This Week In The 80’s: A Slim Chance In Tight Pants
February, 1988. It’s my last semester of high school and I DO NOT wanna be there. My daily class schedule is a joke and I take full advantage of it. The class BEFORE lunch is Home Economics. The room we meet in has a door that leads directly to the school parking lot. The teacher’s assistant in that class has a crush on me so I do the gentlemanly thing and use it to my advantage. She marks us present then my cronies and I slip out the side door for an early lunch. The class I have AFTER lunch is called “Test Taking” and is supposed to prep us for the SAT and ACT. Pphfff…whatever. We show up late for that class on a daily basis and our teacher, Mrs. Lauterbach, doesn’t really give a damn. So what I’m telling you is that, most days, I have a two hour lunch period to get in trouble with. Those were the days. This has nothing to do with music, by the way. I just thought I’d share. Free of charge. To the chart we go!
The shopping mall tour queen (look it up), Tiffany (Darwish), is sitting at the top of the charts for the second week in a row with “Could’ve Been”. I guess that mall tour paid off huh? I was more of a Debbie Gibson fan myself but I digress. It was hard to pick a featured song this week because there are so many great tunes to choose from. Near the bottom of the charts sits an oft-overlooked nugget when people talk about 80’s music: “Crazy” from Icehouse is getting ready to drop from the chart after peaking at #14. Great song, go check it out. One of my favorite songwriters, Richard Marx, is rising up the charts with what will be his third top five single from his debut album, “Endless Summer Nights” (there’s a cover version of that song by yours truly floating around the interwebs somewhere), and I could have “Rick Rolled” all of you today as Rick Astley and “Never Gonna Give You Up” makes its way into the Top Ten on it’s way to #1…but I didn’t. My choice this week is this little nugget here from Paul Carrack:
The song was written by Eddie Schwartz who also wrote the Pat Benatar hit, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” Schwartz said the main riff was a jam he would play all the time and he wrote the lyrics in fifteen minutes while waiting around in the studio. Does that voice sound familiar? Well, Carrack also sang “Tempted” by Squeeze and was a member of Mike + The Mechanics and sang on their hits “All I Need Is A Miracle” and “The Living Years.” Such a great voice. The song also has one of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard in a song:
A slim chance in tight pants is what you are.
This Week In The 80’s is a weekly look at the Top 40 charts with Eric Vardeman. His Twitter handle is @ericvardeman.
I love that song.