September 17, 2025 • 54 mins
Jim and Lindsay sit down with author Eric Shoars to talk about his book Life Goes On: The Lessons We Learned From 80s Music. From power ballads to pop anthems, they dive into how the music of the decade shaped a generation—and still speaks to us today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome back to Children of the Eighties.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I am one of your hosts, Jim, and I am
joined by the book connoisseur, my co host Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Wow, I don't know about that, but today I will
be How does that sound?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
That sounds good to be So, why don't you tell
the folks what we've got going on here today.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I haven't sat down and read a book since
you and I got married until I got my hands
on an excerpt from this book.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So this book is called Life Goes On the Lessons
We Learned from Eighties Music, and we are joined by
one of the authors, Eric Shores.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Eric, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Doing very well? Jim Lindsay, thanks for having me on
the podcas cast. Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Absolutely when I heard about this book, I thought, boy,
this is right up my ali and so let's get
together with Eric and see if we can't give him
an interview, promote his book, and learn a little bit
more about what you have going on here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Oh, I'm very excited to talk about the book. And
you know, eighties music, as we know, is really connective tissue,
especially for Generation X, and that's really I think at
the heart of this book is that connective tissue that
we as a generation have with one another that we
may have thought we only had with you know, our
select group of friends within our i'll say, geographic area
(01:38):
of where we lived, where it was school or neighbors
or what have you. And and that's really one of
the things that I wanted to bring out was the
life experience of Generation X at middle age. You know,
how are we navigating now that we're in our forties,
our fifties, and you know, the leading edge of the
generation is turning sixty this year.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh oh wow, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I know that that kind of hit You're eight and
the kidneys, But you know, I've done the it works.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Why do we as Generation x ers is that a word?
Gen xers? Why do we still cling to our eighties music?
I feel like we really still hold on to those
songs from our youth, maybe more so than some of
the more recent generations.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Oh boy, that's a great question, because I think there's
so many reasons why every every generation is gripped by nostalgia.
We remember the quote unquote simpler days and the music
of the era, and and not having responsibilities. And Generation
X is a little bit atypical in that regard because
(02:45):
being latchkey kids, we had to be more mature, even
younger than maybe some of the generations before us and
after us. And so when we look at, you know,
the music of the era, and it was just so
much fun, even though a lot of the songs, when
we go back and read the lyrics now we're going,
oh my, that's highly inappropriate. So so I think, you know,
(03:11):
the music was fun, the clothes were fun, the pop
culture was amazing, and I think, really on one aspect
of it, the eighties told our story. I mean, if
you look at the John Hughes movies, we were watching
our generation live out essentially our experiences on the big
(03:33):
screen as teenagers, as young adults. And I think that's
one of those things where you know, we we missed
the eighties because that was the only thing that was
about us, because we were the generation that the adults said, literally,
you know, go play out in the street, go away,
you know, don't come back till you see the city
(03:54):
street lights come on. And we had to fend for ourselves.
And I'm sure you've seen the memes on social media
where we're a generation that was thirty years of age
at thirteen and we're still thirty years of age today.
And I think again, as a generation, we kind of
harken back to the eighties and we want to sit
in our rooms, fire up the atari, turn on our
(04:15):
pop station with the tape recorder nearby, so we could,
you know, do our mixtapes as we could do them
back with that technology. And I think that's why we
just missed the eighties so much, because that was when
it was about us and about fun, and the responsibilities
were still there, but they were different than they are today.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, you know, Eric, one thing that I've discovered since
we started doing this podcast is, you know, I think
we all grow up with a smaller sense of the world.
You know, it's just kind of us in our community,
and so we think that the life experience that we
have are our own and maybe nobody else experienced that.
(04:56):
And then the more podcast about the eighties or nostalgia
podcasts that I listen to, and the more we interact
with our listeners, it's like everybody had those experiences. Now
they may be slightly different, they maybe tilted a degree
or two, but for the most part, everybody had that experience.
And then we're able to connect as adults. Even though
we've never met each other, we're able to connect as
(05:18):
adults and it's almost like we've known each other our
whole lives.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
And that is exactly what I wanted to capture with
this book. This book has been three years in the making,
from the first germ of the idea to now. And
part of why I did the book as an anthology
with multiple contributors is because I grew up in the
middle of Iowa, cornfields in Iowa, so my experience was
(05:45):
far different than somebody who grew up in a city
in the Midwest or in the South or whatever. And
I didn't think I was qualified to speak for our
entire generation. You know, I had responsibilities, but my parents
weren't boomers. My parents were greatest generation and stayed married.
