and so let's get
1:07
Speaker 2: together with Eric and see if we can't give him
1:10
Speaker 2: an interview, promote his book, and learn a little bit
1:13
Speaker 2: more about what you have going on here.
1:15
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm very excited to talk about the book. And
1:19
Speaker 3: you know, eighties music, as we know, is really connective tissue,
1:22
Speaker 3: especially for Generation X, and that's really I think at
1:25
Speaker 3: the heart of this book is that connective tissue that
1:28
Speaker 3: we as a generation have with one another that we
1:31
Speaker 3: may have thought we only had with you know, our
1:34
Speaker 3: select group of friends within our i'll say, geographic area
1:38
Speaker 3: of where we lived, where it was school or neighbors
1:40
Speaker 3: or what have you. And and that's really one of
1:42
Speaker 3: the things that I wanted to bring out was the
1:45
Speaker 3: life experience of Generation X at middle age. You know,
1:49
Speaker 3: how are we navigating now that we're in our forties,
1:52
Speaker 3: our fifties, and you know, the leading edge of the
1:54
Speaker 3: generation is turning sixty this year.
1:56
Speaker 1: Oh oh wow, I know.
1:58
Speaker 3: I know that that kind of hit You're eight and
2:00
Speaker 3: the kidneys, But you know, I've done the it works.
2:03
Speaker 1: Why do we as Generation x ers is that a word?
2:09
Speaker 1: Gen xers? Why do we still cling to our eighties music?
2:14
Speaker 1: I feel like we really still hold on to those
2:17
Speaker 1: songs from our youth, maybe more so than some of
2:20
Speaker 1: the more recent generations.
2:24
Speaker 3: Oh boy, that's a great question, because I think there's
2:27
Speaker 3: so many reasons why every every generation is gripped by nostalgia.
2:33
Speaker 3: We remember the quote unquote simpler days and the music
2:36
Speaker 3: of the era, and and not having responsibilities. And Generation
2:42
Speaker 3: X is a little bit atypical in that regard because
2:45
Speaker 3: being latchkey kids, we had to be more mature, even
2:49
Speaker 3: younger than maybe some of the generations before us and
2:53
Speaker 3: after us. And so when we look at, you know,
2:57
Speaker 3: the music of the era, and it was just so
3:00
Speaker 3: much fun, even though a lot of the songs, when
3:03
Speaker 3: we go back and read the lyrics now we're going,
3:04
Speaker 3: oh my, that's highly inappropriate. So so I think, you know,
3:11
Speaker 3: the music was fun, the clothes were fun, the pop
3:14
Speaker 3: culture was amazing, and I think, really on one aspect
3:21
Speaker 3: of it, the eighties told our story. I mean, if
3:25
Speaker 3: you look at the John Hughes movies, we were watching
3:29
Speaker 3: our generation live out essentially our experiences on the big
3:33
Speaker 3: screen as teenagers, as young adults. And I think that's
3:37
Speaker 3: one of those things where you know, we we missed
3:41
Speaker 3: the eighties because that was the only thing that was
3:44
Speaker 3: about us, because we were the generation that the adults said, literally,
3:49
Speaker 3: you know, go play out in the street, go away,
3:52
Speaker 3: you know, don't come back till you see the city
3:54
Speaker 3: street lights come on. And we had to fend for ourselves.
3:57
Speaker 3: And I'm sure you've seen the memes on social media
4:00
Speaker 3: where we're a generation that was thirty years of age
4:03
Speaker 3: at thirteen and we're still thirty years of age today.
4:07
Speaker 3: And I think again, as a generation, we kind of
4:10
Speaker 3: harken back to the eighties and we want to sit
4:12
Speaker 3: in our rooms, fire up the atari, turn on our
4:15
Speaker 3: pop station with the tape recorder nearby, so we could,
4:18
Speaker 3: you know, do our mixtapes as we could do them
4:21
Speaker 3: back with that technology. And I think that's why we
4:25
Speaker 3: just missed the eighties so much, because that was when
4:27
Speaker 3: it was about us and about fun, and the responsibilities
4:31
Speaker 3: were still there, but they were different than they are today.
4:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Eric, one thing that I've discovered since
4:37
Speaker 2: we started doing this podcast is, you know, I think
4:41
Speaker 2: we all grow up with a smaller sense of the world.
4:46
Speaker 2: You know, it's just kind of us in our community,
4:49
Speaker 2: and so we think that the life experience that we
4:52
Speaker 2: have are our own and maybe nobody else experienced that.
4:56
Speaker 2: And then the more podcast about the eighties or nostalgia
4:59
Speaker 2: podcasts that I listen to, and the more we interact
5:01
Speaker 2: with our listeners, it's like everybody had those experiences. Now
5:05
Speaker 2: they may be slightly different, they maybe tilted a degree
5:08
Speaker 2: or two, but for the most part, everybody had that experience.
5:13
Speaker 2: And then we're able to connect as adults. Even though
5:15
Speaker 2: we've never met each other, we're able to connect as
5:18
Speaker 2: adults and it's almost like we've known each other our
5:20
Speaker 2: whole lives.
5:22
Speaker 3: And that is exactly what I wanted to capture with
5:25
Speaker 3: this book. This book has been three years in the making,
5:29
Speaker 3: from the first germ of the idea to now. And
5:33
Speaker 3: part of why I did the book as an anthology
5:36
Speaker 3: with multiple contributors is because I grew up in the
5:41
Speaker 3: middle of Iowa, cornfields in Iowa, so my experience was
5:45
Speaker 3: far different than somebody who grew up in a city
5:48
Speaker 3: in the Midwest or in the South or whatever. And
5:50
Speaker 3: I didn't think I was qualified to speak for our
5:53
Speaker 3: entire generation. You know, I had responsibilities, but my parents
5:57
Speaker 3: weren't boomers. My parents were greatest generation and stayed married.
6:03
Speaker 3: I was not a latch key kid, but I still
6:05
Speaker 3: had responsibilities. And so that's the reason we find so
6:09
Speaker 3: many authors within this anthology is because I wanted to
6:12
Speaker 3: get a more representative snapshot of Generation X as we
6:17
Speaker 3: were growing up and where we are now and have
6:20
Speaker 3: that common connective thread of music tell the story in
6:24
Speaker 3: the background. And I think that it's made for a
6:27
Speaker 3: very fascinating book. And for me very rewarding because of
6:32
Speaker 3: the sixteen contributors in this book, I only knew one
6:36
Speaker 3: of them before I started the project.
6:39
Speaker 2: And I was going to ask you that, how did
6:42
Speaker 2: how did you come about getting the sixteen?
