Tag: RFTS (Page 7 of 12)

Chart Week: December 3, 1983
Song: “Love Is A Battlefield” – Pat Benatar
Chart Position: #6, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 the week of December 10.

There’s no great story behind the song this week.

Nope, this entry is simply an excuse to share one of the iconic videos of the 1980s.

Pat Benatar enlisted director Bob Giraldi to help mold the images for her final single of 1983. That was a wise choice as Giraldi was just a few months removed from directing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video. Pat was no Michael, but there are some common elements, notably the little dance battle in the final third of “Battlefield.”

This video was also notable for being the first to ever include dialogue. That seems like a small note, but by the summer of 1984 sprinkling a few seconds of spoke word into your video was almost the norm.

Benatar had better songs, and one that most people think of first when they think of her. But with “Love Is a Battlefield,” she staked a claim for having one of the most important and memorable videos of the era.

Chart Week: October 27, 1984
Song: “Purple Rain” – Prince & The Revolution
Chart Position: #4, 4th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for two weeks in November.

(This ended up being a big coincidence, but not a bad choice for the 50th entry in this series!)

One of my favorite things about listening to old AT40’s is when they cause me to pour through old charts to examine the movement of various songs. I’m fascinated equally by songs that rocketed up the charts quickly, songs that hung around for months and months and months, and songs that had a brief moment on the charts before disappearing. It’s not just the trivia surrounding those songs I enjoy, but also thinking back to that time and remembering how (sometimes if) those songs penetrated the culture of the moment.

“Purple Rain” is a great example of a song with a chart history that gets my mental music memory neurons firing.

“Purple Rain” was the third single Prince released from the Purple Rain soundtrack. By then he was pretty much king of the world. Both “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy” had topped the charts. Purple Rain was, briefly, the number one movie in the country, in a summer that was loaded with great movies. And the Purple Rain soundtrack had been the number one album for months.

It seemed like a sure thing that “Purple Rain” would also reach number one and serve as a cherry on the top of a magnificent year for Prince.

Nothing about the song’s chart rise put that into question. In four quick weeks it was already at #4. It was just a matter of time, right?

The song moved up to #3 its fifth week on the chart, sitting behind “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” and “Caribbean Queen.” All three songs held those spots the following week.

The week of November 17, “Purple Rain” climbed one more spot to #2. But it was leapfrogged by the song that ended up blocking it from #1. “Purple Rain” remained at #2 for two weeks before it began a rapid descent. By the last chart of the year, covering the week of December 22, “Purple Rain” had slipped from the Top 40 to #54.

The song that kept it from topping the Billboard Hot 100? Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” which held the top spot for three weeks. I hated that song when it came out. There was something in its bouncy optimism that seemed fake and forced to me. Perhaps because we were getting into the deep fall, when the sunlight disappears and we start to come to terms with spending months inside “Purple Rain” seemed much more appropriate to the moment.

While I came to eventually like some of Wham’s songs, I still hate that one. The crime of keeping “Purple Rain,” one of the greatest songs ever, out of the top slot is one that can not be forgiven.

There was never an official video for “Purple Rain.” I wonder if that affected its chart success in some, small way? Here is Prince and the Revolution’s performance in Syracuse, NY on March 30, 1985.

Chart Week: October 23, 1982
Song: “Steppin’ Out” – Joe Jackson
Chart Position: #32, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 for three weeks in December.

I’ve written many times about how my parents influenced the music I have listened to. I’ve also mentioned how my grandparents always had the radio tuned to the local station, which between farm reports and news/weather bulletins, played the most generic blend of Top 40 pop possible. But they aren’t the only relatives who deserve credit.

My dad’s youngest brother helped me transition from the music of others to the music of me.

