Every time I hear "I Melt With You" by Modern English, I'm instantly transported back to the '80s classic "Valley Girl," where the soundtrack wasn't just background noise, it was the heartbeat of a generation. We'll unpack the film's standout montage and the pivotal role music played, from The Plimsouls to The Psychedelic Furs, while I share my own parallel high school journey. And of course, we can't forget those quirky lines that have become as iconic as the film itself.
As we flip the record, we'll explore the evolution of '80s music hits that defined an era. From Duran Duran's chart-topping journey to The Romantics' sleep-talking beats, we're unpacking the story behind the Rockwell song "Somebody's Watching Me". Plus, a special nod to The Replacements' "Don't Tell a Soul". So tease up your hair and slip on your favorite leg warmers, we're about to hit play on a mixtape of memories and music that still resonates with us today.
Please Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail,com.
Every time I hear "I Melt With You" by Modern English, I'm instantly transported back to the '80s classic "Valley Girl," where the soundtrack wasn't just background noise, it was the heartbeat of a generation. We'll unpack the film's standout montage and the pivotal role music played, from The Plimsouls to The Psychedelic Furs, while I share my own parallel high school journey. And of course, we can't forget those quirky lines that have become as iconic as the film itself.
As we flip the record, we'll explore the evolution of '80s music hits that defined an era. From Duran Duran's chart-topping journey to The Romantics' sleep-talking beats, we're unpacking the story behind the Rockwell song "Somebody's Watching Me". Plus, a special nod to The Replacements' "Don't Tell a Soul". So tease up your hair and slip on your favorite leg warmers, we're about to hit play on a mixtape of memories and music that still resonates with us today.
Please Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail,com.
WE'VE GOT THE FEELING CAMH.
Speaker 2:Everybody. This is Jim Boge, and you're listening to Music in my Shoes. That was Vic Thrill kicking off episode 12. As always, I'm thrilled to be here with you. Let's learn something new or remember something old. I'm driving the other day and on the satellite radio the song I Melt With you comes on. And that's still a good song. I mean, that's not a good song, that's a great song.
Speaker 1:That's a great song, great song. They struck gold with that song and that recording. It's incredible.
Speaker 2:The quality of that recording is fantastic, great, great song. All these decades later I hear it Immediately. It takes me back to the movie Valley Girl, of course, okay. So if you don't know about it, it's got a young Nicholas Cage, deborah Foreman. And if you're not familiar with it, I'm going to break it down real quick. The movie Valley Girl. So a Valley Girl is bored with her Valley Dude boyfriend and dumps him. She meets a punk guy, falls for him and the song I Melt With you. They play the whole song in its entirety as they're showing them dating and doing fun things together.
Speaker 1:It's called a montage. It was a very popular device used in 80s movies.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I appreciate it. That's why you're here, Jimmy, so that when I can't think of the correct words, you're right there for me.
Speaker 2:I like it. So she's having fun with them. You know they're out all the time hanging out until her friends get in her head and basically tell her he's hurting her chances to become the class rep and the junior prom queen. So she dumps the punk guy, goes back with the Valley Dude and then at the junior prom, as the king and queen are about to be announced, the two guys start fighting. Food fight breaks out, they sneak out, get into a limo I Melt With you, starts all over again and that is the story of the Valley Girl and the punk guy. And I love that movie and I could go home and watch it tonight. I've loved it since the first time I saw it. I absolutely love the soundtrack to the movie, some of the songs they played multiple times. I remember the first song in the movie. It opens and then they play it. I guess you know when they're having, like a girl sleep over at one of the houses, they play it, they play a million miles away by the Plim Souls.