I was not a latch key kid, but I still
had responsibilities. And so that's the reason we find so
(06:09):
many authors within this anthology is because I wanted to
get a more representative snapshot of Generation X as we
were growing up and where we are now and have
that common connective thread of music tell the story in
the background. And I think that it's made for a
very fascinating book. And for me very rewarding because of
(06:32):
the sixteen contributors in this book, I only knew one
of them before I started the project.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I was going to ask you that, how did
how did you come about getting the sixteen?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
So to go to the very beginning, I was sitting
listening to my beloved eighties channel on Sirius XM Quick
Plug Get No Money from It, and Jack and Diane
came on the radio, and Jack and Diane and that
song came out in eighty two. I was a freshman
in high school, so presumably Jack and Diane were seniors
in high school in nineteen eighty two, And so I'm
(07:09):
listening to the song as I have thousands of times
during my lifetime, and this time it hit different, and
I wonder whatever happened to Jack and Diane, because you know,
Jackie was going to be the football star and Diane
debutante backseat of Jackie's car. Well, what happened? Did they
stay together after high school? Did they go to college,
they continue to play football, did they get married, did
(07:33):
they have a kid? Are they divorced? Where are they
now that they're in their fifties? And then I thought, well,
what about the rest of us too, What where's gen
X at middle age? And so, as I mentioned, I
didn't want to write that story myself because I don't
think I'm qualified to speak for an entire generation, and
so I thought, I need to find voices who can
(07:56):
speak for a representative sample of gen X. And I
wanted to do it with music because again, for all
the reasons I've said, eighties music is awesome and there's
so many stories that are told in our lives with
eighties music in the background. And so I sat back
and I just thought, well, I got to find people
(08:18):
who who want to be part of this project, and
literally just started googling, you know, gen X content creators,
gen X journalists right on down the line, and his
names came up. I'm just saying, hey, I'm Eric Shores,
and I'm writing this book about gen X, said you
know in middle age and this and that and the
(08:38):
other thing. And some people ignored it. Some people said, hey,
great idea, I just don't have the time, and others said,
I am so in what do you need? But literally
I spent by about two years to get all the
contributors in place because I didn't want it to be
a handful. I thought, sixteen people, that's a pretty decent
sample size and a pretty good sized book. Where it's
(08:59):
not it's it has depth, but it's not too heavy
so to speak as far as like being too big
of a book, because who knows, if this takes off,
we'll do a second volume or such. And I'm just
I've been so blessed because largely my friend Chavon, who
is from Ireland who moved to the United States probably
(09:20):
thirty thirty five years ago. I knew her, but all
of these other people were strangers before getting to know
them online, and they took a chance on me because literally,
I said, okay, pick a song from the eighties that
was meaningful to you, then that's still meaningful now? And
you know right why? You know why? For both? Why
(09:41):
was it impactful? Then? Why does it still have an
impact now? And I'd like, no more than three thousand
words good luck? And what came back to me was incredible.
The stories And I just said, could be funny, could
be sad, could be pointed, can be off the wall,
(10:01):
whatever you need feels to be said, say it. And
I just I was stunned with what I got and
with each essay, I'm just going this person nailed the assignment,
and I was purposely vague because I did not want
to bias them in a way that would limit them.
So they chose the song, and amazingly, nobody chose the
(10:21):
same song, and who who was on the list of
artists and who wasn't was equally surprising. And it was
just I'm just, as you can hear in my voice,
just tickled when I talk about this book, because these
people who joined in from Gen X did such a
fantastic job. And you know, when a project comes together
(10:45):
and largely you just sent out a signal, so to speak,
and it came back with what happened it was. It
was truly amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
That's fantastic, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So I've got to know, if you could sum up
or pick one artist or one musician from the eighties
that sums up the generation the best, who would it
be or what band would it be? Wow, I thought
it's CNN over here, listen.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, and I thought you were going to go a
slightly different direction with that question, because the offshoot where
I thought you were going was something that I've been
pondering that we as Generation X to try and sum
up the eighties with a song or a band For
someone who didn't live through it, what was what would
immediately give them a sense of the eighties.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Okay, well I want that question.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And not best artist, not most popular, not the greatest
song right now, and I kind of came back. I've
got two answers, but I leaned towards soft Cells Tainted Love.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
That's Lindsay's favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Probably Rio from Duran Duran oh awesome, and probably soft Sell.
And what I mean by that is when you listen
to that song, you've got the synthesizers, the keyboards, the
really i'll call it awesomely kitchy presentation of you know,
the singer, how he's singing and putting forth. I think
(12:22):
if you've got to sum it up, it would be that,
now what song? Hell boy? You know what? It may
sound cliche, but I'm going to go with Don't You
Forget About Me? From the Breakfast Club because there's no
wrong answer.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
But I love your answer and good job.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And here, thank you well, and here's why we are
as gen X, the most overlooked, underappreciated generation. And one
of the things that I touch on in the book.
In my introduction is, you know, when we hear the
politicians today and I'll pick on Washington, d C. And
(13:00):
we have baby boomers that have been in there for
you know, forty fifty years from both parties, doesn't matter.
