I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man), Redux x2

Last blogged: June 5, 2013.

Jeezus, this song is in my head A LOT. A lot, lot, for a song I'm pretty meh about. Nevertheless.

Artist: Kenny Loggins
Year: 1984
Rating: lukewarm-cold

I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man), Redux

Been in my head for an hour, with no signs of abating. Last in my head on May 19, 2011.

Artist: Kenny Loggins
Year: 1984
Rating: Lukewarm

I Sing The Body Electric

I sing the body electric/I celebrate the me yet to come
I toast to my own reunion/When I become one with the sun

Indelibly in my head since I was about 14. An exultant anthem of youth, and yet another song reminiscent of my time in the Jewish teen scene, when everything was Dramatic and Intense And Amazing.

Artist: Michael Gore (writer); Performed in the movie Fame by Laura Dean, Irene Cara, Paul McCrane, Traci Parnell, and Eric Brockington
Year: 1980
Rating: Luke Hot

Lullaby of Broadway

This song is so deeply embedded in the popular culture, and yet, I have no clear mental reproduction of the precise recording I'm summoning. The first appearance of the song was in the film Gold Diggers of 1935, a movie I've never seen. It's quite possible that the version I heard the most while growing up was by the Andrews Sisters, but I'm guessing I just know it from various homages in movies and TV.

Artist: Wini Shaw
Year: 1935
Rating: Warm

Girl For All Seasons

Grease 2 now has its own tag. This is the fourth song from the movie that's been in my head since starting the blog in 2009. Shockingly, I still haven't woken up with a song from Grease, the original, in almost four years of blogging. I will say that Beauty School Dropout floats through my head with some regularity, but I haven't woken with it, and thus, it's been disqualified from the blog so far.

Artist: The Pink Ladies
Year: 1982
Rating: Luke Hot

Fame, Redux

Last in my head on March 23, 2010. This time, I can't say that confidence is pouring from my pores in synch with this exuberant anthem. The song feels incongruous with my recent moods, indeed. Maybe my unconscious mind is trying to snap me out of these self-flagellating doldrums. Will it work?

Artist: Irene Cara
Year: 1980
Rating: Luke Hot

Who's Johnny

My housemate Scott just came into my room, incredulous that I could even know this song, given the unbelievable truth I just told him: I've never seen the movie Short Circuit. But I was alive and cognizant in 1986, my first year of high school, when this feel-good ditty dominated the pop charts for its split second.

Artist: El DeBarge
Year: 1986
Rating: Warm

Gotcha!

How's this for obscure? The movie theme song from a 1985 romantic espionage flick starring Anthony Edwards. Watch the trailer - it's classic 80's.

Artist: Thereza Bazar
Year: 1985
Rating: Lukewarm

Wouldn't It Be Good

Artist: Nik Kershaw
Year: 1984
Rating: Luke Hot

Movin' Right Along

Saw the new Muppet flick (so fun, and moving! I actually teared up a couple times). Predictably, a song from the original 1979 movie popped into my head the next morning.

Artist: Kermit & Fozzie (performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, music by Paul Williams)
Year: 1979
Rating: Luke Hot

Pure Imagination

While pouring myself my morning cup of coffee, the distinctive three-note intro and interlude sequence of this Willy Wonka song came to mind. It's a tense, cautious sort of musical theme carried throughout an otherwise optimistic song about seizing the moment, realizing the beauty that's all around you, creating your own reality:

If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it. Wanna change the world? There's nothing to it.

Those three notes taunt me, dare me to wake from my insular repose, my holding pattern of not-doing. I drink my coffee and start my day, cautiously, optimistically.

Artist: Gene Wilder (music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley)
Year: 1971
Rating: Luke Hot

Do It for Our Country

Time to get down in a nuclear fallout shelter!

Artist: Peter Frechette as "Louis" and Maureen Teefy as "Sharon" from the Grease 2 soundtrack
Year: 1982
Rating: Hot, or not

Note: This is the third song I've blogged from Grease 2; curiously, no songs from the original have made it into my head yet.

I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)

What does it mean that this song popped into my head in the precise moment between setting a French press abrew and resigning to do a load of dishes?

Heaven helps the man who fights his fear
Love's the only thing that keeps me here.

Could doing dishes be any more epic than that? And what does Kevin Bacon have to do with it?

Artist: Kenny Loggins
Year: 1984
Rating: Lukewarm

Georgy Girl

Haven't thought about or heard this song in a long time. I love the exact moment of 60's pop it represents: whimsical and seemingly innocent music and lyric giving way to internal darkness.

There's another Georgy deep inside.

Artist: The Seekers
Year: 1966
Rating: Hot!
Note: I've never seen the film. Should put it on the queue.

Hello Again

Maybe it's been crazy
And maybe I'm to blame.

Artist: Neil Diamond
Year: 1980
Rating: Luke Hot

Almost Paradise

In my head upon waking with a hangover in Santa Cruz on Monday morning. Hangover state is pretty much anathema to Paradise, but okay.

Artist: Mike Reno & Ann Wilson
Year: 1984
Rating: Cold

Fame

You know it's a good day when you wake up feeling this confident!

Artist: Irene Cara
Year: 1980
Rating: Luke Hot

Under Your Spell

I think it's getting to be time to watch the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer again. I've been reading the Season Eight comics, but it's just not the same.

Artist: Amber Benson as Tara
Year: 2001
Rating: Warm

Note: The last time a song from the musical episode Once More, With Feeling was in my head was July 4, 2009.

Prowlin'

I'm gonna show you cats some action,
Like you've never seen before.
We're gonna get some satisfaction
Down at the grocery store!

Seriously. The worst. Song. From Grease 2. But funny that it's in my head.

Artist: The T-Birds
Year: 1982
Rating: Cold

Love Theme from The Breakfast Club

When it popped into my head, I was wondering whether it actually had a title other than "Love Theme" but, in fact, no.

Artist: Keith Forsey
Year: 1985
Rating: Lukewarm (but nostalgic)