Speaker 2:Yes, they play Girls Like Me was that opening song by Bonnie Hayes and the Wild Combo? I only know two songs by Bonnie Hayes that song and Shelly's Boyfriend, which she sings later in the movie love my Way by the Psychedelic Furs. We talked about that. We highlighted that in episode three. Who Can it Be Now? Men at Work. We highlighted that in episode eight. She talks to me in stereo by Gary Myrick, great song Love that Million miles away. I could listen to that song all day too. That's just one of those songs that is so catchy and it just has a feeling that makes you want to listen to it because you can understand what he's singing about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just emblematic of early 80s alternative to me. Just a really, really catchy song that didn't sound like everything else that was out there.
Speaker 2:No, it's one of those songs We've talked about it before that I think could come out today and it could do pretty good. Yeah, you know Eyes of a Stranger by the Payolas. Do you remember that song? I do, that's a good one. He Could Be the One by Josie Cotton and probably one of my favorite songs that I had never heard until the movie eaten by the monster of love by Sparks. Didn't know that song at all. That's a really good song. If you haven't listened to it, I'll say it one more time eaten by the monster of love by Sparks, great song, and of course I melt with you.
Speaker 1:There's a couple jam songs in there too. Town called malice.
Speaker 2:There are they actually. Um, for those of you that don't know, you can't just make a movie and then just put music in it. You have to pay licensing fees and get the rights to be able to do it. And if I'm thinking correctly off the top of my head, they spent about $250,000 on the rights and they couldn't get all the rights to the every song to put out on a soundtrack. So some songs actually are listed that they're in the movie that never were. They had to take them out and replace them with some Of the songs that we just talked about. Oh, the budget for the film I'm pretty sure it's about $350,000. And then you look at the soundtrack. You know the rights for the, the songs $250,000. It was absolutely insane to be able to do that. But a really good movie.
Speaker 2:A couple of lines that I still remember that chick Julie is truly dazzling. Or the, the part where they go to the movie theater and the guys like the, the valley dude Doesn't realize that the punk guys in disguise working at the movie theater. And he goes, is this movie in 3d? And he's like, no, but your face is. I Still find that funny all these years later. I really, really do. I know they made a remake of it recently. I've not seen it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't know, they made a remake, not sure anything about it, but this is a classic. This came out in 1983, so the junior prom would have been in 83. That means that they would have actually had their senior prom in 1984. If it was the real world, which in my real world, my senior prom was in 1984. All right you were prime.
Speaker 1:You know target then for the Valley Girl movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I was me and my friends were the people that they wanted to to, you know, go after. There's actually a scene in the movie where they have a party at One of the girls houses and it actually reminds me kind of a party that I was at back in the day with the music playing and, you know, a ton of kids hanging out, and it definitely takes me back.
Speaker 1:I remember them like driving through the Hollywood Hills in that movie in a convertible or something.
Speaker 2:Yes, they would do that a couple of times. They did it when Nicholas Cage playing Randy and his friend Fred Deborah Foreman as Julie and her friends Stacy. They'll go up to the Hills like you talked about and then in another part of the movie where I Guess he gets beat up at a party, thrown out, they stop at that same kind of location, kind of talk about you know, no one's gonna tell me what to do, we're going back, type of thing. That wasn't very nice looking car, by the way. I am.
Speaker 1:What was the car?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but it was a real nice convertible. I do remember that. I do remember them when they, you know, went into To Hollywood and they were going to the club where the plimsolls were playing. Stacy didn't want to get out of the car and Randy says Okay, but when they Storm the car, save the radio. So I do remember, you know, and I'm not sure if it's word-for-word like that, but basically that's the thing. So Valley Girl definitely is a movie that I still like. Learned a lot of good songs from there that I still listen to today. So we appreciate all the comments and the feedback that we receive. So let's go to the music in my shoes.
Speaker 1:Mail bag.
Speaker 2:Well, that was pretty good, Jimmy, thank you. Wow, you whipped that up pretty quick there.
Speaker 1:I did, I did.