Uncle D is just 10 years older than me. As much as I enjoyed visiting my grandparents, those visits were always better when he was also around. That meant I could flip through his record collection and discover bands I had never heard of, or listen to deep cuts from bands I only knew the radio singles of. Or we would hop into his Monte Carlo and crank the radio up while cruising around Great Bend, KS. He introduced me to AC/DC, Boston, Pablo Cruise, Loverboy, Journey, and countless others[1] We would sit outside the Dairy Queen eating ice cream and I would ask him questions about what bands he had seen in concert and what it was like to go to a show. He and his college roommate were both aspiring radio DJs, so when they got together I would listen to their stories of getting to pick the music that was broadcast across central Kansas.[2]

1982 was when I was beginning to develop my own tastes in music. It helped that this was in the heart of the years when my mom worked multiple jobs, so my evenings were often spent alone, picking whatever radio station I wanted to jam out to. I kept a blank cassette in the stereo, queued up and ready to record when a song I liked came on. I was always sure to catch Q–104’s top four at 9:00 show to hear the most requested songs of the day so I could discuss them on the bus the next morning with my fellow music geeks.

The year was full of weird, new sounds, and I wasn’t sure what to think about all of them. “Steppin’ Out”’s insistent bass line and piano jabs got into my head, but the song sounded very different from the Human League, Soft Cell, or Flock of Seagulls, other bands I discovered in 1982. It wasn’t your standard New Wave song, but it also didn’t sound like something my mom would have any interest in. It was kind of jazzy. It didn’t have a chorus that wormed its way into your head and never left. Was that a xylophone in the instrumental break in the last minute? And Joe looked more like someone who would be managing the Laundromat we went to once a week than the youthful artists that were forcing New Wave into the pop charts.

However odd its various elements were, the song’s sense of liberation and adventure struck a chord with a kid who was locked alone inside the house five nights a week.

Right around the weekend of October 23, 1982, my uncle and his fiancé took me to some haunted houses in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City. It was my first-ever trip to a haunted house and I was both terrified and delighted. I have a vivid memory of “Steppin’ Out” coming on at some point and my uncle twisting the volume knob up. He started bopping his head to the beat and asked me, “Isn’t this a great song?” His approval gave me the permission to fall in love with this track despite its strangeness. I still turn the volume up a couple notches any time I hear it.

I texted my uncle Sunday to see if he recalled helping me to step out on the town that night 38 years ago. He did. And he remembered teaching me some cheesy dance he and his roommates did anytime “Steppin’ Out” came on, which no doubt annoyed and embarrassed his fiancé. It wouldn’t surprise me if he busted out that awkward dance Sunday evening to see if it still annoyed his wife of 34 years.[3]

Chart Week: September 16, 1989
Song: “Friends” – Jody Watley with Eric B & Rakim
Chart Position: #33, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of August 26.

For some reason I’ve struggled with this entry. I’ve been working on it for two weeks but can never seem to find the right tone. I’m setting a timer for 30 minutes and when that’s up, you get what I’ve got.

Jody Watley accomplished a lot in her career. Soul Train dancer. Member of the seminal dance-pop-soul act Shalamar. One of only two American artists who were a part of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” A stellar solo run that featured two #2 singles – including her first-ever solo song – and four other top 10 singles. She was a fashion icon and one of the most influential female Black artists of her generation.

And one of her songs featured the greatest guest rap ever.

“Friends” is a good enough song on its own. Its bouncy rhythm and bright horns disguise lyrics that cut the cold realities of the world: friends will let you down. It was also an essential part of my summer between high school and college.

But Watley made a decision to open her song to another artists. That decision is what made the song really shine.

Guest raps in pop songs were just coming into vogue in 1989. They were often brief, sometimes had almost no direct connection to the main lyrics of the song, and for years were often not included on the official single release. You might have to go buy the single to get the B-side version that featured the rapper. The popularity of Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and “On Our Own,” on which he dropped rap verses, showed that you could combine the two forms and still have a pop hit.

Watley saw that and fought her record company to not just allow her to include a rapper on “Friends,” but to give him and his DJ more freedom than any had received before.

There was no better rapper in the 1980s than Rakim. Period, point blank. His lyrics and vocal style revolutionized hip hop and has had, arguably, a greater impact through to the rappers of today than any other rapper of his era. By breaking out of the standard, expected framework that most ‘80s rappers worked within, he opened the doors for dozens of different styles. That, in turn, made hip hop an even more potent force, ensuring there was variety to keep the genre from becoming stale.

According to Watley Rakim was, at first, reluctant to join her. She loved his work, though, and was persistent until he and Eric B came around to joining her. The freedom she offered the duo turned their guest spot into an unforgettable performance.

