Today’s Top 5: November 1984 (via Musician)

November 1984: Have I covered this month before? No, apparently not. Oh, I have a Top 5 that covers the previous month and also penned a remembrance of a Walter Mondale rally I attended (though not for the politics) that same October. It feels like I have, though, and I likely would’ve pivoted to an Of Concerts Past piece this week except for this:

On Friday, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band canceled tonight’s concert in Greensboro, N.C., to protest the state’s recently enacted anti-LGBT law.

As happenstance would have it, earlier in the week, while contemplating what this post should be about, I came across this exchange in a Chet Flippo-penned article in the November 1984 Musician magazine:

Musician: Are you going to vote this year?

Springsteen: I’m not registered yet. I think I am gonna register and vote my conscience. I don’t know much about politics. I guess my politics are in my songs, whatever they may be. My basic attitude is people-oriented, you know. Kind of like human politics. I feel that I can do my best by making songs. Make some difference that way.

I’m not sure whether that means Bruce never voted before ’84 or just that he hadn’t in a long time, given that one’s voter registration doesn’t lapse overnight. That aside, it shows how he has grown from not knowing much about politics (or, perhaps, not wishing to discuss them) in 1984 to become a reliable liberal champion in the present. He campaigned for John Kerry in ’04 and barnstormed the country as part of the Vote for Change tour in ’08, after all. Anyone shocked or surprised or outraged that he decided to take a stand on this issue hasn’t been paying attention through the years; they’re likely the same folks who (still) mistake “Born in the U.S.A.” for a jingoistic paean.

Anyway, enough about the political and onto the music. Here’s today’s Top 5, as drawn from the November 1984 edition of Musician:

1) Lindsey Buckingham – “Go Insane.” There’s a solid piece by one Sam Graham about Buckingham: “For the moment, [he] has canceled his reservations for insanity. The events of the past couple of years – in particular the torturous breakup of a six-year relationship – took him perilously close to the brink of personal and professional madness, but Buckingham has reeled himself back in. And the reel he used, the album appropriately titled Go Insane, not only loosely chronicles those events but serves as a cathartic release from them.”

The piece concludes with: “‘My life is so simple now. I’m living more or less alone, and all my focus is on this record. [Fleetwood Mac’s plans are uncertain at best.] That’s fine for the time being, although it can get lonely. I mean, I can’t handle going down to Le Dome to meet people.’ What he can handle is regaining some control over his life. ‘I lost my power in this world,’ [he] sings in ‘Go Insane,’ ‘cause I did not use it.’ That power, he observes, is ‘the power of discipline, the power to progress. There was a time when I really did think I’d lost it. But in the end, making this album was a reaffirming experience. I think I’m gaining some of that power back.’”

2) Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – “Street Fighting Man.” Chet Flippo’s interview with the Boss is basically about the Born in the U.S.A. album and tour. Of the album, Springsteen says “I wanted the record to feel like what life felt like. You know, not romantic and not some sort of big heroic thing. I just wanted it to feel like an everyday, Darlington County kind of thing. Like ‘Glory Days,’ it sounds like you’re just talking to somebody; that’s what I wanted to do.”

He expounds on that a few questions later: “Born to Run and Nebraska were kind of at opposite poles. I think Born in the U.S.A. kind of casts a suspicious eye on a lot of things. That’s the idea…. These are not the same people anymore and it’s not the same situation. These are survivors and I guess that’s the bottom line. That’s what a lot of those characters are saying in ‘Glory Days’ or ‘Darlington County’ or ‘Working on a Highway.’“

And, finally, regarding the tour:

Musician: You’re doing the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” as an encore. Is that a political statement?

Springsteen: I don’t know. I like that one line in the song, “What can a poor boy do but play for a rock ’n’ roll band?” It’s one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll lines of all time. It just seemed right for me to do it. It’s just fun. In that spot of the night it just fits in there. After “Born to Run,” we got to go up. That’s the trick. ‘Cause it’s hard to find songs for our encore. You gotta go up and then you gotta go up again. It has tremendous chord changes, that song. 

3) U2 – “Pride (In the Name of Love).” J.D. Considine reviews U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, a good-but-not great album that includes, in my opinion, one of the greatest singles of the ‘80s, “Pride (In the Name of Love).” Considine says that it “sidetracks its tribute to the Reverend Martin Luther King’s non-violent struggle for civil rights through brash sloganeering. In a way, it’s almost a slap at their earlier songs, in which the desire to say something subsumed the message itself, until it sinks in that King died for ideas as basic as these slogans, a realization that’s as invigorating as it is frightening.”

4) Rickie Lee Jones – “It Must Be Love.” Anthony DeCurtis opens his review of The Magazine with: “Blending early 60s R&B crack, beat-poet lyricism and cabaret jazz ease, Rickie Lee Jones’ best tracks turn the tough trick of using entirely familiar elements to disorient listeners’ expectations. Her infinitely elastic voice is the main instrument of this aural upset, wrapping itself around everyday words and feelings in ways that restore their meaning and wonder.”

As a whole, though, he thinks Rickie Lee overreaches, and offers something of a confused conclusion: “[It] falls short of its greatest artistic goals, but its many achievements wouldn’t have meant so much within the context of any less full-hearted effort.”

5) The Everly Brothers – “On the Wings of a Nightingale.” So, after a decade apart, Don and Phil came together for a much-praised reunion concert in London in 1983 and then recorded EB ’84, their first studio album in 11 years, with producer Dave Edmunds. This Paul McCartney-penned tune is (rightfully) called “charming,” but the uncredited reviewer isn’t thrilled with the rest. Frankie Miller’s “Danger Danger” is “stompy and undistinguished”; Jeff Lynne’s “The Story of Me” is “mawkish”; and Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” is called “an oddball choice.” Dave Edmunds, too, is taken to task for his heavy-handed production, which – according to the writer – is laden with reverb, echo and compression.