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Speaker 3: So to go to the very beginning, I was sitting
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Speaker 3: listening to my beloved eighties channel on Sirius XM Quick
6:53
Speaker 3: Plug Get No Money from It, and Jack and Diane
6:57
Speaker 3: came on the radio, and Jack and Diane and that
7:00
Speaker 3: song came out in eighty two. I was a freshman
7:02
Speaker 3: in high school, so presumably Jack and Diane were seniors
7:05
Speaker 3: in high school in nineteen eighty two, And so I'm
7:09
Speaker 3: listening to the song as I have thousands of times
7:11
Speaker 3: during my lifetime, and this time it hit different, and
7:15
Speaker 3: I wonder whatever happened to Jack and Diane, because you know,
7:19
Speaker 3: Jackie was going to be the football star and Diane
7:22
Speaker 3: debutante backseat of Jackie's car. Well, what happened? Did they
7:26
Speaker 3: stay together after high school? Did they go to college,
7:28
Speaker 3: they continue to play football, did they get married, did
7:33
Speaker 3: they have a kid? Are they divorced? Where are they
7:37
Speaker 3: now that they're in their fifties? And then I thought, well,
7:41
Speaker 3: what about the rest of us too, What where's gen
7:44
Speaker 3: X at middle age? And so, as I mentioned, I
7:47
Speaker 3: didn't want to write that story myself because I don't
7:49
Speaker 3: think I'm qualified to speak for an entire generation, and
7:52
Speaker 3: so I thought, I need to find voices who can
7:56
Speaker 3: speak for a representative sample of gen X. And I
8:00
Speaker 3: wanted to do it with music because again, for all
8:04
Speaker 3: the reasons I've said, eighties music is awesome and there's
8:06
Speaker 3: so many stories that are told in our lives with
8:10
Speaker 3: eighties music in the background. And so I sat back
8:15
Speaker 3: and I just thought, well, I got to find people
8:18
Speaker 3: who who want to be part of this project, and
8:22
Speaker 3: literally just started googling, you know, gen X content creators,
8:27
Speaker 3: gen X journalists right on down the line, and his
8:31
Speaker 3: names came up. I'm just saying, hey, I'm Eric Shores,
8:34
Speaker 3: and I'm writing this book about gen X, said you
8:36
Speaker 3: know in middle age and this and that and the
8:38
Speaker 3: other thing. And some people ignored it. Some people said, hey,
8:41
Speaker 3: great idea, I just don't have the time, and others said,
8:44
Speaker 3: I am so in what do you need? But literally
8:47
Speaker 3: I spent by about two years to get all the
8:51
Speaker 3: contributors in place because I didn't want it to be
8:53
Speaker 3: a handful. I thought, sixteen people, that's a pretty decent
8:56
Speaker 3: sample size and a pretty good sized book. Where it's
8:59
Speaker 3: not it's it has depth, but it's not too heavy
9:04
Speaker 3: so to speak as far as like being too big
9:06
Speaker 3: of a book, because who knows, if this takes off,
9:08
Speaker 3: we'll do a second volume or such. And I'm just
9:13
Speaker 3: I've been so blessed because largely my friend Chavon, who
9:17
Speaker 3: is from Ireland who moved to the United States probably
9:20
Speaker 3: thirty thirty five years ago. I knew her, but all
9:23
Speaker 3: of these other people were strangers before getting to know
9:26
Speaker 3: them online, and they took a chance on me because literally,
9:30
Speaker 3: I said, okay, pick a song from the eighties that
9:34
Speaker 3: was meaningful to you, then that's still meaningful now? And
9:38
Speaker 3: you know right why? You know why? For both? Why
9:41
Speaker 3: was it impactful? Then? Why does it still have an
9:43
Speaker 3: impact now? And I'd like, no more than three thousand
9:47
Speaker 3: words good luck? And what came back to me was incredible.
9:54
Speaker 3: The stories And I just said, could be funny, could
9:58
Speaker 3: be sad, could be pointed, can be off the wall,
10:01
Speaker 3: whatever you need feels to be said, say it. And
10:06
Speaker 3: I just I was stunned with what I got and
10:09
Speaker 3: with each essay, I'm just going this person nailed the assignment,
10:12
Speaker 3: and I was purposely vague because I did not want
10:15
Speaker 3: to bias them in a way that would limit them.
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Speaker 3: So they chose the song, and amazingly, nobody chose the
10:21
Speaker 3: same song, and who who was on the list of
10:27
Speaker 3: artists and who wasn't was equally surprising. And it was
10:31
Speaker 3: just I'm just, as you can hear in my voice,
10:33
Speaker 3: just tickled when I talk about this book, because these
10:36
Speaker 3: people who joined in from Gen X did such a
10:41
Speaker 3: fantastic job. And you know, when a project comes together
10:45
Speaker 3: and largely you just sent out a signal, so to speak,
10:48
Speaker 3: and it came back with what happened it was. It
10:51
Speaker 3: was truly amazing.
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Speaker 4: That's fantastic, that's awesome.
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Speaker 1: So I've got to know, if you could sum up
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Speaker 1: or pick one artist or one musician from the eighties
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Speaker 1: that sums up the generation the best, who would it
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Speaker 1: be or what band would it be? Wow, I thought
11:14
Speaker 1: it's CNN over here, listen.
11:16
Speaker 3: Well, and I thought you were going to go a
11:18
Speaker 3: slightly different direction with that question, because the offshoot where
11:22
Speaker 3: I thought you were going was something that I've been
11:24
Speaker 3: pondering that we as Generation X to try and sum
11:28
Speaker 3: up the eighties with a song or a band For
11:32
Speaker 3: someone who didn't live through it, what was what would
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Speaker 3: immediately give them a sense of the eighties.
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Speaker 1: Okay, well I want that question.
11:39
Speaker 3: And not best artist, not most popular, not the greatest
11:44
Speaker 3: song right now, and I kind of came back. I've
11:49
Speaker 3: got two answers, but I leaned towards soft Cells Tainted Love.
11:54
Speaker 4: That's Lindsay's favorite.
11:56
Speaker 1: And.
11:58
Speaker 3: Probably Rio from Duran Duran oh awesome, and probably soft Sell.
12:04
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is when you listen
12:06
Speaker 3: to that song, you've got the synthesizers, the keyboards, the
12:10
Speaker 3: really i'll call it awesomely kitchy presentation of you know,
12:17
Speaker 3: the singer, how he's singing and putting forth. I think
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Speaker 3: if you've got to sum it up, it would be that,
12:24
Speaker 3: now what song? Hell boy? You know what? It may
12:28
Speaker 3: sound cliche, but I'm going to go with Don't You
12:30
Speaker 3: Forget About Me? From the Breakfast Club because there's no
12:34
Speaker 3: wrong answer.
12:35
Speaker 1: But I love your answer and good job.
12:37
Speaker 3: And here, thank you well, and here's why we are
12:42
Speaker 3: as gen X, the most overlooked, underappreciated generation. And one
12:49
Speaker 3: of the things that I touch on in the book.
12:52
Speaker 3: In my introduction is, you know, when we hear the
12:56
Speaker 3: politicians today and I'll pick on Washington, d C. And
13:00
Speaker 3: we have baby boomers that have been in there for
13:03
Speaker 3: you know, forty fifty years from both parties, doesn't matter.
13:06
Speaker 3: They say, well, we need to pass this torch on
13:09
Speaker 3: to the next generation, and they're talking about the frickin' millennials.
13:15
Speaker 3: Boomers cannot get over the fact that they don't like us,
13:18
Speaker 3: that they just want us off to the sidelines. And
13:21
Speaker 3: so you know, with the Breakfast Club, there were so
13:23
Speaker 3: many amazing things in there, again speaking of and to
13:27
Speaker 3: our generation. And one of the most popular songs off
13:31
Speaker 3: that soundtrack was Don't You Forget About Me? And I
13:33
Speaker 3: would have to say that's probably if Gen x rallies
13:36
Speaker 3: around a song, it would be that one.
13:39
Speaker 1: Wow. So, when I was reading some of the excerpts
13:43
Speaker 1: that you sent us, I was not to get like
13:45
Speaker 1: too deep and or dark on this, but something that
13:48
Speaker 1: I was struck with. My parents were older boomers, and
13:54
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about anything.
13:56
Speaker 4: Actually your dad was pre boomer, he might.
13:58
Speaker 1: Have been so, but we didn't talk about anything. I'd
14:03
Speaker 1: never got the birds and the bees conversation. We didn't
14:06
Speaker 1: talk about feelings or anything, you know, anything. And what
14:11
Speaker 1: that caused me to do growing up was I retreated
14:16
Speaker 1: to my room and I relied on the music. And
14:22
Speaker 1: music taught me all the things that I needed or
14:25
Speaker 1: didn't need to know, and it taught me how to
14:28
Speaker 1: process my emotions, how to cope with my emotions. It
14:31
Speaker 1: taught me a little bit maybe about love. And I
14:35
Speaker 1: don't know if that was healthy or not, but it's
14:38
Speaker 1: just that was something that I was struck with, and
14:40
Speaker 1: it just I'd never thought about that before that. It's
14:45
Speaker 1: I definitely went to music, and in a way, it
14:48
Speaker 1: parented me, yes, and it helped me grow up well.