Speaker 2:I like it. I like a little theme music. Going there for the music in my shoes mail bag. We're gonna start off with Sue Ann from New York. She says I like Jimmy mentioning the 96 Rock card. I remember WAPP issuing cards. I when the station was new. I'm remembering something old again. I think that's cool that she's remembering something old again.
Speaker 1:Okay, and as long as something old is, 96 Rock Card and not me. Yes, yes, it is the card.
Speaker 2:So WAPP was a station that had started in New York and the first summer they were commercial free. They wanted to take some of the listeners from some of the other stations and they actually would send like postcards to you where you could write songs that you wanted to hear and mail it back thinking that, hey, I'm voting on songs. They probably just threw them away. You know who cares what the average person is, they just want you to think that you're part of it. But it was really cool that they were commercial free for so long. It was really enjoyable. When they started playing commercials, they were just like everybody else, no different at that point. Yeah, so let's move to Jim in coming Georgia. Good episode. He's talking about our last episode. Good episode. Had forgotten about some of the songs mentioned in the WLIR WDRE countdown. The first Led Zeppelin record is one of the best albums. He also mentioned that he liked that we could take WLIR music and Led Zeppelin and morph it all into one episode.
Speaker 1:So thank you, jim for listening. Yeah, thanks, Jim.
Speaker 2:Next up, randy from New York. His comment is this is the first time I pause the podcast to mention something your podcast partner absolutely has to know the song the Promise by Wenin Rome. I'm thinking the title, and the group just didn't click at the moment.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't click at the moment. I know that song.
Speaker 2:From my daughter Jessica in Texas. Does Jimmy really not know Wenin Rome?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, I just. I never knew the title of that song. I heard it a million times.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good to know. I think that our listeners will feel much better knowing that you know that song, because that is a good song. I like it still all these years later. It's one of those songs stands the test of time. We've talked about songs like that before. Real good song. I'm glad you know it and I'm glad that our listeners are probably relieved knowing that you know it.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad that's behind us now. Yeah, we can all sleep well.
Speaker 2:You know what? I bet we're gonna get comments saying they slept much better. I bet we are, me too.
Speaker 1:Music in my shoes. Mail bag.
Speaker 2:So Noom Boon on Monday. Durran Durran All right. Singler's release January 23rd 1984. From the 1983, seven in the Ragged Tiger album, previous single First Single they Release was Union of the Snake. That had come out in 1983. And then later on, in April of 84, they released the Reflex, which was the first number one single for Durran Durran on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US. So that was definitely a different take for Durran Durran. They seemed to go in a little bit of a different direction. The songs seemed to be much different. You know, I think their first couple of albums and songs were all about girls and Girls on film.
Speaker 2:Right and girls in video Rigo you know, and you know if you watch the videos. But I think that this was, you know, them maturing a little bit and doing some different things. Now I remember when Union of the Snake first came out, I wasn't thrilled with it, because I do like Durran Durran a lot, and it was very different. But it's funny because today I wish an album like Seven in the Ragged Tiger or a song like New Moon on Monday or the Reflex would come out, because now I really like those songs, because I don't hear them anymore.
Speaker 1:Does that?
Speaker 2:kind of make sense. New Moon on Monday it was good, the video was okay, but that Reflex song that seemed to be played everywhere, whether it was on top 40 radio, on WLIR, which you know I was listening to. Every time you turned around you would hear that song.
Speaker 1:I remember the Reflex music video. Wasn't there like a waterfall or a tidal wave, almost like it was breaking through the video screen? Or is that just completely in my imagination?
Speaker 2:I can't remember the video.
Speaker 1:All right, we're gonna leave that to the listeners to correct me if that's wrong.
Speaker 2:They can. I don't remember the video and that's funny.
Speaker 1:We had bad plumbing in my house, so it's possible that I'm just conflating the two.
Speaker 2:So do you think that you were watching it on TV? And then also you had a flood.