They say, well, we need to pass this torch on
to the next generation, and they're talking about the frickin' millennials.
Boomers cannot get over the fact that they don't like us,
that they just want us off to the sidelines. And
(13:21):
so you know, with the Breakfast Club, there were so
many amazing things in there, again speaking of and to
our generation. And one of the most popular songs off
that soundtrack was Don't You Forget About Me? And I
would have to say that's probably if Gen x rallies
around a song, it would be that one.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Wow. So, when I was reading some of the excerpts
that you sent us, I was not to get like
too deep and or dark on this, but something that
I was struck with. My parents were older boomers, and
we didn't talk about anything.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Actually your dad was pre boomer, he might.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Have been so, but we didn't talk about anything. I'd
never got the birds and the bees conversation. We didn't
talk about feelings or anything, you know, anything. And what
that caused me to do growing up was I retreated
to my room and I relied on the music. And
(14:22):
music taught me all the things that I needed or
didn't need to know, and it taught me how to
process my emotions, how to cope with my emotions. It
taught me a little bit maybe about love. And I
don't know if that was healthy or not, but it's
just that was something that I was struck with, and
it just I'd never thought about that before that. It's
(14:45):
I definitely went to music, and in a way, it
parented me, yes, and it helped me grow up well.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And I think, you know, kind of using that as
a launch point. I didn't get the birds and the
bees talk either, and part of that was a relief
because my dad was forty eight and my mom was
forty when I was born, So, you know, kindergarten roundup
was a little bit shocking to me because I'm thinking,
aren't these people a little bit young to be parents?
(15:13):
And everybody thought my grandparents were bringing me in, you know,
for kindergarten roundup, But to me that was normal. But
you know, with with my essay life experience, and I'll
say kind of raising myself in a sense, kind of
the way you were saying about, you know, learning about
the world and how we do things. My dad was
very closed off, he was very stoic. He really kept
(15:35):
to himself, and so I didn't have really any male
role models to teach me how to be a man
and how to navigate the world as a man. I
just had to try to figure things out. And you know,
songs were a big part of that, obviously. But also
if you look at eighties movies, and I touch on
(15:55):
this in my essay, and I saw this on a
meme the other day. It was like, which is the
greatest hero of the eighties and it was you know,
Batman and Rigs from a Lethal Weapon and John McLain,
on and on and on. Who I talk about in
my essay. We didn't have heroes. Our heroes abandoned us.
(16:19):
They told us to go away and had nothing to
do with us. So who did we learn from? We
learned from the anti heroes who lived by their own code,
who still wanted to do right, but they wanted to
do right on their on their terms, and to heck
with authority. And so you know, as we looked at
pop culture, both movies and music, that really was kind
(16:42):
of a guidepost in how our norms were shaped, in
our identities as individuals, how we viewed the world, how
we viewed ourselves in the world. And then okay, here's
how I'm going to navigate the world. Because the people
that should have been guiding us decided they didn't want
to have any part of it.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
So you're saying Martin Riggs and John McClain, they weren't
for truth justice in the American way, No, they.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Were definitely though, for justice in their.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Way, yeah, justice or vengeance, yes.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, and and then you know, with an anti heroo,
you better be right because if you do it your
way and it fails, there will be tremendous consequences. And
I think you know that ran as a theme in
the movies too. The you know, the Danny Glover characters
and such were always like, no, no, we can't do
it that way. We're gonna get in trouble, somebody's gonna
(17:37):
get killed. And it's like, well, only if it doesn't work,
So let's do this thing.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Uh So, when when do you expect to release the book?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Looking to release the book mid October, in time for
the holiday book buying season. Nice, and really excited about that.
It's a it's coming together great. The manuscripts can complete.
It's just a matter of getting all the final preparations
in place and getting copies of the book ready to
go out into the marketplace. And as much as I
(18:10):
don't want to wish time away, I'm really looking forward
to fall.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, And you probably have noticed this. As you get older,
time seems to speed up. Anyway, it seems to accelerate,
So it'll be here before you know it.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Absolutely. My wife and I were just talking about that
the other day. We've been together twenty one years now,
and we you know, the math works, but we can't
understand how the heck we got here so fast. And
I said, because we're having so much fun. Time is flying.
You're welcome, but it is frightening, you know how fast
(18:45):
time is going. And the math works. But you know,
like my stepdaughter was thirteen when my wife and I met,
and she's now she just turned thirty four, I think,
and it's like, good heavens, where did that? What happened?
But I will tell you one thing though, Lindsay, getting
(19:06):
back to your birds and bees. Yes, my stepdaughter, when
she was a freshman in high school, she was firing
very specific sexual questions at me, not to be provocative. Yeah,
when she asked me the first question, it was I
(19:28):
kind of looked at her to gauge, Okay, is she
trying to be provocative or is she really wanting to know?