14:52
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, kind of using that as
14:55
Speaker 3: a launch point. I didn't get the birds and the
14:57
Speaker 3: bees talk either, and part of that was a relief
15:01
Speaker 3: because my dad was forty eight and my mom was
15:04
Speaker 3: forty when I was born, So, you know, kindergarten roundup
15:08
Speaker 3: was a little bit shocking to me because I'm thinking,
15:10
Speaker 3: aren't these people a little bit young to be parents?
15:13
Speaker 3: And everybody thought my grandparents were bringing me in, you know,
15:15
Speaker 3: for kindergarten roundup, But to me that was normal. But
15:19
Speaker 3: you know, with with my essay life experience, and I'll
15:24
Speaker 3: say kind of raising myself in a sense, kind of
15:27
Speaker 3: the way you were saying about, you know, learning about
15:29
Speaker 3: the world and how we do things. My dad was
15:32
Speaker 3: very closed off, he was very stoic. He really kept
15:35
Speaker 3: to himself, and so I didn't have really any male
15:39
Speaker 3: role models to teach me how to be a man
15:43
Speaker 3: and how to navigate the world as a man. I
15:46
Speaker 3: just had to try to figure things out. And you know,
15:49
Speaker 3: songs were a big part of that, obviously. But also
15:52
Speaker 3: if you look at eighties movies, and I touch on
15:55
Speaker 3: this in my essay, and I saw this on a
15:59
Speaker 3: meme the other day. It was like, which is the
16:01
Speaker 3: greatest hero of the eighties and it was you know,
16:04
Speaker 3: Batman and Rigs from a Lethal Weapon and John McLain,
16:10
Speaker 3: on and on and on. Who I talk about in
16:12
Speaker 3: my essay. We didn't have heroes. Our heroes abandoned us.
16:19
Speaker 3: They told us to go away and had nothing to
16:22
Speaker 3: do with us. So who did we learn from? We
16:24
Speaker 3: learned from the anti heroes who lived by their own code,
16:28
Speaker 3: who still wanted to do right, but they wanted to
16:31
Speaker 3: do right on their on their terms, and to heck
16:34
Speaker 3: with authority. And so you know, as we looked at
16:38
Speaker 3: pop culture, both movies and music, that really was kind
16:42
Speaker 3: of a guidepost in how our norms were shaped, in
16:46
Speaker 3: our identities as individuals, how we viewed the world, how
16:51
Speaker 3: we viewed ourselves in the world. And then okay, here's
16:54
Speaker 3: how I'm going to navigate the world. Because the people
16:56
Speaker 3: that should have been guiding us decided they didn't want
17:01
Speaker 3: to have any part of it.
17:04
Speaker 4: So you're saying Martin Riggs and John McClain, they weren't
17:07
Speaker 4: for truth justice in the American way, No, they.
17:11
Speaker 3: Were definitely though, for justice in their.
17:13
Speaker 4: Way, yeah, justice or vengeance, yes.
17:17
Speaker 3: Well, and and then you know, with an anti heroo,
17:22
Speaker 3: you better be right because if you do it your
17:25
Speaker 3: way and it fails, there will be tremendous consequences. And
17:28
Speaker 3: I think you know that ran as a theme in
17:30
Speaker 3: the movies too. The you know, the Danny Glover characters
17:33
Speaker 3: and such were always like, no, no, we can't do
17:35
Speaker 3: it that way. We're gonna get in trouble, somebody's gonna
17:37
Speaker 3: get killed. And it's like, well, only if it doesn't work,
17:39
Speaker 3: So let's do this thing.
17:43
Speaker 4: Uh So, when when do you expect to release the book?
17:48
Speaker 3: Looking to release the book mid October, in time for
17:52
Speaker 3: the holiday book buying season. Nice, and really excited about that.
17:57
Speaker 3: It's a it's coming together great. The manuscripts can complete.
18:00
Speaker 3: It's just a matter of getting all the final preparations
18:04
Speaker 3: in place and getting copies of the book ready to
18:06
Speaker 3: go out into the marketplace. And as much as I
18:10
Speaker 3: don't want to wish time away, I'm really looking forward
18:13
Speaker 3: to fall.
18:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you probably have noticed this. As you get older,
18:17
Speaker 2: time seems to speed up. Anyway, it seems to accelerate,
18:20
Speaker 2: So it'll be here before you know it.
18:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely. My wife and I were just talking about that
18:25
Speaker 3: the other day. We've been together twenty one years now,
18:28
Speaker 3: and we you know, the math works, but we can't
18:32
Speaker 3: understand how the heck we got here so fast. And
18:35
Speaker 3: I said, because we're having so much fun. Time is flying.
18:39
Speaker 3: You're welcome, but it is frightening, you know how fast
18:45
Speaker 3: time is going. And the math works. But you know,
18:50
Speaker 3: like my stepdaughter was thirteen when my wife and I met,
18:55
Speaker 3: and she's now she just turned thirty four, I think,
19:00
Speaker 3: and it's like, good heavens, where did that? What happened?
19:04
Speaker 3: But I will tell you one thing though, Lindsay, getting
19:06
Speaker 3: back to your birds and bees. Yes, my stepdaughter, when
19:12
Speaker 3: she was a freshman in high school, she was firing
19:16
Speaker 3: very specific sexual questions at me, not to be provocative. Yeah,
19:25
Speaker 3: when she asked me the first question, it was I
19:28
Speaker 3: kind of looked at her to gauge, Okay, is she
19:30
Speaker 3: trying to be provocative or is she really wanting to know?
19:33
Speaker 3: And I looked at her face and her body language
19:36
Speaker 3: because my daughter was very confrontational back in those days,
19:39
Speaker 3: so so being snarky was not something that would have
19:43
Speaker 3: been beyond her. And I looked at her and like, oh,
19:46
Speaker 3: she really wants to know. So I'm like, okay, well
19:48
Speaker 3: let's do this. And we had if she wants to know,
19:51
Speaker 3: I'll just flat out tell her, right, And we had
19:54
Speaker 3: a very frank, very open conversation and it wasn't awkward
19:59
Speaker 3: and she he wasn't embarrassed, and surprisingly I wasn't embarrassed.
20:03
Speaker 3: But I think that's one of the things too with
20:05
Speaker 3: Generation X and our children is we knew what we
20:09
Speaker 3: missed out on that we didn't want our children to
20:12
Speaker 3: miss out on some of those things, especially on the
20:15
Speaker 3: emotional side. If they wanted to know, well, how does
20:18
Speaker 3: this work or how does this function with the ways
20:21
Speaker 3: of the world and how they navigate in it. I
20:24
Speaker 3: was okay with taking it head on, and I'll give
20:27
Speaker 3: my daughter credit. She was not afraid to ask the questions.
20:30
Speaker 3: But she also wasn't afraid to hear the answers or
20:33
Speaker 3: be embarrassed by it. And I think as a generation,
20:37
Speaker 3: we are not afraid to give it to you straight. Yeah,
20:40
Speaker 3: you may not like what we say, but we're going
20:43
Speaker 3: to be honest and authentic about it.
