Way Back Wednesday: The Top Music of March 25, 1983

This Week In 1983: March 25th

Michael Jackson and “Billie Jean” continue their reign at #1 for the fourth consecutive week. A month before this, the album Thriller hit #1 on the Billboard album chart and stays there for a record THIRTY SEVEN weeks. This weeks big movers? “Beat It” moves up nine spots to #15 and “Little Red Corvette” moves up ten to #27. Bob Seger and “Shame on the Moon” and The Stray Cats’ “Stray Cat Strut” both drop ten spots to #12 and #21, respectively. One of my favorites, “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring, moves into the top ten where it reaches its peak of #10.

Song Story: “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring

The song isn’t inspired by the television show of the same name but rather by the Robert Ludlum novel The Bourne Identity. The song tells a the story of a man on the run from enemy spies before being cornered and is one of the first videos to feature a cinematic story line to match. It was a major hit on MTV. The original version of the video, however, was censored by MTV due to a shot of a topless female “hit-man” and a scene with a syringe being injected into someone. Nevertheless, the band parlayed the success of MTV exposure into an extensive tour of the US, Canada and Europe. MTV even asked the band shoot a movie of final show of the tour. This show included an segment at the beginning that was an extension of the “Twilight Zone” video.