And I looked at her face and her body language
because my daughter was very confrontational back in those days,
so so being snarky was not something that would have
been beyond her. And I looked at her and like, oh,
she really wants to know. So I'm like, okay, well
let's do this. And we had if she wants to know,
(19:51):
I'll just flat out tell her, right, And we had
a very frank, very open conversation and it wasn't awkward
and she he wasn't embarrassed, and surprisingly I wasn't embarrassed.
But I think that's one of the things too with
Generation X and our children is we knew what we
missed out on that we didn't want our children to
(20:12):
miss out on some of those things, especially on the
emotional side. If they wanted to know, well, how does
this work or how does this function with the ways
of the world and how they navigate in it. I
was okay with taking it head on, and I'll give
my daughter credit. She was not afraid to ask the questions.
But she also wasn't afraid to hear the answers or
(20:33):
be embarrassed by it. And I think as a generation,
we are not afraid to give it to you straight. Yeah,
you may not like what we say, but we're going
to be honest and authentic about it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I agree with that, and I think each generation is
just probably doing the best that they can with what
they have. So I think the Boomer parents they were
trying for whatever reason. Talking was not something again that
we did. But what it did show me was I
knew that when we had children, I wanted our children
(21:07):
to know we could talk about anything. Right, So I'm open,
we can talk. You don't need to be embarrassed, you
don't need to be nervous, because I would rather you
hear it from us than retreat to your room. And
of course now they have the internet, so that's super scary,
but retreat to your room and try to figure it
out on your own.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So Eric, I'm just looking at the at the mixtape,
I guess that you have here for each essay, and
it sure runs the gamut from let's see hairbands to
female rockers to like you said, John Mellencamp. But then
we've got some maybe not I wouldn't say super popular,
(21:52):
you know, when you come to like early Ram, some
Phil Collins, some Minute Works. So it kind of runs
all over the place. And I know you said you
told each person to pick what song that they wanted
to talk about, But how pleased were you when this
came in and did you feel like it encompassed at
least most of the decade.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I did, and I was happy with the song selection
from the standpoint is for exactly what you said. We
had a little bit of mix of everything you know,
from Rim to guns n' Roses, the Pogues. I didn't
see the Pogues or Rim coming in on this list,
(22:35):
if you will, But as you read with the essays,
it so fits perfectly. And that is going back to
what surprised me, because again I didn't assign any songs.
I didn't signing an artist. I said, you pick, and
nobody chose the same song. I didn't have to say
to any individual. I'm sorry, somebody's already doing that song.
(22:57):
Pick another one. But what is also surprising is the
holy Trinity of the eighties was not represented. I noticed Madonna,
no Michael Jackson, no Prince and that, And I'm still
trying to figure what that means exactly, because they had
all you know, they've all had iconic songs and hit songs,
(23:20):
but did they not have one that was meaningful in
that way, you know, from a teenager too to a
fifty something or a forty something. But no, I was
not disappointed at all by the songs that came back.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I was.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I was delighted by, you know, not to use the
bud buzzword, diversity of what we came in. And like
I say, when you read these essays, they're incredibly powerful.
Some are very nostalgic, feel good type stuff. Laura Wise,
who wrote based on subdivisions from Rush Again, who I
(23:58):
did not expect to show up, you know, on the list,
but it so totally fit about her high school experience
and trying to find a way to fit in and
things of that nature. And I thought everybody did a
great job of weaving in the lyrics throughout the story
to more or less compliment the point that they were making.
(24:20):
And one of the most powerful essays is my friend Chavaughn,
who grew up in Ireland, It's where she was born.
The Pogues the fairy Tale of New York song I'd
never heard or heard of until it came to me
in an essay and then she sent me the YouTube
link to watch the video and I fell off the chair.
It's a really hardcore song and she heard it three
(24:43):
different ways in three different stages of her life, where
at first she hated it and then she kind of
warmed up to it, and now it feels like a
warm sweater when she hears it at Christmas time. And
incredibly powerful essay. And again that's that was meaningful to
me because Jack and Diane that one time that I
(25:07):
heard it hit me differently, and I think where we
are now, whether it's you know, we're getting to an
age where we're thinking about retirement and our mortality, or
how old our kids are, or how society has changed,
or how our music hits us differently. Today, things do
hit differently because we have all this life experience and
(25:28):
experiences behind us. We hear a song differently now because
a word or a phrase has a different meaning to
us now than it did when we were younger.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well, it's funny that you say that, because on our podcast,
that is something that we do whenever we do a
music episode. You know, we talk about the song. We
talk about, you know, what it meant to us as kids,
you know, whether or not we liked it or hated
it or whatever, and really what it means to us now,
you know. And even if we hated it then and
like it now, 're liked it then and have gotten
(25:58):
sick of it and don't like it now, it still
brings back those feelings of nostalgia that take you back
to that happy place right, makes you feel good, kind
of gives you the as Lindsay likes to say, the
warm fuzzies. And it works out perfect.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
And I talk about that in the book as well.