20:44
Speaker 1: I agree with that, and I think each generation is
20:48
Speaker 1: just probably doing the best that they can with what
20:51
Speaker 1: they have. So I think the Boomer parents they were
20:55
Speaker 1: trying for whatever reason. Talking was not something again that
21:01
Speaker 1: we did. But what it did show me was I
21:04
Speaker 1: knew that when we had children, I wanted our children
21:07
Speaker 1: to know we could talk about anything. Right, So I'm open,
21:11
Speaker 1: we can talk. You don't need to be embarrassed, you
21:13
Speaker 1: don't need to be nervous, because I would rather you
21:16
Speaker 1: hear it from us than retreat to your room. And
21:20
Speaker 1: of course now they have the internet, so that's super scary,
21:23
Speaker 1: but retreat to your room and try to figure it
21:25
Speaker 1: out on your own.
21:28
Speaker 2: So Eric, I'm just looking at the at the mixtape,
21:33
Speaker 2: I guess that you have here for each essay, and
21:36
Speaker 2: it sure runs the gamut from let's see hairbands to
21:43
Speaker 2: female rockers to like you said, John Mellencamp. But then
21:47
Speaker 2: we've got some maybe not I wouldn't say super popular,
21:52
Speaker 2: you know, when you come to like early Ram, some
21:56
Speaker 2: Phil Collins, some Minute Works. So it kind of runs
21:58
Speaker 2: all over the place. And I know you said you
22:01
Speaker 2: told each person to pick what song that they wanted
22:05
Speaker 2: to talk about, But how pleased were you when this
22:08
Speaker 2: came in and did you feel like it encompassed at
22:11
Speaker 2: least most of the decade.
22:14
Speaker 3: I did, and I was happy with the song selection
22:17
Speaker 3: from the standpoint is for exactly what you said. We
22:21
Speaker 3: had a little bit of mix of everything you know,
22:23
Speaker 3: from Rim to guns n' Roses, the Pogues. I didn't
22:31
Speaker 3: see the Pogues or Rim coming in on this list,
22:35
Speaker 3: if you will, But as you read with the essays,
22:40
Speaker 3: it so fits perfectly. And that is going back to
22:46
Speaker 3: what surprised me, because again I didn't assign any songs.
22:48
Speaker 3: I didn't signing an artist. I said, you pick, and
22:51
Speaker 3: nobody chose the same song. I didn't have to say
22:54
Speaker 3: to any individual. I'm sorry, somebody's already doing that song.
22:57
Speaker 3: Pick another one. But what is also surprising is the
23:01
Speaker 3: holy Trinity of the eighties was not represented. I noticed Madonna,
23:07
Speaker 3: no Michael Jackson, no Prince and that, And I'm still
23:12
Speaker 3: trying to figure what that means exactly, because they had
23:17
Speaker 3: all you know, they've all had iconic songs and hit songs,
23:20
Speaker 3: but did they not have one that was meaningful in
23:23
Speaker 3: that way, you know, from a teenager too to a
23:28
Speaker 3: fifty something or a forty something. But no, I was
23:32
Speaker 3: not disappointed at all by the songs that came back.
23:34
Speaker 4: I was.
23:35
Speaker 3: I was delighted by, you know, not to use the
23:39
Speaker 3: bud buzzword, diversity of what we came in. And like
23:44
Speaker 3: I say, when you read these essays, they're incredibly powerful.
23:48
Speaker 3: Some are very nostalgic, feel good type stuff. Laura Wise,
23:54
Speaker 3: who wrote based on subdivisions from Rush Again, who I
23:58
Speaker 3: did not expect to show up, you know, on the list,
24:01
Speaker 3: but it so totally fit about her high school experience
24:04
Speaker 3: and trying to find a way to fit in and
24:08
Speaker 3: things of that nature. And I thought everybody did a
24:10
Speaker 3: great job of weaving in the lyrics throughout the story
24:15
Speaker 3: to more or less compliment the point that they were making.
24:20
Speaker 3: And one of the most powerful essays is my friend Chavaughn,
24:23
Speaker 3: who grew up in Ireland, It's where she was born.
24:26
Speaker 3: The Pogues the fairy Tale of New York song I'd
24:30
Speaker 3: never heard or heard of until it came to me
24:33
Speaker 3: in an essay and then she sent me the YouTube
24:35
Speaker 3: link to watch the video and I fell off the chair.
24:38
Speaker 3: It's a really hardcore song and she heard it three
24:43
Speaker 3: different ways in three different stages of her life, where
24:47
Speaker 3: at first she hated it and then she kind of
24:49
Speaker 3: warmed up to it, and now it feels like a
24:53
Speaker 3: warm sweater when she hears it at Christmas time. And
24:58
Speaker 3: incredibly powerful essay. And again that's that was meaningful to
25:03
Speaker 3: me because Jack and Diane that one time that I
25:07
Speaker 3: heard it hit me differently, and I think where we
25:10
Speaker 3: are now, whether it's you know, we're getting to an
25:13
Speaker 3: age where we're thinking about retirement and our mortality, or
25:17
Speaker 3: how old our kids are, or how society has changed,
25:21
Speaker 3: or how our music hits us differently. Today, things do
25:25
Speaker 3: hit differently because we have all this life experience and
25:28
Speaker 3: experiences behind us. We hear a song differently now because
25:32
Speaker 3: a word or a phrase has a different meaning to
25:35
Speaker 3: us now than it did when we were younger.
25:37
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny that you say that, because on our podcast,
25:40
Speaker 2: that is something that we do whenever we do a
25:42
Speaker 2: music episode. You know, we talk about the song. We
25:44
Speaker 2: talk about, you know, what it meant to us as kids,
25:47
Speaker 2: you know, whether or not we liked it or hated
25:49
Speaker 2: it or whatever, and really what it means to us now,
25:52
Speaker 2: you know. And even if we hated it then and
25:56
Speaker 2: like it now, 're liked it then and have gotten
25:58
Speaker 2: sick of it and don't like it now, it still
26:00
Speaker 2: brings back those feelings of nostalgia that take you back
26:05
Speaker 2: to that happy place right, makes you feel good, kind
26:08
Speaker 2: of gives you the as Lindsay likes to say, the
26:10
Speaker 2: warm fuzzies. And it works out perfect.
26:15
Speaker 3: And I talk about that in the book as well.
26:16
Speaker 3: I reference it where you know, there's a bunch of songs,
26:20
Speaker 3: but two that right off the bat. When I hear
26:24
Speaker 3: that first note, I'm instantly transported back to a place
26:27
Speaker 3: in a time, and one of those is Eddie Grant's
26:30
Speaker 3: Electric Avenue. Because when that came out, it was the
26:35
Speaker 3: end of my freshman year of high school, and at
26:38
Speaker 3: my school we did drivers training in I think June,
26:42
Speaker 3: between the end of the freshman year and the beginning
26:45
Speaker 3: of sophomore year. And so I'm listening to my favorite
26:48
Speaker 3: radio station getting up in the morning, getting ready to
26:50
Speaker 3: go to Driver's Head, and it seemed like every morning,
26:54
Speaker 3: somewhere between my getting up and going to Driver's Head,
26:57
Speaker 3: Electric Avenue was on the radio, and it was a
27:01
Speaker 3: beautiful summer. So I'd be stepping out of the house
27:04
Speaker 3: on the farm and it's sunny skies, blue skies, breeze,
27:11
Speaker 3: sixty five degrees, a little just a little nip of
27:15
Speaker 3: crispness in the air, and I'm instantly there anytime I
27:19
Speaker 3: hear that song. And the other one is Walking on
27:23
Speaker 3: Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. My last day senior
27:27
Speaker 3: year of high school, and I could not wait to
27:31
Speaker 3: get out of high school and go to college and
27:34
Speaker 3: take classes I wanted to take, not the ones they
27:37
Speaker 3: forced me to. And the your Science teacher was my
27:40
Speaker 3: homeroom teacher, and people were still getting off the bus
27:44
Speaker 3: waiting for first bell for homeroom. I'm the only one
27:47
Speaker 3: in the room.
27:48
Speaker 4: It's just me.