The song begins following the standard format. Watley takes the first two verses and choruses. Right where the guest rap normal falls, Rakim comes in. But instead just a few bars where he gets in-and-out, it suddenly becomes an Eric B and Rakim track. He rolls on for a full 35 seconds before turning it over to Watley for another chorus. Then Eric B gets his turn, scratching out a 30-second solo. Finally, Rakim drops the bomb, another 35-second verse.

What the hell was this? A pop singer letting a rapper and DJ dominate her song? Unprecedented, that’s what it was. Today it seems quaint, since hip hop has utterly taken over pop music and the singers now guest on the rappers’ tracks. But in 1989? Whew…it was something else!

What makes Rakim’s presence great isn’t just the amount of time he got to rap. Beyond that there was the fact he clearly took it seriously. He didn’t just collect a check and manufacture some weak rhymes he could tag onto Watley’s song, or pull something leftover from his notebooks that wasn’t good enough for his albums. Nope, he treated it like his song. The lyrics are fantastic. His delivery is locked in. As Big Daddy Kane might have said, there wasn’t any half steppin’ in Rakim’s performance.

Watley claims that “Friends” was the first track to ever feature a guest rapper to crack the Billboard top 10. I can’t confirm that – sadly all the “best guest rapper” articles I found are about rappers joining other rappers – but it seems right.

Watley would have only one more top ten hit after “Friends.” Eric B and Rakim put out two more albums, but neither matched the heights of their first two. Just before the end of the 1980s, just before they began to fade, they joined forces at the perfect moment to pave the way for what was to come.

Chart Week: August 14, 1982
Song: “Someday, Someway” – Marshall Crenshaw
Chart Position: #40, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #36 for two weeks in August/September.

Some one-hit wonders are easy to explain. There are the accidental hits, songs by unknown artists that get tied to popular movies or TV shows. There are novelty hits that piggyback on some cultural fad and ride its popularity to chart success. And there are the dozens and dozens of artists who capitalize on some musical trend – disco, new wave, etc. – to earn their brief moment of glory.

Others defy explanation, at least to me. These are the artists who make great, timeless music that should seemingly appeal across genres and audiences but can never leverage that brilliance into sustained popularity. To me, Marshall Crenshaw is the ultimate example of these artists.

Crenshaw has been making magical pop music for nearly 40 years now. The ultimate example is “Someday, Someway,” which just barely cracked the Top 40 for a few weeks in the summer of 1982. To me, this is one of the most perfect pop-rock songs ever made. It’s simple and to the point, without a wasted second, yet is also intelligent and extraordinarily well-crafted. That little hint of rockabilly harkens to rock ’n’ roll’s earliest days. It is one of those songs that when I hear it, I want to listen to it again and again.

Crenshaw released at least two more singles that, while not as perfect as “Someday, Someway,” should have still made noise on the charts. “Cynical Girl,” also off his debut, self-titled album, did not hit at all. 1983’s “Whenever You’re On My Mind,” a song so good it makes me dizzy when I listen to it, peaked at #103.

Perhaps that pop perfection is why Crenshaw was not more successful. His music had no rough edges, it wasn’t confrontational, it didn’t cause the listener any distress. It didn’t rail against injustice. It was completely unoffensive music that you can play, feel good while listening to, but can also easily slip into the background. Unless you really lock in and focus on it, you can miss the easy brilliance that filled his songs.

Marshall reminds me a little of one of my all-time favorite artists, Neil Finn. Both were/are absolute geniuses at crafting pop songs that had a touch of rock and a touch of college/indie/alternative to balance their mainstream base.

A lot of folks have no idea who Neil Finn is, but if you mention Crowded House, they will nod their heads. Mention Marshall Crenshaw to most people my age and you’ll get blank stares. The difference is that Crowded House had one massive, unforgettable song that was followed by several minor hits. Crenshaw never had that one big hit, and unless you’ve dug into his albums, you likely have never heard anything beyond “Someday, Someway.”

