August 19, 1988: Finally See What It Means to Be Living

1. Elton John: I Don’t Wanna Go on with You Like That
2. Steve Winwood: Roll with It
3. Eric Carmen: Lose Control
4. Corey Hart: In Your Soul
5. Tracy Chapman: Fast Car
6. Cheap Trick: The Flame
7. Robert Palmer: Simply Irresistible
8. Terence Trent D’Arby: Sign Your Name
9. Glass Tiger: Diamond Sun
10. Richard Marx: Hold on to the Nights
11. Rod Stewart: Lost in You
12. Huey Lewis & The News: Small World
13. INXS: New Sensation
14. Breathe: Hands to Heaven
15. Jane Wiedlin: Rush Hour
16. Debbie Gibson: Foolish Beat
17. Climie Fisher: Love Changes (Everything)
18. Billy Ocean: The Colour of Love
19. Crowded House: Better Be Home Soon
20. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: 1-2-3
21. The Contours: Do You Love Me?
22. Barney Bentall & The Legendary Hearts: Something to Live For
23. Def Leppard: Pour Some Sugar on Me
24. Whitney Houston: Love Will Save the Day
25. Chicago: Don’t Wanna Live Without Love
26. Sade: Paradise
27. Moody Blues: I Know You’re Out There
28. The Jets: Make It Real
29. George Michael: Monkey
30. Rick Astley: Together Forever
31. George Michael: One More Try
32. Doug & The Slugs: Tomcat Prowl
33. Aerosmith: Rag Doll
34. Pebbles: Mercedes Boy
35. Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers: Tomorrow People
36. Pat Benetar: All Fired Up
37. Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning
38. Hall & Oates: Missed Opportunity
39. Joe Cocker: A Woman Loves a Man
40. Rick Astley: It Would Take a Strong, Strong Man

~~~~~

"AM106, how can I help you?"

"Uh...I'd like to vote for the Top 6 at 6."

"Sure. What song would you like to vote for?"

"Er...uh...I Don't Want to Be a Hero by, uh, Johnny Hates Jazz?"

"Sure! Thanks for calling!"

I put down the phone and it immediately dawned on me that I was probably talking to an on air DJ. His voice was far too animated to be simply a station flunky tasked with taking requests and his curt tone implied that he had far better things to do than taking requests. I panicked: was my voice on the air? Could I have been a lucky caller with potential Jody Watley tickets on the line but didn't know it? Did I make a total jackass of myself with potentially thousands - okay, hundreds - of Calgary's teens and preteens listening in?

It's definitely one for the "I Guess You Had to Be There" file, I know. Still, I like to think that it's interesting that I was requesting a song that didn't appear on Canada's RPM Singles Chart above - and not just because I was voting for a single that was almost a year old. An AM106 chart from August 21, 1988 shows how local tastes bear only a passable resemblance to the supposed national mood: a lot more DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince and a lot less Barney Bentall and Doug & The Slugs. Who needed a national survey when the local one was much more accurate and could change rapidly from the Top 6 at 6 at dinnertime to the Top 10 at 10 when I was supposed to be in bed? 

It's probably time now to discuss the awfulness of the August 19 Canadian Top 40. While Tracy Chapman's Fast Car completely blew my mind - I was convinced it was about apartheid, probably because she played at a Mandela concert but whatever it happens to be about it was and still is stunning - and Richard Marx was a youthful indiscretion I'm still not ashamed of, much of the rest of this listing is turgid, MOR sludge: not so much songs for people who hate music, more tunes to inspire musical apathy. Those tracks I don't recall fondly are often ones that just completely passed me by: sitting in the lofty heights of the top 4 sits a Corey Hart song I was completely unaware of - and one that even then must have seemed like he was a long way removed from the heyday of Sunglasses at Night and Boy in the Box.

It was the summer of 1988 and upheavals were in the air. June came to a close with a pair of signal events in my young life: we moved out of our house of the last seven and a half years and I had my last day of elementary school. That last day of Grade 5 was emotional but the move barely registered: perhaps it was knowing that we were moving into a vastly better house; or maybe its significance was drowned out by the tedious game of jumping from one temporary place to stay to another that was to make up the bulk of the summer; or maybe it was just the fact that I had swimming lessons at the precise time we moved out, saving me from a tearful farewell to the only house I could recall. We ended up staying at my grandparents' and with family friends the Sadler's while our new house was being moved out of. The new house was great but it was all so fleeting: we had to be out of there by August 19th. Yet another place was awaiting us.

There were other changes afoot too. One day early in the summer I was at a friend's for lunch. Playing, as we typically did, with his vast collection of G.I. Joe and Star Wars figures, I noticed a promo on the TV for a show called The Wonder Years. One clip showed the characters Kevin and Winnie having their first kiss. I had a pang of butterflies in my stomach and I suddenly knew that I wanted nothing more than to kiss a girl - and I daresay I wasn't the only North American boy whose discovery of the fair sex was due in part to Winnie Cooper. (Little was I to know that TWY would be off the air before I was to have such an experience, glad no one warned me!)

And then, finally, there was our imminent move to England. With so many upheavals that summer the upcoming year in England was almost an afterthought. (I was still taking swimming lessons just two days before our flight on August 19th) The big day came and I finally bothered packing - which seems to have anticipated my attitude to getting ready for all my future trips abroad. If I wasn't overly looking forward to spending a year in the UK then at least the flight would be fun. Or so I thought.

Everything was about to change: we'd be driving on the left, the chart would be radically different and my jogging pants of old were to become acid-wash jeans. Off we go.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Fast Car
older Paul's retro pick: Fast Car
what was young Paul thinking?!?: Lose Control