27:49
Speaker 3: The radios on teacher wasn't even there radios on to
27:52
Speaker 3: that radio station that I loved listening to, and Katrina
27:55
Speaker 3: in the Waves Walking on Sunshine came on and I
27:59
Speaker 3: had this rentalin burst. I am not kidding you. I
28:03
Speaker 3: got we had the long science tables, no sins, just
28:06
Speaker 3: the long tables. I ran across every table top in
28:11
Speaker 3: that classroom until that song was over, and amazingly, no
28:16
Speaker 3: one came in while I was doing that. I was
28:20
Speaker 3: just running like a maniac, which is something I would
28:23
Speaker 3: not have ever done before that day. But I was
28:26
Speaker 3: just so caught up in the moment and jubilant that
28:29
Speaker 3: this was the last day of public school for me.
28:32
Speaker 3: And then the song finished, I sat down, and then
28:35
Speaker 3: people started streaming in home, and no one knew, and
28:39
Speaker 3: no one knew. I think that's me, and I think
28:43
Speaker 3: that's true of a lot of people were That song
28:45
Speaker 3: at a certain moment of our lives just imprints itself
28:49
Speaker 3: into our psychees that whenever we hear it, it's just
28:53
Speaker 3: like whatever we're doing, however we old, however old we are,
28:57
Speaker 3: whatever the years, everything just peels away boom, and we're
29:01
Speaker 3: fifteen years old again, or we're seventeen years old again,
29:05
Speaker 3: or whatever the case. May be. And I think that's
29:07
Speaker 3: one of the special things about music is that it
29:10
Speaker 3: can do exactly that, providing the soundtrack for our lives
29:14
Speaker 3: and remain so as we're well into our forties and
29:18
Speaker 3: fifties as gen xers.
29:20
Speaker 1: So how important do you think the walkman invention was
29:23
Speaker 1: to our generation?
29:26
Speaker 3: Oh? I think the walkman and the boombox to add
29:30
Speaker 3: to it, were incredibly important. And this is something that
29:34
Speaker 3: I've talked about as well across the board. As much
29:38
Speaker 3: as today's generation is like, oh look at this at Spotify.
29:43
Speaker 3: Oh we can take our music wherever we want to,
29:45
Speaker 3: or oh look we can watch Netflix or we can
29:49
Speaker 3: stream things, it's like, yeah, well, we could take our
29:53
Speaker 3: music wherever we wanted to as well. It was called
29:55
Speaker 3: a walkman or a boombox. We had time shifted to
30:00
Speaker 3: television viewing. It was called a VCR, and I think
30:03
Speaker 3: that's one of the special things about our generation is
30:06
Speaker 3: all the things that we ooh and ah about today,
30:10
Speaker 3: twenty four hour cable channels, mobile music, time shifted television viewing,
30:17
Speaker 3: et cetera. That started with us gaming were the og gamers. Yes,
30:23
Speaker 3: shout out Atari and Pong for this guy. So I
30:27
Speaker 3: think the Walkman was incredibly powerful because before that we
30:32
Speaker 3: had to physically be in one spot, because the radio
30:36
Speaker 3: had to be attached to something, whether it was a
30:39
Speaker 3: power court into an outlet in our homes or in
30:43
Speaker 3: the car that we were writing in. And you know,
30:47
Speaker 3: to that point, we could only listen to music on
30:49
Speaker 3: devices where you had a power court. And now if
30:55
Speaker 3: you had you know, eight D cell batteries in your
30:57
Speaker 3: boom box and a cassette tape, you were golden. And
31:00
Speaker 3: I will tell you, and I can go show you.
31:03
Speaker 3: But I still have the first boombox I bought in
31:06
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four, no way legit. So that's how well,
31:12
Speaker 3: that's how a nostalgic I am. I still have the
31:14
Speaker 3: Dagon thing and the Walkman. Now we could take our
31:18
Speaker 3: music wherever we went. We could use our tape recorders
31:21
Speaker 3: to do our own mixtape recording off the radio. And
31:26
Speaker 3: now if we wanted to go skateboarding, or you know,
31:28
Speaker 3: if you were in an urban area and wanted to
31:30
Speaker 3: have you know, break dancing competitions, all you needed was
31:34
Speaker 3: a piece of cardboard in your boom box and you
31:36
Speaker 3: were ready to rattle some windows and get down and go.
31:39
Speaker 3: So I think I think it was incredibly important, not
31:42
Speaker 3: just for our generation, but it paved the way for
31:43
Speaker 3: everybody else after us.
31:46
Speaker 2: It's funny because we literally had this conversation earlier tonight
31:50
Speaker 2: leading up to this interview. It was like, you know,
31:53
Speaker 2: what do you think why do you think our generation,
31:57
Speaker 2: you know, was so connected to their music? And I'm like,
31:59
Speaker 2: because we were able to be mobile, And I said
32:01
Speaker 2: the exact same thing you said, Eric. We weren't tied
32:04
Speaker 2: to either our house stereo or being in the car.
32:07
Speaker 2: Right as a ten year old or eleven year old
32:09
Speaker 2: or fifteen year old or whatever, you could strap on
32:11
Speaker 2: the walkman and go walk into your friends who lived
32:14
Speaker 2: a half mile and you get in you know, five
32:16
Speaker 2: songs or six songs or whatever. And it was like
32:19
Speaker 2: you said, it became mobile, and we are the first
32:24
Speaker 2: generation that could do that. And I think that's why,
32:26
Speaker 2: you know, one reason why we're so connected to our music.
32:30
Speaker 3: And I think along with that, Jim, is there was
32:33
Speaker 3: also a certain autonomy it gave us because I know
32:37
Speaker 3: at my house we had the community stereo, and my
32:42
Speaker 3: mom and dad were Marty Robbins, Guy Lombardo, you know,
32:47
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. And you know, some of the
32:48
Speaker 3: music I listened to and it was okay, But I
32:51
Speaker 3: didn't get to play my music on the stereo, et
32:55
Speaker 3: cetera if my parents were in the room, because A
32:58
Speaker 3: they didn't like it, and B they probably didn't want
33:01
Speaker 3: to listen to music at the time that I wanted to.
33:03
Speaker 3: Maybe they're watching on something on TV, et cetera. So
33:06
Speaker 3: the walkman, then I could listen to my music when
33:09
Speaker 3: I wanted, wherever I wanted. And and then I could
33:12
Speaker 3: go share it with my friends and say, hey, you know,
33:14
Speaker 3: I take off the headphones, hand it over so they
33:16
Speaker 3: could put it next to their ear and listen to
33:19
Speaker 3: that as well. So it gave us that freedom that
33:21
Speaker 3: we could not only listen to our music wherever we wanted,
33:24
Speaker 3: we could listen to it whenever we wanted without an
33:26
Speaker 3: adult say so.
33:28
Speaker 1: Beforehand, before we started recording, we were doing a little
33:34
Speaker 1: game of six degrees of Bacon. Yes, only it wasn't
33:40
Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon, It's someone else. So I got to know,
33:43
Speaker 1: can you retell that for us?
33:46
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I was listening to your episode on Number One
33:51
Speaker 3: Songs of the Eighties and and Jim was speaking of
33:54
Speaker 3: his love for Rio Speedwagon, which I share. But as
33:58
Speaker 3: I was listening, I thought, oh, Jim's going to be
34:00
Speaker 3: happy to talk to me because I need him. You
34:02
Speaker 3: know a couple steps closer, you know the Ario Speedwagon,
34:06
Speaker 3: and that is Neil Dody, the keyboard is from Ario Speedwagon.
34:10
Speaker 3: Is married to one of my good friends, Daria, and
34:14
Speaker 3: they have been to my house to share a meal
34:17
Speaker 3: with my wife and me, probably about fifteen years ago now.
