The Other McCain

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A Couple of Great Songs From 1979

Posted on | November 20, 2011 | 20 Comments

This was a jammin’ little funky tune by one-hit wonder Roger Voudouris, but I’d never seen this video before and . . . well, close your eyes and it’s still a jammin’ little funky tune:

Just checked Wikipedia and Voudouris, who died in 2003, was not gay, no matter what that video might make you think. Anyway . . .

Same year, different genre — pure pop from Nick Lowe:

There was some awesome music in 1979. Just sayin’ . . .

Category: Music

Comments

20 Responses to “A Couple of Great Songs From 1979”

  1. Anonymous
    November 20th, 2011 @ 11:45 pm

    Well that partially explains why I remember so little of 1979.

  2. TR
    November 21st, 2011 @ 1:32 am

    Reminds me of the old joke, “The patriarch of the old irish family was dying so they brought in the priest who listened to his last testimoninal, with his wife at his side as he whispered, Father, dont forget the O’Hare brothers who owe me $100 and the Farrell family who havent yet paid their rent..  ‘Yes my son and would there be any spiritual requests you need me to make?’   Well he said tell the wife not to forget our debt cousin Shamus.  At which point the wife vigorously pushed the priest away and said he’s quite clearly losing his mind now, we should just pray for his deliverance” 
     
    And my brethren we do pray, for the other to make a full recovery.

  3. Adjoran
    November 21st, 2011 @ 1:57 am

    It’s hard to talk about the late ’70s to people these days.  They just don’t understand what it was like, the disco, the pop, the leisure suits.  It was horrible.

    Oh, sure, the Stones were still out there, the Who kept touring, but it was like the little enclaves of the living during a Zombie Apocalypse. 

    And Jimmy Carter was no help, but it was our cultural decline which showed the world our weak, soft underbelly and encouraged Soviet adventurism and the Iranian mullahs to kidnap our diplomats with impunity.

    And yes, these songs were not teh gehe music of the time.  It got worse, much worse.  Oh, the horror – the horror!

  4. MrPaulRevere
    November 21st, 2011 @ 2:00 am

    The seventies were definitely a mixed bag, culturally speaking. The music itself could be spectacular, the Rolling Stones and the Allman Brothers were on fire and did work which I doubt will ever be replicated. On the other hand, the promotion of drug use and immorality were like societal land mines. The Swedish girls had it going on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsVeMz1F5c

  5. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 2:31 am

    I recall shopping at Tysons Corner with a girl I was dating we passed some kind of poster when she asked me “who do you do you think shot JR”? I replied who’s JR?

  6. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 2:42 am

    Saw the Stones at RFK stadium in 72 one of the worst concerts ever Stevie Wonder and who ever came on before him put on a better show.
    Saw the Allman Bros there in 74 with the Dead, they played about 4 or five hr each and then they all got on stage and jammed till 3 in the morning.

  7. Bob Belvedere
    November 21st, 2011 @ 7:40 am

    You should have come Underground.  In reaction to ‘the disco, the pop, the leisure suits’, we kept sane with The Clash, Ultravox, The Pistols, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Neighborhoods.  It was our refuge against the Kurtzian Horror…The Horror…that pervaded American ears.

    Every morning you woke-up to all the abominations in The Culture [and in The White House] and all you could say was: ‘Saigon…shit‘.

  8. Bob Belvedere
    November 21st, 2011 @ 7:45 am

    The Stones were never very good live.  Led Zeppelin was until they would get jamming, same with The Allman Brothers.  The best live band was Skynyrd.

  9. Info
    November 21st, 2011 @ 8:47 am

    Ah, 1979 … the great “Disco sucks” backlash was gathering but had not broken on shore.  “What a Fool Believes” by the Doobs, “My Sharona” by
    The Knack, and a hint of what was to come with “Pop Muzik” by M.

    In “Airplane!” near the end when they show the radio tower on top of the building:  “WZAZ!  Where disco lives forever … !” and then the plane clips the antenna.  I thought the roof was going to come off the theater.

    And who can forget “Escape (The Pinya Colada Song)”.  Breathes there a man who has not said “Yeah … right.” at how that song ends?

  10. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 9:12 am

    This. There was plenty of good music; they just weren’t playing it on the radio. Except for Blondie and BTO, and not nearly enough of that.

  11. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 9:14 am

    I think “Escape” eventually mutated into a joke about the dangers of dating people you meet on the Internet.

  12. ThePaganTemple
    November 21st, 2011 @ 10:20 am

    Get Used To It. Okay, now we know the name of the song Stacy first got laid to, because there just isn’t any other explanation.

  13. Bob Belvedere
    November 21st, 2011 @ 10:50 am

    If you heard it on radio at all, it was on college radio.

  14. Info
    November 21st, 2011 @ 11:11 am

    I’m guessing that would be more along the lines of  “Mr. Tambourine Man” ( and not the spoken word version by William Shatner)…

  15. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 11:30 am

    Nick Lowe kind of reminds me of Dave Edmunds, similar style and I love ’em both

    ’79 was a good year for music indeed

  16. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 11:51 am

    WHFS.

  17. Finrod Felagund
    November 21st, 2011 @ 1:21 pm

    Don’t forget that at one point in 1979, Pink Floyd _The Wall_ was the #1 album in the country, and Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 was the #1 song in the country.

  18. Finrod Felagund
    November 21st, 2011 @ 1:28 pm

     July 12, 1979: As part of a White Sox double-header, they announced that between the two games they were going to blow up  a pile of disco records brought in by the fans.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night

    The resulting riot ended up with the second game that day being forfeited, the last time to date that this has happened in the American League.  The event made a notorious list along with Ten Cent Beer Night in Cleveland a few years earlier.

  19. ThePaganTemple
    November 21st, 2011 @ 3:45 pm

    Yeah I like that Nick Lowe tune myself. I think that was really his wife of the time in that video.

  20. ThePaganTemple
    November 21st, 2011 @ 3:45 pm

    I don’t think Stacy is that old, but even if he is, bear in mind some guys take forever to get themselves laid the first time.