I reference it where you know, there's a bunch of songs,
but two that right off the bat. When I hear
that first note, I'm instantly transported back to a place
in a time, and one of those is Eddie Grant's
Electric Avenue. Because when that came out, it was the
(26:35):
end of my freshman year of high school, and at
my school we did drivers training in I think June,
between the end of the freshman year and the beginning
of sophomore year. And so I'm listening to my favorite
radio station getting up in the morning, getting ready to
go to Driver's Head, and it seemed like every morning,
somewhere between my getting up and going to Driver's Head,
(26:57):
Electric Avenue was on the radio, and it was a
beautiful summer. So I'd be stepping out of the house
on the farm and it's sunny skies, blue skies, breeze,
sixty five degrees, a little just a little nip of
crispness in the air, and I'm instantly there anytime I
(27:19):
hear that song. And the other one is Walking on
Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. My last day senior
year of high school, and I could not wait to
get out of high school and go to college and
take classes I wanted to take, not the ones they
forced me to. And the your Science teacher was my
(27:40):
homeroom teacher, and people were still getting off the bus
waiting for first bell for homeroom. I'm the only one
in the room.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
It's just me.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
The radios on teacher wasn't even there radios on to
that radio station that I loved listening to, and Katrina
in the Waves Walking on Sunshine came on and I
had this rentalin burst. I am not kidding you. I
got we had the long science tables, no sins, just
the long tables. I ran across every table top in
(28:11):
that classroom until that song was over, and amazingly, no
one came in while I was doing that. I was
just running like a maniac, which is something I would
not have ever done before that day. But I was
just so caught up in the moment and jubilant that
this was the last day of public school for me.
(28:32):
And then the song finished, I sat down, and then
people started streaming in home, and no one knew, and
no one knew. I think that's me, and I think
that's true of a lot of people were That song
at a certain moment of our lives just imprints itself
into our psychees that whenever we hear it, it's just
(28:53):
like whatever we're doing, however we old, however old we are,
whatever the years, everything just peels away boom, and we're
fifteen years old again, or we're seventeen years old again,
or whatever the case. May be. And I think that's
one of the special things about music is that it
can do exactly that, providing the soundtrack for our lives
(29:14):
and remain so as we're well into our forties and
fifties as gen xers.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
So how important do you think the walkman invention was
to our generation?
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Oh? I think the walkman and the boombox to add
to it, were incredibly important. And this is something that
I've talked about as well across the board. As much
as today's generation is like, oh look at this at Spotify.
Oh we can take our music wherever we want to,
or oh look we can watch Netflix or we can
(29:49):
stream things, it's like, yeah, well, we could take our
music wherever we wanted to as well. It was called
a walkman or a boombox. We had time shifted to
television viewing. It was called a VCR, and I think
that's one of the special things about our generation is
all the things that we ooh and ah about today,
(30:10):
twenty four hour cable channels, mobile music, time shifted television viewing,
et cetera. That started with us gaming were the og gamers. Yes,
shout out Atari and Pong for this guy. So I
think the Walkman was incredibly powerful because before that we
(30:32):
had to physically be in one spot, because the radio
had to be attached to something, whether it was a
power court into an outlet in our homes or in
the car that we were writing in. And you know,
to that point, we could only listen to music on
devices where you had a power court. And now if
(30:55):
you had you know, eight D cell batteries in your
boom box and a cassette tape, you were golden. And
I will tell you, and I can go show you.
But I still have the first boombox I bought in
nineteen eighty four, no way legit. So that's how well,
that's how a nostalgic I am. I still have the
Dagon thing and the Walkman. Now we could take our
(31:18):
music wherever we went. We could use our tape recorders
to do our own mixtape recording off the radio. And
now if we wanted to go skateboarding, or you know,
if you were in an urban area and wanted to
have you know, break dancing competitions, all you needed was
a piece of cardboard in your boom box and you
were ready to rattle some windows and get down and go.
(31:39):
So I think I think it was incredibly important, not
just for our generation, but it paved the way for
everybody else after us.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
It's funny because we literally had this conversation earlier tonight
leading up to this interview. It was like, you know,
what do you think why do you think our generation,
you know, was so connected to their music? And I'm like,
because we were able to be mobile, And I said
the exact same thing you said, Eric. We weren't tied
to either our house stereo or being in the car.