34:21
Speaker 3: And I also have the backstage pass from when they
34:25
Speaker 3: played the surf Ballroom not long after. Neil and Darry
34:28
Speaker 3: were here for a meal with us at the Surf
34:31
Speaker 3: Ballroom in clear Lake, Iowa. Oh it's cool twenty ten.
34:36
Speaker 3: So you know you don't need seven degrees. You got me.
34:39
Speaker 3: So you're almost in the band, Jim.
34:41
Speaker 2: So I have to know, did you like when you
34:44
Speaker 2: first met him, or maybe when you had dinner, did
34:46
Speaker 2: you just like totally like nerd out and ask him
34:49
Speaker 2: all the questions you possibly could about the band and
34:53
Speaker 2: how we got started and life on the road and
34:55
Speaker 2: all that stuff.
34:57
Speaker 3: Actually, I'm proud to say I didn't, because I did.
35:01
Speaker 1: You were playing it cool.
35:02
Speaker 3: I didn't want to be that guy, and I will
35:07
Speaker 3: tell you that this is a funny story before I
35:10
Speaker 3: completely answer the question. Because Neil Dody lived in Austin
35:14
Speaker 3: where I do for a handful of years when he
35:17
Speaker 3: and Darry were together here in town, and Derry and
35:24
Speaker 3: I had a running joke about Christmas and I forget
35:26
Speaker 3: what it is now, it's been enough times. But she
35:28
Speaker 3: was just she was more of a Festivus person. And
35:32
Speaker 3: so I had found at Barnes and Noble, you know,
35:34
Speaker 3: George Costanza's Guide to Festivus, and and I thought, oh,
35:39
Speaker 3: I've got to drop this off as kind of like
35:40
Speaker 3: a gag gift. And she didn't live that far from
35:42
Speaker 3: me here in town. And so one morning I drove
35:46
Speaker 3: over there as I was out and about, and she
35:48
Speaker 3: wasn't home, and Neil opened the door. I had never
35:52
Speaker 3: seen Neil Doty's picture. I didn't know who I was
35:56
Speaker 3: talking to until as I'm talking to this guy, I'm
36:01
Speaker 3: hearing things in my head of conversations I've had with
36:04
Speaker 3: other people, and I go, oh, crap, this is Neil
36:06
Speaker 3: Dodi of Ario speak and nswering the door. This isn't
36:09
Speaker 3: just some you know, random person. And and she was
36:12
Speaker 3: at home and I said, oh, hey, you know I'm
36:13
Speaker 3: a friend of Darius and Festivus and YadA YadA as
36:17
Speaker 3: assigned another sign field reference and and just wanted to
36:21
Speaker 3: drop off this this book and it was all well
36:23
Speaker 3: and good. So then when they were here for supper,
36:27
Speaker 3: I just wanted It's like, I didn't want to be
36:29
Speaker 3: one of those guys that it was, you know, tell
36:31
Speaker 3: me all about you know, blah blah blah blah blah.
36:33
Speaker 3: I wanted to get to know him. And and he
36:36
Speaker 3: had done his best, he didn't shy away from being
36:39
Speaker 3: Neil Dody. But at the same time, he just wanted
36:42
Speaker 3: to be a you know, a guy living with his
36:44
Speaker 3: wife in a community and and very chill. And so
36:49
Speaker 3: that's I. We just had conversations about life and and
36:53
Speaker 3: interests and things of that nature. And then we have
36:56
Speaker 3: a We built a movie room in our family room
36:59
Speaker 3: in the basement, so we essentially painted a movie screen
37:02
Speaker 3: on the wall and then put a wooden border around it.
37:05
Speaker 3: And then here's the movie. And I can't remember which
37:09
Speaker 3: star trek Mute movie it was. It was whatever one
37:12
Speaker 3: that was out in the vicinity of two thousand and nine.
37:15
Speaker 3: And so the four of us went to the movie room.
37:17
Speaker 3: We watched this movie. Well, then the movie's done and
37:22
Speaker 3: we're chit chatting and he starts talking about quantum physics.
37:26
Speaker 4: Wow.
37:27
Speaker 3: And he is an incredibly smart, interesting guy to talk to,
37:33
Speaker 3: you know, the stereotypical rock and roller, bad boy partier,
37:37
Speaker 3: you know, whatever you want to say about the stereotype.
37:43
Speaker 3: And he was talking about stuff. You know, it's like, well,
37:46
Speaker 3: you know in Star Trek where they talk about this
37:48
Speaker 3: and quantum mechanics, and he's just like, but just rattling
37:52
Speaker 3: this stuff off, like like he wrote the movie. Kind
37:56
Speaker 3: of a thing as far as the scientific expert. Fascinating guy,
38:01
Speaker 3: really smart guy, enjoyed, enjoyed getting to know him. And
38:04
Speaker 3: years later they moved and I think they're in Minneapolis
38:08
Speaker 3: now if I remember correctly. But man, just just an interesting,
38:11
Speaker 3: interesting guy to talk to.
38:14
Speaker 1: That's a cool story.
38:16
Speaker 2: You know, you had mentioned movies earlier, and obviously you're
38:20
Speaker 2: kind of talking about a little bit of a soundtrack
38:23
Speaker 2: of your life. But do you think that music in
38:28
Speaker 2: the movies in the eighties was so important because it
38:31
Speaker 2: was really the first decade that I can remember where
38:35
Speaker 2: it was so prominent. I mean, there may be you know,
38:38
Speaker 2: hit songs in other movies like I think like The
38:42
Speaker 2: Graduate or Butcher Cassidy, The Sundance Kid with rain drafts
38:46
Speaker 2: can falling on my Head. But it seemed like movies
38:49
Speaker 2: in the eighties, with their soundtracks and everything else, it
38:51
Speaker 2: was like popular music was either already there and put
38:55
Speaker 2: on the soundtrack to try to attract people, or they
38:58
Speaker 2: made movies are songs specifically for the movies, which then
39:02
Speaker 2: became popular maybe because of the movie. I'm thinking, like
39:05
Speaker 2: don't you forget about Me with the Breakfast Club right?
39:08
Speaker 2: Or let's see what else do we have? Like Who's
39:12
Speaker 2: that girl? Right? Madonna wrote that for that movie, And
39:16
Speaker 2: so do you think that's why we connect so much
39:23
Speaker 2: music with movies.
39:26
Speaker 3: I think, going back to what I said earlier in
39:29
Speaker 3: the interview, is you know the John Hughes movies in particular,
39:34
Speaker 3: we're talking to our generation. They were telling our story,
39:38
Speaker 3: talking to us about us. And I think if you
39:41
Speaker 3: look historically at music prior to and now since Generation X,
39:47
Speaker 3: since the eighties, that music that wasn't in the eighties
39:52
Speaker 3: was primarily music and situations that people could identify with.
39:59
Speaker 3: Our music as it related to the soundtrack, was our identity.
40:04
Speaker 3: If you look at pretty and Pink Breakfast Club, all
40:08
Speaker 3: of those types of movies in the eighties. The songs
40:11
Speaker 3: didn't speak just to what was happening in the movie.
40:15
Speaker 3: It was happening to us as well. And I think
40:17
Speaker 3: that's why we embraced the movies as they were, because
40:22
Speaker 3: there's not really any other era of movies where you
40:25
Speaker 3: can look at it and say, well, this was obviously
40:27
Speaker 3: speaking to a boom er audience, a millennial audience, or whatever.
40:31
Speaker 3: It was representatives of the times that they were living in,
40:35
Speaker 3: but it wasn't representing their generation specifically. And I think
40:39
Speaker 3: when you had that music in that movie tie In,
40:43
Speaker 3: you got the best of both worlds because when you
40:46
Speaker 3: were watching the movie, the music really solidified what you
40:50
Speaker 3: were seeing on the screen, and then when you heard
40:53
Speaker 3: the song on your walkman or your boombox or your stereo,
40:58
Speaker 3: you were then reliving that experience of the movie in
41:01
Speaker 3: your head, which then solidified the identity of yeah, me too.
