Vintage 80s Pop to Suit My Mood

OK, so I haven't posted in a long while and this post shouldn't even count since it is just a musical selection of some songs I listened to this morning. This is however all I can manage at the moment. For my dear regular visitors (are there any left since my absence?) you might be wondering - I did go to Iceland?  I did and I found it to be a fabulous place - full of amazing geography, distinctive culture and incredible history. I also figured out the path that the sun takes from sunup to sunset when it only dips below the horizon for an hour - to satisfy my curious mind. (The next question: what is it's path when you are standing on the North Pole? Sadly, I guess I will never know.)   I will get to my Iceland travels at some point no doubt. But not today.

Today I put my toes very gingerly back into the Blogsphere with a musical selection for a nostalgic Sunday.  Longer and more meaty posts will need to wait in line for my time and attention.

Under Pressure

I wonder why this tune caught my ear on the radio yesterday?  LOL - we hear that which resonates, I guess.

According to Wiki:

"Under Pressure" is a 1981 song recorded by Queen and David Bowie. It marked Bowie's first released collaboration with another recording artist as a performer, and is featured on Queen's 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also number 31 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s.

The song was played live at every Queen concert between 1982-1986.

You Take Me Up

According to Wiki:

The Thompson Twins were a British pop group that were formed in April 1977 and disbanded in May 1993. They achieved considerable popularity in the mid 1980s, scoring a string of hits in the UK, the US and around the globe. The band was named after the two bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson in Hergé's comic strip, The Adventures of Tintin. A predominantly synthpop trio, they were joined on stage at Live Aid by Madonna and were at the forefront of the second so-called British Invasion.

This is a fun Video to watch and it draws an odd caricature of my life at the moment,"It's a labour of love so don't ask me why". I put this one on my wake up play list. :)

I work on the frontline

I work to survive

And I sleep in a fever - so this is my life.

I cry in my sleep - cry boy

cry boy

It just makes me weep

when I try how I try.

I know what it means to work hard on machines.

It's a labour of love

so please

don't ask me why.

I'm looking for reasons - day in

day out.

I'm trying too hard - he's trying too hard.

I'm moving in circles - too hot

too hot.

Don't get very far - don't get very far.

Should I ask she to dance - dance boy

dance boy.

If I promise romance

will you come for the ride.

I know what it means

to work hard on machines.

Do you believe in love one that lasts for all time.

You take me up

oh ho

you take me up to the higher ground.

You take me up so high

now I never want to come back down

I'm glad in these hard times - day in

day out.

There's hope in your eyes - hope in his eyes.

I don't need a religion - too hot

too hot.

'Cause this love never dies - love never dies.

I believe in today - believe boy

believe boy.

It's better that way and you work through the night.

I know what it means

to work hard on machines.

It's a labour of love

so please

don't ask me why.

You take me up

oh ho

you take me up to the higher ground. . .

I cry in my sleep - cry boy

cry boy. . . .

You take me up

oh ho

you take me up to the higher ground. . .

You take me up. oh ho. you take me up to the higher ground. . .

The Power of Love

There is more than one song which was released in the 1980s by this name. The song that is best known was featured in that great 1980s movie Back to the Future. The You Tube is not embeddable so you need to go here to see the Video, which features clips of the movie that made this song famous.

According to Wiki:

"The Power of Love" is the title of a 1985 single by Huey Lewis and the News written for and featured in the 1985 blockbuster film Back to the Future. It gave the band their first number-one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, their second number-one hit on the U.S. Top Rock Tracks chart, and was a top ten hit on the UK Singles Chart, where it appeared on UK editions of the band's fourth studio album, Fore!. The song was nominated for an Academy Award at the 58th Academy Awards.

Also released in the in the 1980s (1984 to be exact) was a song by the same name written by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It was also a top 10 hit and stayed in the #1 spot for 18 weeks in the UK. It is slower and more sensual and is a good listen also.  I  prefer this one by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Go here is you want to take a listen.

Welcome to the Pleasuredome

According to Wiki:

"Welcome to the Pleasuredome" is the title track to the 1984 debut album by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The lyrics of the song were inspired by the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

While criticized at the time of release and afterward for being a song that glorifies debauchery, the lyrics (and video) make clear that the point of the song, just as Coleridge's poem, is about the dangers of this kind of lifestyle. This song, along with Relax, made Frankie Goes To Hollywood even more controversial than they already were.

Oh, what I would give for a little debauchery in my life right now. LOL

Kubla Khan

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me

That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise.