Music / 1980s
This is What Cool Looked Like in the Middle of the 1980s
Gather ‘round, kids, it’s time for a bit of history.
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”
I had long attributed this quote to Margaret Atwood, for some reason, great Canadian that she is. However, it belongs to L.P Hartley, from his novel The Go-Between, first published in 1953.
Either way, it is instructive, especially when we are listening to music from another era and watching the visuals that go with it.
Our senses of sight and hearing apprehend a different place with this music, almost like they do when we enter a foreign country. Even if we were there, in the middle of that decade, it all seems a bit strange, sometimes laughable, maybe quaint, or maybe nostalgic to us now. It’s almost as though we’ve left it behind, never to return.
The quote often comes to mind when I see a video of a song from the 1980s or a live performance. I was there, I mean I was alive then, I remember that music like it was yesterday. But it all looks so different from our world today. Music doesn’t sound like this anymore and the people who make it don’t look like this either.
I know this song, you probably know it too. You have probably heard it as often as I have and could no doubt sing along with the lyrics intact, nodding your head from the opening staccato guitar intro.
But it wasn’t until I saw this video, in Anthony Overs article a few weeks ago about 16 Songs at 16, that I realised how good it is. Nevermind good. Rather, how cool Aimee Mann looks when she is playing it.
For the uninitiated, this is ’Til Tuesday playing a song called Voices Carry, from their first album of the same name in 1985. In the lyrics, the singer is describing the horrors of being in a controlling, abusive relationship. The band made two more albums before, well, disbanding in 1988. It wouldn’t cause too much argument to say that this is their biggest hit. It’s probably not stretching it either to say that it’s their only hit.
The lead singer, Aimee Mann, went on to a long career spanning ten albums and is still touring today. She is an incredible talent and worth seeing live if and when she comes to your town.
But back to the middle of the 80s, when she is the 26 year old protagonist in this video. Things begin with a heartfelt thank you to the assembled crowd at the Ritz Theatre in New York City. She seems so genuine in her gratitude that she is standing in front of them, the culmination of her life’s work up to that point.
It’s at :25 that the familiar opening strains of the song kick in, Mann is on bass and from the get go, is owning it like someone who has performed this song a thousand times. Her on stage assuredness shows as she approaches the microphone and begins singing at :41.
“In the dark, I like to read his mind
But I’m frightened of the things I might find”
She gives us a post punk spiky haired snarl at 1:09 as she heads into the familiar chorus for the first time
“Oooh, shush…keep it down now
Voices carry”
It’s clear in the chorus that this is not only an 80s synth-pop standard as it might have come across in the album version. Live, it is a rock song. Strong guitar chords, emphatic drums and bass. The synthesisers are merely background colour in this version.
Finishing the second verse and heading into the second chorus at 2:00, Mann hits the high notes for the first time and truly sends it to the back row. From here, it’s clear that while the camera is not going to move from Mann because she is the star of the show, there is great energy between her and her bandmates, especially the guitar player.
The song reaches its apex from around 3:00 on, into the third chorus and Mann increasingly in command of the stage and, one imagines, the crowd in front of her. For me, the most clear and beautiful moment of the performance comes at 3:39.
Whether in the “another country” of the past or at the gigs we are still going to today, this performance of this song is the way that every live show should end. The band leaves it all on the stage and looks nothing but cool doing it. The crowd wants more, though it knows it’s not going to get it because there is nothing else, yet leaves happy all the same.
Watch the video / album version of the song and see if they did it more than justice.
But then also watch this:
I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month and if you use this link, then I get a slice of that and will set my Spotify time machine to 1985 only.