41:07
Speaker 3: And I think that's really as you talked about Jim
41:10
Speaker 3: earlier in the interview, is you know we're finding out, Oh,
41:13
Speaker 3: it wasn't just me. The whole generation by and large
41:18
Speaker 3: felt that way about, you know, fill in the blank.
41:21
Speaker 3: And I think that music then is is something that
41:25
Speaker 3: unites us more than any other generation.
41:29
Speaker 4: I would agree, Yeah, awesome.
41:31
Speaker 1: We could just talk about this all night. We could
41:33
Speaker 1: just hold Eric hostage.
41:38
Speaker 3: Careful, I could do it. I could go all night
41:41
Speaker 3: coffee well, and again, the blessings of the book is
41:45
Speaker 3: that we could go on because of the stories that
41:50
Speaker 3: these people are sharing. That it may not be exactly
41:53
Speaker 3: our story, because there's a lot of stories, you know,
41:56
Speaker 3: in the narratives that came back to me that weren't
41:58
Speaker 3: my experience, but how they adapted, how resilient they were,
42:04
Speaker 3: I could identify with because we as gen X, had
42:07
Speaker 3: to be resilient, had to be adaptive, had to figure
42:10
Speaker 3: things out on our own, because there was not somebody
42:13
Speaker 3: who was putting an arm around to saying, hey here,
42:15
Speaker 3: let me help you, let me show you how things
42:18
Speaker 3: are done. And you know, we as a generation, I think,
42:21
Speaker 3: have a very dark sense of humor. We're very sarcastic
42:25
Speaker 3: because in part we had to be. It helped toughen
42:28
Speaker 3: our skin and that protective shell to navigate a world
42:33
Speaker 3: that wasn't necessary always friendly and wasn't always one we
42:37
Speaker 3: exactly knew how to deal with we just did the
42:40
Speaker 3: best we could with what we had and what we knew.
42:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, that's right.
42:45
Speaker 3: So I'm going to turn the tables real quick. Yeah,
42:48
Speaker 3: Lindsay you you put me on the spot, and I oh,
42:50
Speaker 3: no for it. What song? And Jim's same question after
42:54
Speaker 3: Lindsay answers what eighties song would you say would best
42:59
Speaker 3: be rep presentative of our generation?
43:02
Speaker 1: Our generation? I have my answer, of course, because Jim's
43:06
Speaker 1: good on his feet, Jim go first. I probably would
43:11
Speaker 1: have said Tainted Love, but now I feel like, oh,
43:14
Speaker 1: I can't piggyback off that, So so I.
43:17
Speaker 2: Would go with everybody wants to rule the world by
43:20
Speaker 2: tears of course that one. It's it's British synthpop, which
43:29
Speaker 2: is huge in the eighties, right, And uh, there is
43:33
Speaker 2: that sense of, you know, people trying to grab power,
43:38
Speaker 2: and I know, our generation, like you said, kind of
43:41
Speaker 2: feels like, you know, the greatest generation and the Boomers
43:44
Speaker 2: tried to grab that power, and now we feel like
43:45
Speaker 2: that power is trying to be grabbed by the millennials.
43:48
Speaker 2: And I just feel like, especially if you look at
43:52
Speaker 2: our country, our political system, anybody's politicals, not just our country, right,
43:56
Speaker 2: anybody's political system. Everybody is trying to grab that power
43:59
Speaker 2: and be the most powerful person in their city. Not everybody,
44:03
Speaker 2: but certain people city, state, country, county, whatever. And I
44:10
Speaker 2: do think that that that rings true with everybody wants
44:14
Speaker 2: to rule the world.
44:15
Speaker 1: Man, that is so deep and profound. I am never
44:18
Speaker 1: this deep. What about take on me? Yeah?
44:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think that's right in line with.
44:26
Speaker 1: The deep reason. Like I can't go on and on
44:29
Speaker 1: about political parties or whatever nonsense he just shared. I
44:33
Speaker 1: just think it's a really good song that sums up
44:35
Speaker 1: the decade really well.
44:36
Speaker 3: And I will go to my grave saying that video
44:40
Speaker 3: still holds up. It does, and I cannot believe they
44:44
Speaker 3: did that with nineteen eighties technology because it still stands up.
44:48
Speaker 1: It does.
44:48
Speaker 3: You could watch that and go, oh, well, somebody just
44:51
Speaker 3: you know, made that today, and I was just it's phenomenal.
44:54
Speaker 3: But you know, Jim, when you were talking about everybody
44:58
Speaker 3: wants to rule the world, you know, I just had
45:01
Speaker 3: this this vision in my head of our generation still
45:05
Speaker 3: as it exists today. We're kind of like alligators because
45:10
Speaker 3: we're just we're minding our own business. We're not we're
45:13
Speaker 3: not messing with anyone and you just see our eyes.
45:18
Speaker 3: But watch it because we'll bite.
45:25
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because uh in the excerpts that
45:29
Speaker 2: I read, I didn't hear a whole lot of talk
45:32
Speaker 2: about MTV. And I feel like that that was important
45:36
Speaker 2: to our generation when it came to music, because we
45:39
Speaker 2: were able to put uh faces with with music and
45:44
Speaker 2: you know, certain videos with music. When you said Electric
45:47
Speaker 2: Avenue by Eddie Grant, immediately what popped into my head
45:50
Speaker 2: was that video. That's where I first heard it was
45:52
Speaker 2: on MTV.
45:53
Speaker 4: And so.
45:55
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think about that. Okay, but before
45:59
Speaker 1: you answer, I'm going to go out on a limb, Eric,
46:03
Speaker 1: and I'm going to say that you may have been
46:05
Speaker 1: like me, and I bet you didn't have access to
46:08
Speaker 1: cable growing up. You're correct, Yeah, yeah, I had a feeling. See,
46:14
Speaker 1: Jim grew up in a much more urban setting, and
46:18
Speaker 1: so sometimes he and I have this disconnect because I
46:22
Speaker 1: didn't see the music videos like he did because MTV
46:28
Speaker 1: was on in his house every day and living in
46:32
Speaker 1: a much more like country farm setting, I didn't have
46:36
Speaker 1: access to that.
46:38
Speaker 3: And so Jim, I'll come back to that because I
46:41
Speaker 3: do have an answer. But Lindsay is with my experience. Yeah,
46:45
Speaker 3: I grew up in a farm, so I didn't have
46:47
Speaker 3: access to MTV, but I had a relative who lived
46:50
Speaker 3: in Des Moines who worked for the cable company, who
46:53
Speaker 3: had cables. So when we'd go down to visit the summer,
46:57
Speaker 3: I was glued to that TV. Because I could watch
46:59
Speaker 3: the cubs on WGN, I could watch MTV and it
47:03
Speaker 3: was fascinating as heck. And a trivia question. The first
47:07
Speaker 3: MTV video I saw, She's a Beauty by the Tubes.
47:11
Speaker 4: Oh, that's agreed, Yes, love that.
47:14
Speaker 3: And I have it on forty five, which when I
47:15
Speaker 3: probably exclaimed that to my daughter, she goes, what's forty five?
47:19
Speaker 3: And then I cry. So it was hugely influential because
47:25
Speaker 3: again MTV is ours and it will only be ours
47:30
Speaker 3: because by the time that the nineties rolled around, it
47:32
Speaker 3: had gone to reality shows and away from music videos.