Speaker 1:There was like a three-stuge situation where they hooked up the pipes to the TV and, yeah, I don't know, something might've happened like that.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that I didn't live with you Me too. Wow, that's pretty amazing One of the things about Duran Duran, simon LeBon. Today his voice is still like A-plus. He really can still sing, and not a lot of men are able to do that as they get older, especially when your voice is hitting some of those high notes. He really, really impressive that he can do that all these years later and he's still a good-looking dude. I'm jealous. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'll tell you that right here, any day. I'll tell anybody that I don't have any hair. Oh sure you do.
Speaker 1:So Jimmy yeah.
Speaker 2:The romantics talking in your sleep. It rose to number three on the Billboard Top 100 Songs chart. It rose to number three on the Billboard Top 100 Songs chart on January 28th 1984. I hear the secrets that you keep when you're talking in your sleep, right? Does that ring a bell?
Speaker 1:Of course I love the romantics.
Speaker 2:Romantics real good band. I have to be honest in the video. If you watch the video the band isn't in it at first, but then they kind of like their heads kind of like pop up in the video and it reminds me of a 1980s version of the sweat hogs from Welcome Back Cotter if you watch it.
Speaker 1:All right, I've got to watch this now.
Speaker 2:It really does and I know for all of you out there. I have always struggled saying Welcome Back Cotter. It's a struggle for me. I always want to say Welcome Back Cotter, but it is not that it is K-O-T-T-E-R. So one more time for all of you, because I know you're saying what did he say? Welcome Back Cotter.
Speaker 1:So a quick aside on Welcome Back Cotter. I watched one of those VH1 shows about it years ago because I loved Welcome Back Cotter when I was a kid and when they casted for Vinnie Barberino. So one of the producers found Robert Hedges that played Epstein. Another guy found John Travolta it was Gabe Kaplan, the guy that played Cotter that found Travolta and they both called each other and said I found our Vinnie Barberino. And he's like no, I found Vinnie Barberino, make the other guy Epstein. And that's how they got Epstein. And then the other factoid about Welcome Back Cotter is it was just going to be called Cotter and then they had John Sebastian write a theme song for him and he wrote this incredible song, welcome Back. And they were like well, that doesn't. It doesn't say Cotter anywhere, does it, you know? So they changed the name of the show at the last minute, like a few weeks before it aired, to Welcome Back Cotter.
Speaker 2:And for those of you that don't know, john Sebastian was in the Love and Spoonful Good Singer, great lyricist. He wrote songs for other bands. Love and Spoonful was a real good band. I love, jimmy, when we have these conversations and we start with one thing and then we just go from here to there. It's kind of like a pinball thing going on and I absolutely love when that happens. I haven't seen Welcome Back Cotter in a long time. I have seen Saturday Night Fever with John Travolter. But when you get a chance, check out the video and tell me if you think that it looks like an 80s version of the sweat hogs.
Speaker 1:That's how we got onto it. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:An 80s version of the sweat hogs coming up.
Speaker 1:Last thing about that is that Kaplan's vision for the sweat hogs was that they would be a modern day Marx Brothers at the time.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in a way the Talking your Sleep video was like the Marx Brothers popping up.
Speaker 2:It could be. You know, and you know what? There's not a whole lot of difference between Vinnie Barberino and the character that he plays in Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 1:No, no, there wasn't, or Greece.
Speaker 2:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:It's not a lot of range.