I would say it is a travesty that Crenshaw didn’t have more pop chart success. Truth is, though, he’s had a pretty good career. He got his start playing John Lennon’s role in Beatlemania.[1] He’s been in movies, including playing his hero Buddy Holly in La Bamba. He’s written music for films, hosted a radio show, has been a guest vocalist for the Smithereens since Pat DiNizio’s death, and still puts out the occasional album and performs a few dozen concerts every year. Not a bad career, to be sure. But it feels like he could have been bigger had the listening public been more open to the music he released in the early ‘80s

Chart Week: August 2, 1986
Song: “Your Wildest Dreams” – The Moody Blues
Chart Position: #20, 16th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 for two weeks in July.

Having a teenage crush on a teacher is kind of a rite of passage, the stuff dozens – perhaps hundreds – of trashy novels and movies have been based on over the years.

However, I don’t recall every being infatuated with one of my teachers.[1] I think that’s because while I had plenty of nice looking teachers, there weren’t any that were so good looking that they made me feel all queasy inside.

During my year in California there was one teacher who may have filled that role had I lived out there longer. She had kind of a Plain Jane look about her. She wore her hair straight and long and didn’t put much makeup on. Plus, she was generally a joyless, strict, by-the-book teacher. But she also had a subtle, natural beauty that you appreciated the more you were around her.

One day, however, she let her guard down a little. She told us a story about when she was in high school. It had something to do with a guy she thought was cute finally asking her out and them going hiking and a teacher from their school who was also hiking discovering the six pack they had stashed and not only taking it but leaving a note that they shouldn’t be drinking. Wow!

She was an English/writing teacher and I think some of her point was about how to tell a story, how to build drama, how to bring your story to a satisfying conclusion.[2] But in telling the story she also opened herself up to us. As she laughed and smiled while she told her story, you could feel the class growing warmer toward her. I remember gasps and laughter when she came to the kicker at the end of the tale.

This was not too long before we moved back to Kansas City. I wonder if I would have learned to appreciate her teaching skills more had we remained in California. And maybe even developed a little bit of a crush on her along the way.

What does that have to do with this song? Not a whole hell of a lot, to be honest. Except that once she told us that she liked the Moody Blues. In 1987 this was the only Moody Blues song I knew of. I think that is still the case. So when I heard it a week ago, it made me think of her and that moment when she reached out and made a connection with her students.

Chart Week: July 3, 1982
Song: “Hurts So Good” – John Cougar
Chart Position: #5, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for four weeks in August.

This entry is about how the biological information Casey Kasem shared on American Top 40 was not always accurate. John Cougar (Mellencamp) is the perfect artist to demonstrate this point, as he charted under three different versions of his last name. For simplicity, I will refer to him by the name this song charted under.

During this week’s countdown, when “Hurts So Good” was beginning a two-month stretch where it held either the #3 or #2 position, Casey told a story about John’s family life.

Mr. Cougar is famously from Seymour, Indiana, a small town not too far from Bloomington. His primary residence remains between the two cities, he holds very good season tickets for IU basketball, and has donated millions to the university, notably for the indoor sports practice facility.

As Casey told his audience, when Cougar was just out of high school, he went to a party in Seymour with some friends. They had a few beers and started “acting like jerks,” in John’s words. John saw a pretty woman and attempted to talk to her. She rebuffed his approach, though, saying he was obnoxious and she wanted nothing to do with him.

John kept seeing this lady around town, kept working her a little, but she was never interested.

Eventually, however, he proved to her that his behavior at that party wasn’t his true personality and she agreed to go out on a date. John and Priscilla Esterline were married and, according to Casey, had by 1982 been married for 13 years.

“And that,” Casey concluded, “is the persistence you need to succeed in the music business.”

OK, nice story. Although I’m not sure how chasing a girl equates to not giving up when the music business keeps knocking you down, but whatever, Casey had time to fill and he probably got this blurb from Cougar’s agent or someone else close to him.

One problem: Cougar and Esterline were divorced in 1981. In fact, if Wikipedia can be trusted, Cougar was already married to his second wife before “Hurts So Good” hit the charts.

Over the years Cougar has been married three times, engaged at least two other times, and had numerous other public relationships with women.

As with all people in the public eye, there may be better tools to demonstrate his dedication, commitment, and work ethic than by using the length of his romantic relationships.

