Song in my Head

I had a song in my head the other day. I think I picked it up from a movie or TV show. It has a great chorus, with harmonies and a vocal line that just sticks to the insides of your brain. It's an old song, and I could only remember it had the word "love" in the chorus (that narrows it down, huh). To top things off, I'm really bad at remembering the names of songs and artists, especially when it comes to songs before 1987, which is around the time I officially started caring about music (don't ask me what I cared about for the first dozen years of my life). I think it has to do with the connection (or lack therof) I have with songs that I don't consider part of my growing up experience (but I'll save that line of inquiry for another post).

My first guess was Radar Love. And I'm glad it was. As you can see from the incredible video above, it was a happy diversion. I emplore you to wait until the 3 minute mark of the video, where a beautiful stare-down occurs followed by a lovely display of true-love-induced skipping. Add to that a perfect bass line, driving drums and exuberant horns (maybe played on synth) and you have yourself a pretty good song. But, it wasn't the right song.

I typed in some other guesses but to no avail. So I called a friend and sang the chorus. Turns out it was "Long Train Running" by the Doobie Brothers (sorry, badass techno mix is all I could find on YouTube).

About the same time I was scouring the net to sate the song in my head, I was reading this post by a music industry insider who seems to be stuck in the songs of the sixteies and seventies. For a lot of industry veterans, the current woes of the music industry can be blamed on the quality of today's music. People don't want to pay for today's music because today's music is shit. Or people don't want to pay because music is everywhere..it is no longer important or special like it once was.

It's a line of argumentation that infuriates me. There's a lot of crap out there today, sure. But to say that today's music has less meaning for today's listeners than yesterday's music had for yesterday's listeners is judgment value I just don't have time for. I had fun listening to Radar Love and the Doobies, but they mean far less to me than a song that I feel I am a part of (I feel included because I remember when it came out, because it was at my high school dance, because I made out to it etc.).

If we're going to talk about the woes of the music industry, let's talk about why it's effed and how to fix it. Not about why the sixties and seventies were the pinnacle of music, rebellion, freedom and how today's music stands no chance of matching up.