The week of January 28, 1984, saw Yes on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart,’ a song I’ve already featured on the blog.
At #2 was a song I’m surprised I haven’t featured yet, Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon.’ This song would reach #1 the following week and spend three weeks atop the chart. It was Culture Club’s only #1 hit in the U.S., though two others hit #2 (bonus points if you can name them in the comments).
Throwing back to the week of January 26, 1974, we find Ringo Starr on the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with ‘You’re Sixteen’, a cover of a 1960 hit by Johnny Burnette.
You can file this track under “songs you couldn’t get away with today,” and indeed Starr has said in concert that he doesn’t sing this one anymore. But in early 1974, nobody was creeped out by a 33-year-old man singing about his romance with an underage girl.
Sophia is really going for the jugular with her second Smiths selection, a track from the band’s 1985 sophomore album Meat is Murder. ‘Well I Wonder’ is a tear-soaked lament about unrequited love sung by a narrator who is “gasping, dying, but somehow still alive.”
This is the sort of song — and The Smiths have many — that makes longing and despair achingly beautiful. It turns sadness into something sacred.
Fiona’s next Smiths selection is the 1984 single ‘William, It Was Really Nothing,’ one of the band’s signature tunes and one of nine top 20 hits they had in the UK.
This is a quick, jaunty track, and a real contrast from the melancholy songs Fiona has chosen so far. The young woman contains multitudes.
The subject of ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’ has been debated, with some claiming it is directed at Billy Mackenzie, lead singer of the Scottish band The Associates and others suggesting it’s about the 1959 Keith Waterhouse novel Billy Liar, a favorite book of Morrissey’s and one that inspired at least two other songs.
The first Smiths selection from my oldest daughter, Sophia, is ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’ from the band’s 1984 self-titled debut album.
This song finds the narrator unable to reciprocate the sexual advances of an aggressive woman because he’s either gay, asexual, impotent, or simply afraid. Morrissey has always been cagey about his sexuality, but many of his lyrics suggest he is gay. Just as many suggest he isn’t interested in men or women. This song supports both readings.
Meet Me In Montauk 