47:36
Speaker 3: And again it was us on display, it was our music,
47:39
Speaker 3: it was our artists, you know, the artists wanted to
47:42
Speaker 3: be on MTV. I want my MTV. My relative for
47:46
Speaker 3: my high school graduation gave me a satin MTV jacket,
47:50
Speaker 3: which I still have and can still fit into. By
47:52
Speaker 3: the way, Wow, MTV beach blanket, MTV trucker hat. I'll
47:59
Speaker 3: email it to you. That would probably be the easiest way.
48:02
Speaker 3: It's one of those things that we can claim is ours.
48:05
Speaker 3: But also again getting back to today, we talk about
48:09
Speaker 3: social activism. Well, if you look in the eighties, Generation
48:14
Speaker 3: X was activism and it was around music, and it
48:17
Speaker 3: was around MTV. We Are the World, USAID or USA
48:24
Speaker 3: for Africa and farm Aid and all of these musical
48:30
Speaker 3: acts that were affecting social change hands across America, you know,
48:37
Speaker 3: and a lot of it was wrapped fully around MTV
48:40
Speaker 3: and Generation X that our music was exacting social change.
48:45
Speaker 3: If you look at the Boomers, their music was we
48:49
Speaker 3: want change and we're going to protest and somebody better
48:52
Speaker 3: do something about it, but we don't want to lift
48:54
Speaker 3: our own fingers to do it. Jen X is going like, hey,
48:57
Speaker 3: somebody needs help. Let's get in, get hands dirty, and
49:00
Speaker 3: get this done. And I think MTV was at such
49:05
Speaker 3: the forefront of that, and we embraced it because it
49:07
Speaker 3: was ours. It wasn't for the Boomers and our kids
49:11
Speaker 3: didn't exist yet. It was fully ours and by the
49:14
Speaker 3: time our kids were around, MTV was no longer what
49:17
Speaker 3: we had grown up with. So it's something that is
49:20
Speaker 3: fully ours and again wrapped right around our generation and music.
49:25
Speaker 3: And as you said, we got to see our artists
49:28
Speaker 3: for the first time without having to go to a
49:31
Speaker 3: concert or look in a a People or an US
49:34
Speaker 3: Weekly or a National Inquiry or whatever your magazine of
49:37
Speaker 3: choice was back in the day. And here was a
49:41
Speaker 3: theatrical presentation of what that song meant to the artist.
49:47
Speaker 3: And it would and some of those music videos were incredible.
49:51
Speaker 3: I mean you look at take on Me from Aha
49:54
Speaker 3: Thriller by Michael Jackson. Remember the phenomenon that was, like
49:59
Speaker 3: be watching on this day We're going to release the
50:04
Speaker 3: video and everybody just flocked to a television set to
50:09
Speaker 3: watch this video. And of course, you know, Lindsay and
50:11
Speaker 3: I were out in the country, we couldn't see it.
50:13
Speaker 3: But my friends recorded it and brought it to school
50:16
Speaker 3: and we watched it on the VCR at school and
50:18
Speaker 3: we're just like, did they do that? That was incredible,
50:22
Speaker 3: and I mean it was it was not only a song,
50:24
Speaker 3: it was a mini movie. And as an interesting aside,
50:28
Speaker 3: and this is not mine, a friend of mine gave
50:30
Speaker 3: this to me and forever ruined the song when you
50:34
Speaker 3: listen to Thriller. If you substitute Phyllis Diller or Thriller,
50:41
Speaker 3: the song still works. You know, it's Philis Dillah.
50:50
Speaker 1: Never heard that?
50:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had either, and now I can't hear anything else.
50:54
Speaker 3: That's all while here, So I'm sorry, and you're welcome.
51:02
Speaker 1: I can't wait for the book to come out. I'm excited.
51:05
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to hear that. You know, as whether,
51:09
Speaker 3: regardless of what type of artists you are, you want
51:11
Speaker 3: your art to be seen and recognized and hopefully loved.
51:15
Speaker 3: So the fact that you've seen excerpts and are excited
51:18
Speaker 3: to see the full work, thank you. I that means
51:22
Speaker 3: a lot, It truly does.
51:24
Speaker 2: And if she's excited about a book, Eric, because like
51:26
Speaker 2: she said, I haven't seen her read a book in
51:29
Speaker 2: the fifteen years i've known.
51:30
Speaker 4: No, I take that back.
51:31
Speaker 2: She read one book about Johnny Cash's first wife and
51:35
Speaker 2: it changed her life, she said. But other than that,
51:38
Speaker 2: that's the only thing I've seen her read. Whereas when
51:41
Speaker 2: we first met, I was a huge reader, and now
51:44
Speaker 2: we have these stupid things. Oh yeap, that take away
51:48
Speaker 2: a lot of my reading time because I read on
51:51
Speaker 2: that instead of a book. But just recently, I've gotten
51:53
Speaker 2: back into reading books and I'm looking forward to this.
51:58
Speaker 4: A lot too.
52:00
Speaker 3: And I think, Lindsay, you will really enjoy this because
52:04
Speaker 3: as narratives, you're going to feel like you're reading somebody
52:08
Speaker 3: telling you their story. It's not meant to be an
52:11
Speaker 3: academic exercise. I did not want this to be some dry,
52:15
Speaker 3: boring whatever. I wanted it to evoke the emotion that
52:20
Speaker 3: the writer was feeling at the time and now and again,
52:26
Speaker 3: some of these folks are are skilled writers, and some
52:29
Speaker 3: of them are good writers, and that's where kind of
52:32
Speaker 3: I came in and in doing the editing, or as
52:34
Speaker 3: I like to call it, the mixing. But I was
52:37
Speaker 3: very impressed that they come across as conversational pieces, not
52:43
Speaker 3: dry academic wording.
52:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and everybody has a story and I love that
52:50
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to get my hands on the book.
52:52
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to throw this invitation out there. If
52:55
Speaker 3: there is a volume too, I will be reaching out
52:58
Speaker 3: to you too.
53:00
Speaker 1: I'm there, I'm there, I'm going to start working online.
53:03
Speaker 1: I'm the fort some ideas.
53:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I would be honored and thrilled to contribute
53:11
Speaker 2: to such a cool, such a cool idea once again.
53:15
Speaker 2: The book is called Life Goes On the Lessons we
53:18
Speaker 2: Learned from eighties music. Eric, thank you so much for
53:24
Speaker 2: joining us. We want to again plug it. It's coming
53:27
Speaker 2: out in October and time for the holiday book season.
53:30
Speaker 1: Make sure you pick that up.
53:32
Speaker 3: Jim Lindsay, thank you so much for having me on
53:35
Speaker 3: the podcast today and a great conversation. We could do
53:38
Speaker 3: this for hours and I'm here for all of it,
53:40
Speaker 3: but thank you for the time today. This has been wonderful.
53:43
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good. I love it. Yep. Make sure
53:46
Speaker 1: you hit that subscribe weton so you're guaranteed to never
53:49
Speaker 1: miss a show. And if you haven't, please consider leaving
53:54
Speaker 1: us a five star review. That always helps us show
53:57
Speaker 1: up a little bit better in the algorithman. I still
54:00
Speaker 1: don't understand.
54:01
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if that's true or not.
54:02
Speaker 1: Oh, it's true. I like to say it. Innerwebs told
54:05
Speaker 1: me it was true.
54:06
Speaker 4: It's true.
54:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, But mostly the way to help us out is
54:09
Speaker 2: tell somebody right, spread the words so they get all
54:11
Speaker 2: of this yummy goodness of nineteen eighties fun. You can
54:17
Speaker 2: reach us on social media at Children of Underscore Eighties
54:21
Speaker 2: on Twitter or x as they call it now, Facebook,
54:25
Speaker 2: and Instagram. You can email us at Children of the
54:29
Speaker 2: nineteen Eighties at gmail dot com.
54:32
Speaker 1: Okay, well, until next time. I'm Jim and I'm Lindsay
54:36
Speaker 1: and we are Children of the eighties. See