Speaker 2:So let's move on Rockwell. Somebody's watching me, all right. It enters the Billboard Top 100 songs on January 28th. So the same day that the Romantics hit number three on the Top 100, rockwell enters the Top 100. And it peaked at number two in March of 84. So starts off kind of like a Halloween sounding like, with a creepy little synthesizer thing going on and the words are all about paranoia. I always feel like somebody's watching me and that's the. You know the chorus and you're like the words sound like, no, it couldn't be. But yes, singing that chorus is Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2:So times were different. Back then you couldn't just sing or play on another person's song or an album without permission and you know detailed contracts on how it was going to all work, because everybody had to get their cut. But today it's a different story. I mean, people release stuff with people guessing all the time Very, very different. Episode three we spoke about Michael Jackson's Beaded with Eddie Van Halen on guitar and it was the same thing. You couldn't look things up because it wasn't internet. Back in the day you kind of were like I think it's him, I don't know that it's him, and there wasn't anything written down that that it is him, and it was a lot of guessing and the DJ had to tell you the DJ had to tell you we've talked about that before where you got your information from the DJ and you didn't know stuff the way you do today.
Speaker 2:You can find things out instantly today, Very, very different.
Speaker 1:You know what the DJ didn't tell us back then about Rockwell? Do you know who Rockwell was Like? I always wondered how did this one hit wonder get Michael Jackson to sing on a song?
Speaker 2:It's funny that you say that he was Barry Gordy's son, yes, exactly. But he did not want to use the name because he didn't want people to think that's why he was there. So who's Barry Gordy, jimmy? Who's Barry Gordy?
Speaker 1:He's the one that started Motown Records right. That is correct among many other things. Yeah, I mean producer.
Speaker 2:He was a producer, he wrote songs, he did a ton of stuff. I mean, the guy definitely had a magic Hand, a magic brain. He just knew talent. When he saw it, he knew Michael Jackson and and Rockwell Grew up knowing Michael Jackson. So it kind of became like, hey, michael, will you sing on this record for me? And that's really how the whole thing came together. It's a good song. I find myself every Halloween I have a playlist that I play as all the trick-or-treaters are coming to my house. It's on there along with mine too.
Speaker 1:It's on mine too. I got thriller ghostbusters, ghostbusters, monster mash.
Speaker 2:So after the breakup of the English beat in 1983, the two main members, dave Wakeling and ranking Roger, formed a new band called general public and they released their debut album all the rage January 20th 1984. First single was general public, which is good song. I liked it. I enjoyed it. It was definitely different from some of the music that was being played on the radio at the time. But then they followed it up with tenderness. Alright, catchy pop song With guitar by none other than ex-clash member Mick Jones. Wow, yes, he'd been recently kicked out of the clash and he joined general public but left after recording only a few of the songs. I think one of the reasons the song got so popular. Now I think it's a good song. I Really enjoy it. I still like it today. But it's featured in 16 candles and weird science and if you can feature a song in two movies of that Stature at the time.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:It's gonna become popular, right, and if I'm not mistaken I want to say, was in clueless. That came out, you know, mid 90s, maybe 95 or so. I think it was in that movie as well. So some of the other songs from the album hot, you're cool. Mick Jones played on that. Never you've done that. I Think he played guitar in that song and, as a matter of fact, which is one of the songs that ranking Roger had took lead vocals on. But it's a real good album. If you like the English beat, there's a lot of similarities but then there's some differences. It's more rock and roll than what the English beat is. The English beat was more of a ska, you know, jamaican influenced kind of rock, whereas when you listen to General public it was more of a straight-up rock with some, you know, flavors of different types.
Speaker 1:That's not. That's not the way I characterize it, but you know what? Jim Music is not a competition.
Speaker 2:It's not. Hey, how do you categorize it?
Speaker 1:I Don't want me to say I don't know, I don't like general public.
Speaker 2:I didn't think that you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw this in omd situation. I haven't heard the song that I like yet though I did hear an omd song that I like, but I General public. It kind of pains me that Mick Jones Played with them, because I'm a massive clash fan. But yeah, I haven't found the general public.
Speaker 2:It's funny on tenderness, like to me, the guitar definitely stands out, and then again I did not know Mick Jones was in it back then. You don't find out this information till many, many, many years later.
Speaker 1:Unless you look at the back of the album.