By the way, “Hurts So Good” landed at #8 on the year-end Hot 100 for 1982, the highest position for a song that did not reach #1 over the course of the year. That was one spot higher than one of the three songs that kept “Hurt So Good” out of the #1 spot, the Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra.” Cougar’s other massive ’82 hit, the far superior “Jack and Diane,” was one spot ahead at #7.

Chart Week: June 23, 1984
Song: “Obscene Phone Caller” – Rockwell
Chart Position: #39, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 the week of June 30.

I have always prided myself for knowing minor hits by artists who have been labeled as One Hit Wonders by the general public. Others find this trait annoying, but it’s kind of too late to change now. Not that I’m in-your-face about it. But I also do not hesitate to point out how Scandal or whoever actually had X other songs that cracked the top 40 in addition to their one, big, unforgettable hit.

So it pains me to admit I have zero memory of this song, the follow-up to Rockwell’s massive debut single, the #2 hit “Somebody’s Watching Me.” I mean, this was in the peak of my top 40 radio listening. When I listened to AT40 on Sunday mornings and The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Countdown on Sunday evenings. When I would switch between the two top 40 stations in Kansas City on a regular basis. When I would watch every second of MTV I could when over at friends’ homes. But when I heard this song recently, nothing about it rang a bell. Not the title. Not the melody. Nothing about the music or Rockwell’s vocal performance. I am ashamed of myself.

There’s an easy explanation for the difference in chart performance between the songs, and of why Rockwell never again hit the top 40: his boyhood pal Michael Jackson sang on the chorus of “Somebody’s Watching Me.” There is little doubt that having the biggest artist in the world drop in to sing the most memorable lines made that track stand out from all the other new music in the spring of 1984.

People were freaking nuts about Michael, and with Thriller pretty much milked of every possible hit fans snatched up anything they could get to hear new Michael. “Somebody’s Watching Me” was the biggest example. At the same time that “Obscene Phone Caller” was making its brief chart run, a recycled Michael track from the early ‘70s, “Farewell My Summer Love,” hit the charts for two weeks. There was The Jackson’s Victory album, which was mostly crap but had two top 20 singles thanks to Michael’s vocals.¹ Later in 1984, big sister Rebbie had the only top 40 pop hit of her career with “Centipede,” a song that Michael wrote and produced. It’s safe to say some of Prince’s success in1984 was because of walls that Michael had battered open for him.

As Lionel Richie might have said, Michael was outrageous from late 1982 through 1984.

By the way, isn’t it a little strange that Rockwell’s two hits were titled “Somebody’s Watching Me” and “Obscene Phone Caller”? And in 1985 he had a single titled “Peeping Tom”? I’m sensing a trend, and it’s a little disturbing.

It’s also pretty fresh that Rockwell and his management began the video for “Obscene Phone Caller” with a few seconds of “Somebody’s Watching Me.” Just a little reminder of why you loved him a few weeks earlier. And always a sign that the next song isn’t going to be nearly as good.

1. Mick Jagger on “State of Shock” didn’t hurt, either.

Chart Week: May 10, 1986
Song: “Be Good To Yourself” – Journey
Chart Positions: #20, 5th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of May 31.

Remember when it used to be a surprise when new music arrived? At least for kids. Before the internet, before I had cable TV, and before I could read music magazines regularly, new albums by my favorite artists often appeared seemingly out of the blue. I might get a hint when the first single hit the radio, but it was still often a mystery when I would be able to go buy the album that the single came from.

Beginning my junior year of high school, I would flip through Rolling Stone in the library, note the dates of upcoming albums I was looking forward to, and then jot them on my wall calendar at home. These days I have a running text file where I list new releases that are on my radar. There are still surprises, but I generally know when something I like is about to be released.

But back in 1986 I was thrilled that Journey, my favorite group at the time, had a new single climbing the charts in advance of their new album, Raised on Radio. A week or so after the album’s release I took ten of my hard-earned allowance dollars to Musicland, slapped them down on the counter, and took home my own cassette copy.