(32:07):
Right as a ten year old or eleven year old
or fifteen year old or whatever, you could strap on
the walkman and go walk into your friends who lived
a half mile and you get in you know, five
songs or six songs or whatever. And it was like
you said, it became mobile, and we are the first
generation that could do that. And I think that's why,
you know, one reason why we're so connected to our music.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
And I think along with that, Jim, is there was
also a certain autonomy it gave us because I know
at my house we had the community stereo, and my
mom and dad were Marty Robbins, Guy Lombardo, you know,
et cetera, et cetera. And you know, some of the
music I listened to and it was okay, But I
(32:51):
didn't get to play my music on the stereo, et
cetera if my parents were in the room, because A
they didn't like it, and B they probably didn't want
to listen to music at the time that I wanted to.
Maybe they're watching on something on TV, et cetera. So
the walkman, then I could listen to my music when
I wanted, wherever I wanted. And and then I could
(33:12):
go share it with my friends and say, hey, you know,
I take off the headphones, hand it over so they
could put it next to their ear and listen to
that as well. So it gave us that freedom that
we could not only listen to our music wherever we wanted,
we could listen to it whenever we wanted without an
adult say so.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Beforehand, before we started recording, we were doing a little
game of six degrees of Bacon. Yes, only it wasn't
Kevin Bacon, It's someone else. So I got to know,
can you retell that for us?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Absolutely? I was listening to your episode on Number One
Songs of the Eighties and and Jim was speaking of
his love for Rio Speedwagon, which I share. But as
I was listening, I thought, oh, Jim's going to be
happy to talk to me because I need him. You
know a couple steps closer, you know the Ario Speedwagon,
and that is Neil Dody, the keyboard is from Ario Speedwagon.
(34:10):
Is married to one of my good friends, Daria, and
they have been to my house to share a meal
with my wife and me, probably about fifteen years ago now.
And I also have the backstage pass from when they
played the surf Ballroom not long after. Neil and Darry
were here for a meal with us at the Surf
(34:31):
Ballroom in clear Lake, Iowa. Oh it's cool twenty ten.
So you know you don't need seven degrees. You got me.
So you're almost in the band, Jim.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
So I have to know, did you like when you
first met him, or maybe when you had dinner, did
you just like totally like nerd out and ask him
all the questions you possibly could about the band and
how we got started and life on the road and
all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Actually, I'm proud to say I didn't, because I did.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
You were playing it cool.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I didn't want to be that guy, and I will
tell you that this is a funny story before I
completely answer the question. Because Neil Dody lived in Austin
where I do for a handful of years when he
and Darry were together here in town, and Derry and
(35:24):
I had a running joke about Christmas and I forget
what it is now, it's been enough times. But she
was just she was more of a Festivus person. And
so I had found at Barnes and Noble, you know,
George Costanza's Guide to Festivus, and and I thought, oh,
I've got to drop this off as kind of like
a gag gift. And she didn't live that far from
me here in town. And so one morning I drove
(35:46):
over there as I was out and about, and she
wasn't home, and Neil opened the door. I had never
seen Neil Doty's picture. I didn't know who I was
talking to until as I'm talking to this guy, I'm
hearing things in my head of conversations I've had with
other people, and I go, oh, crap, this is Neil
(36:06):
Dodi of Ario speak and nswering the door. This isn't
just some you know, random person. And and she was
at home and I said, oh, hey, you know I'm
a friend of Darius and Festivus and YadA YadA as
assigned another sign field reference and and just wanted to
drop off this this book and it was all well
and good. So then when they were here for supper,
(36:27):
I just wanted It's like, I didn't want to be
one of those guys that it was, you know, tell
me all about you know, blah blah blah blah blah.
I wanted to get to know him. And and he
had done his best, he didn't shy away from being
Neil Dody. But at the same time, he just wanted
to be a you know, a guy living with his
wife in a community and and very chill. And so
(36:49):
that's I. We just had conversations about life and and
interests and things of that nature. And then we have
a We built a movie room in our family room
in the basement, so we essentially painted a movie screen
on the wall and then put a wooden border around it.
And then here's the movie. And I can't remember which
star trek Mute movie it was. It was whatever one
(37:12):
that was out in the vicinity of two thousand and nine.
And so the four of us went to the movie room.
We watched this movie. Well, then the movie's done and
we're chit chatting and he starts talking about quantum physics.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
And he is an incredibly smart, interesting guy to talk to,
you know, the stereotypical rock and roller, bad boy partier,
you know, whatever you want to say about the stereotype.