Speaker 2:But you know I didn't have the album on the back of the album they actually had the picture of the guy that Replaced him, hmm. So I do think on the the liner notes of the album they might have had that Mick Jones was part of it, but they did have a different picture on the back album of the cover.
Speaker 1:It's tough to figure that out.
Speaker 2:Yes, very tough to figure out. So English beat. Did you like the English beat at all?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did, but I didn't think I. General public is a lot softer to me.
Speaker 2:They were a lot more, I think, touchy feely more straight on, like rock compared to Poppy rock compared to yeah, they were pop, there were poppier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, much poppier. All right, let's move on the replacements. Don't tell us all their second to last album, released in February 1st 1989. We spoke about the expanded edition of their album. Tim, let it bleed on, our very first episode of music in my shoes, and In similar style, the replacements released dead man's pop Remixed by Matt Wallace, with additional demos, unreleased tracks and a 1989 Concert recording. I enjoy the dead man's pop versions Much more than I enjoy, don't tell us all the regular version and songs like talent show. If you haven't listened to talent show, it's a really, really good song. Yeah, I don't know how many people have listened to it. It's not something that was on the radio, that was popular. You just had to hear it. It was the opening song on on the album. We'll inherit the earth. Asking me lies the big single I'll be you a can to be a can to be.
Speaker 2:The talent show demo version I think is Far superior to any of the three versions that you can get between the two albums.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We know the night. It's an outtake where they have Tom waits with them playing five songs. It is so good it's just them in the studio. They release it on this Deadman's pop and Tom wait with that super raspy voice. You know they must have given him the words to some of the songs before he got to the studio because he seems to know them, mm-hmm, and they do a great job with it. It's just really cool. I like when you hear artists together and it sounds good as Compared to sometimes people get together and you're not sure why they're together and it just doesn't make sense, kind of like David Bowie and Mick Jagger when they did that thing in 1985. Just didn't make a lot of sense to me. But yeah, that's we know the night if you get a chance. Really, really good song.
Speaker 2:I have not checked that out, so I will live Recording 1989 from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee that I've listened to enough Replacement shows. You can definitely hear them changing like when you listen to their really early live recordings. They might have had a drink or two and and it's very different as you listen throughout the years how it goes on for them. They definitely sound much more Aware of what they're doing and wanting it to sound as good as it can possibly sound right. So that's a good one there if you get a chance to listen to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always felt like the original don't tell a soul was a little overproduced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when you listen to it, and it was produced by Matt Wallace Matt Wallace came in and did Dead Man's Pop, so he kind of went in and changed it up in I think it was about 2019 and I think he probably said all right, let me just think about what the replacements are and what the replacement sound is, and let's make it that way and it's lost some of that polish, it's lost some of that Change that they did to Paul Westberg's voice. It, dead Man's Pop is really really good. Really good because it just sounds like what you think they would sound like.
Speaker 1:And you can hear stuff in there that you didn't hear in the original. I don't know if he added more tracks or if they just with the mix.
Speaker 2:You know, you can kind of hear parts that yeah, I think I'm trying to think is it asking me lies where you really can hear the piano in it. I think it's that song where it's like, wow, I really can hear the piano in this song and that changes the whole Complexion of the song. Right, still a really good song. So my Beatles moment for this episode is I want to hold your hand Was their first number one single for the band in the US and it climbed to the top on February 1st 1964, 60 years ago. And B-side of the 45 was I. I saw her standing there and we talked about that a couple of episodes ago that the meet the Beatles album started off with. I Want to hold your hand. And the second song was I saw her standing there 60 years ago, first number one single of Many more to come. That's cool.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it for episode 12 of music in my shoes. If you have a question or comment, you can reach us at music in my shoes at gmailcom. I'd like to thank Jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of arcade 160 studios Located here in Atlanta, georgia, and to Vic thrill for our podcast music. This is Jim Boge and I hope you learned something new or remembered something old. We'll meet again on our next episode and until then, keep the music playing, you.