I had been teased by new Journey music a couple times in the years between Frontiers and Raised on Radio. “Ask the Lonely” appeared on the Two of a Kind soundtrack in late 1983 and got some decent airplay. Bigger was the 1985 single “Only the Young,” which appeared on the legendary Vision Quest soundtrack and peaked at #9.

With both of these songs, when I heard them the first time, my pulse quickened thinking a new Journey album was on the horizon. Turned out they were both leftovers from the Frontiers sessions the band farmed out to soundtracks. (More on “Only the Young” in a moment…)

Although I was still very much into my Top 40 listening ways in the spring of ’86, high school and changes in the musical landscape were beginning to adjust my listening habits. That spring I was also listening to New Edition’s All For Love album, notably “School,” their pro-education rap that was scratching an itch I didn’t really know I had. RUN-DMC and the Beastie Boys would make that itch really flare up a few months later.

I wasn’t into the college and late stage New Wave music upper classmen I knew listened to. But those sounds would influence what I would get into a few years down the road.

In the spring and summer of 1986 I was also super into Van Halen, both the new Sammy Hagar stuff and the older David Lee Roth stuff. By the end of that summer I owned every VH album and listened to their harder rock a lot more than softer bands like Journey, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, etc..

These changes were all either just happening or in the future. I know I was super-pumped to have new music from Journey for the first time in over three years during the spring of my freshman year of high school.

“Only the Young” might be my favorite Journey song, definitely one of the few I still like today. I think a lot of that is because despite being a top 10 hit, it wasn’t overplayed like so many of their songs. And it isn’t super sappy.

I had no idea until this week that Steve Perry, Neal Schon, and Jonathan Cain sold the song to the band Scandal after it was pulled from Frontiers. Scandal included their version on Warrior, the biggest album of their career. A year later when Journey went ahead and put their version on the Vision Quest soundtrack, Scandal sued them. Apparently there had been some language in their purchase of the song that prevented Journey from releasing it as a single, and Scandal won a nice little settlement.

I just listened to Scandal’s version for the first time ever. Musically, it’s pretty faithful to the Journey version. The guitar solo goes in a different direction, which makes sense. Patty Smyth does a nice job on vocals, but she’s no Steve Perry. It’s a solid 7 to Journey’s hard 9.

Chart Week: April 23, 1983
Song: “One On One” – Daryl Hall & John Oates
Chart Position: #7, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for three weeks.

Sometimes I come across anecdotes on AT40 that make me giddy.

For example, I first heard this episode a few years back while in the car one Sunday morning. I heard the story I’m about to share and started hooting in excitement. I believe I got wherever I was going – grocery store, donut shop, soccer game? – and immediately tapped out a reminder to share the story with a couple brothers in music as soon as I had the chance.

I’m glad I heard it again so that I can share it with you all.

Casey began the story by pointing out that hitting #1 was a big deal, even for established stars. Some celebrated with shopping sprees, new cars, or big parties for friends and families.

Daryl Hall and John Oates had a different experience.

In 1982 they learned their song “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” hit number one – their fourth #1 single – while on tour in Kansas City. After their show they decided to celebrate at a “very popular barbecue ribs place,” taking a limo from Kemper Arena (I presume) to the restaurant. After filling their bellies with delectable smoked meats and exiting with doggie bags of leftovers, they stood outside the restaurant and waited for their limo. And waited, and waited, and waited. It never returned. It being late night in Kansas City in 1982, there were no cabs to hail.

John Oates picks up the story:
“We’re standing there in front of this barbecue ribs place and finally decided to walk back to our hotel. And then a guy drives by in his pickup and says ‘Hey, you guys need a lift?’ There we were with a #1 record, riding back to our hotel on the flatbed of a pickup trick.”

That is an A+ fucking story, Casey! It hit a lot of spots for me and several of my brothers in music. I just wish I knew what KC barbecue place they went to. And I wonder if a place stayed open late for them, because surely as a headlining act on an arena tour, they were performing deep into the night.

It’s shit like this that I still listen to radio shows that are nearly 40 years old.

“One on One” peaked at #7 for three straight weeks. One spot below them was Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).” Three weeks in one spot was nothing to Steve Perry and the boys. “Separate Ways” spent six straight weeks at #8, which is kind of incredible.

Bonus: Might as well share the song the story was about, too.