And he was talking about stuff. You know, it's like, well,
you know in Star Trek where they talk about this
(37:48):
and quantum mechanics, and he's just like, but just rattling
this stuff off, like like he wrote the movie. Kind
of a thing as far as the scientific expert. Fascinating guy,
really smart guy, enjoyed, enjoyed getting to know him. And
years later they moved and I think they're in Minneapolis
now if I remember correctly. But man, just just an interesting,
(38:11):
interesting guy to talk to.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
That's a cool story.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
You know, you had mentioned movies earlier, and obviously you're
kind of talking about a little bit of a soundtrack
of your life. But do you think that music in
the movies in the eighties was so important because it
was really the first decade that I can remember where
it was so prominent. I mean, there may be you know,
(38:38):
hit songs in other movies like I think like The
Graduate or Butcher Cassidy, The Sundance Kid with rain drafts
can falling on my Head. But it seemed like movies
in the eighties, with their soundtracks and everything else, it
was like popular music was either already there and put
on the soundtrack to try to attract people, or they
made movies are songs specifically for the movies, which then
(39:02):
became popular maybe because of the movie. I'm thinking, like
don't you forget about Me with the Breakfast Club right?
Or let's see what else do we have? Like Who's
that girl? Right? Madonna wrote that for that movie, And
so do you think that's why we connect so much
(39:23):
music with movies.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
I think, going back to what I said earlier in
the interview, is you know the John Hughes movies in particular,
we're talking to our generation. They were telling our story,
talking to us about us. And I think if you
look historically at music prior to and now since Generation X,
(39:47):
since the eighties, that music that wasn't in the eighties
was primarily music and situations that people could identify with.
Our music as it related to the soundtrack, was our identity.
If you look at pretty and Pink Breakfast Club, all
(40:08):
of those types of movies in the eighties. The songs
didn't speak just to what was happening in the movie.
It was happening to us as well. And I think
that's why we embraced the movies as they were, because
there's not really any other era of movies where you
can look at it and say, well, this was obviously
speaking to a boom er audience, a millennial audience, or whatever.
(40:31):
It was representatives of the times that they were living in,
but it wasn't representing their generation specifically. And I think
when you had that music in that movie tie In,
you got the best of both worlds because when you
were watching the movie, the music really solidified what you
were seeing on the screen, and then when you heard
(40:53):
the song on your walkman or your boombox or your stereo,
you were then reliving that experience of the movie in
your head, which then solidified the identity of yeah, me too.
And I think that's really as you talked about Jim
earlier in the interview, is you know we're finding out, Oh,
(41:13):
it wasn't just me. The whole generation by and large
felt that way about, you know, fill in the blank.
And I think that music then is is something that
unites us more than any other generation.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
I would agree, Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
We could just talk about this all night. We could
just hold Eric hostage.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Careful, I could do it. I could go all night
coffee well, and again, the blessings of the book is
that we could go on because of the stories that
these people are sharing. That it may not be exactly
our story, because there's a lot of stories, you know,
in the narratives that came back to me that weren't
(41:58):
my experience, but how they adapted, how resilient they were,
I could identify with because we as gen X, had
to be resilient, had to be adaptive, had to figure
things out on our own, because there was not somebody
who was putting an arm around to saying, hey here,
let me help you, let me show you how things
are done. And you know, we as a generation, I think,
(42:21):
have a very dark sense of humor. We're very sarcastic
because in part we had to be. It helped toughen
our skin and that protective shell to navigate a world
that wasn't necessary always friendly and wasn't always one we
exactly knew how to deal with we just did the
best we could with what we had and what we knew.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah, I agree, that's right.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
So I'm going to turn the tables real quick. Yeah,
Lindsay you you put me on the spot, and I oh,
no for it. What song? And Jim's same question after
Lindsay answers what eighties song would you say would best
be rep presentative of our generation?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Our generation? I have my answer, of course, because Jim's
good on his feet, Jim go first. I probably would
have said Tainted Love, but now I feel like, oh,
I can't piggyback off that, So so I.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Would go with everybody wants to rule the world by
tears of course that one. It's it's British synthpop, which
is huge in the eighties, right, And uh, there is
that sense of, you know, people trying to grab power,
(43:38):
and I know, our generation, like you said, kind of
feels like, you know, the greatest generation and the Boomers
tried to grab that power, and now we feel like
that power is trying to be grabbed by the millennials.
And I just feel like, especially if you look at
our country, our political system, anybody's politicals, not just our country, right,
anybody's political system. Everybody is trying to grab that power
(43:59):
and be the most powerful person in their city. Not everybody,
but certain people city, state, country, county, whatever. And I
do think that that that rings true with everybody wants
to rule the world.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Man, that is so deep and profound. I am never
this deep. What about take on me? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (44:24):
Yeah, I think I think that's right in line with.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
The deep reason. Like I can't go on and on
about political parties or whatever nonsense he just shared. I
just think it's a really good song that sums up
the decade really well.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
And I will go to my grave saying that video
still holds up. It does, and I cannot believe they
did that with nineteen eighties technology because it still stands up.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
It does.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
You could watch that and go, oh, well, somebody just
you know, made that today, and I was just it's phenomenal.
But you know, Jim, when you were talking about everybody
wants to rule the world, you know, I just had
this this vision in my head of our generation still
as it exists today. We're kind of like alligators because
(45:10):
we're just we're minding our own business. We're not we're
not messing with anyone and you just see our eyes.
But watch it because we'll bite.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
You know, it's funny because uh in the excerpts that
I read, I didn't hear a whole lot of talk
about MTV. And I feel like that that was important
to our generation when it came to music, because we
were able to put uh faces with with music and
you know, certain videos with music. When you said Electric
(45:47):
Avenue by Eddie Grant, immediately what popped into my head
was that video. That's where I first heard it was
on MTV.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
And so.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I'm curious what you think about that. Okay, but before
you answer, I'm going to go out on a limb, Eric,
and I'm going to say that you may have been
like me, and I bet you didn't have access to
cable growing up. You're correct, Yeah, yeah, I had a feeling. See,
Jim grew up in a much more urban setting, and
(46:18):
so sometimes he and I have this disconnect because I
didn't see the music videos like he did because MTV
was on in his house every day and living in
a much more like country farm setting, I didn't have
access to that.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
And so Jim, I'll come back to that because I
do have an answer. But Lindsay is with my experience. Yeah,
I grew up in a farm, so I didn't have
access to MTV, but I had a relative who lived
in Des Moines who worked for the cable company, who
had cables. So when we'd go down to visit the summer,
I was glued to that TV. Because I could watch
(46:59):
the cubs on WGN, I could watch MTV and it
was fascinating as heck. And a trivia question. The first
MTV video I saw, She's a Beauty by the Tubes.
Speaker 4 (47:11):
Oh, that's agreed, Yes, love that.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
And I have it on forty five, which when I
probably exclaimed that to my daughter, she goes, what's forty five?
And then I cry. So it was hugely influential because
again MTV is ours and it will only be ours
because by the time that the nineties rolled around, it
had gone to reality shows and away from music videos.
(47:36):
And again it was us on display, it was our music,
it was our artists, you know, the artists wanted to
be on MTV. I want my MTV. My relative for
my high school graduation gave me a satin MTV jacket,
which I still have and can still fit into. By
the way, Wow, MTV beach blanket, MTV trucker hat. I'll
(47:59):
email it to you. That would probably be the easiest way.
It's one of those things that we can claim is ours.
But also again getting back to today, we talk about
social activism. Well, if you look in the eighties, Generation
X was activism and it was around music, and it
was around MTV. We Are the World, USAID or USA
(48:24):
for Africa and farm Aid and all of these musical
acts that were affecting social change hands across America, you know,
and a lot of it was wrapped fully around MTV
and Generation X that our music was exacting social change.
(48:45):
If you look at the Boomers, their music was we
want change and we're going to protest and somebody better
do something about it, but we don't want to lift
our own fingers to do it. Jen X is going like, hey,
somebody needs help. Let's get in, get hands dirty, and
get this done. And I think MTV was at such
the forefront of that, and we embraced it because it
(49:07):
was ours. It wasn't for the Boomers and our kids
didn't exist yet. It was fully ours and by the
time our kids were around, MTV was no longer what
we had grown up with. So it's something that is
fully ours and again wrapped right around our generation and music.
And as you said, we got to see our artists
(49:28):
for the first time without having to go to a
concert or look in a a People or an US
Weekly or a National Inquiry or whatever your magazine of
choice was back in the day. And here was a
theatrical presentation of what that song meant to the artist.
And it would and some of those music videos were incredible.
(49:51):
I mean you look at take on Me from Aha
Thriller by Michael Jackson. Remember the phenomenon that was, like
be watching on this day We're going to release the
video and everybody just flocked to a television set to
watch this video. And of course, you know, Lindsay and
(50:11):
I were out in the country, we couldn't see it.
But my friends recorded it and brought it to school
and we watched it on the VCR at school and
we're just like, did they do that? That was incredible,
and I mean it was it was not only a song,
it was a mini movie. And as an interesting aside,
and this is not mine, a friend of mine gave
this to me and forever ruined the song when you
(50:34):
listen to Thriller. If you substitute Phyllis Diller or Thriller,
the song still works. You know, it's Philis Dillah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Never heard that?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Yeah, I had either, and now I can't hear anything else.
That's all while here, So I'm sorry, and you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
I can't wait for the book to come out. I'm excited.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
I'm so happy to hear that. You know, as whether,
regardless of what type of artists you are, you want
your art to be seen and recognized and hopefully loved.
So the fact that you've seen excerpts and are excited
to see the full work, thank you. I that means
a lot, It truly does.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
And if she's excited about a book, Eric, because like
she said, I haven't seen her read a book in
the fifteen years i've known.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
No, I take that back.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
She read one book about Johnny Cash's first wife and
it changed her life, she said. But other than that,
that's the only thing I've seen her read. Whereas when
we first met, I was a huge reader, and now
we have these stupid things. Oh yeap, that take away
a lot of my reading time because I read on
that instead of a book. But just recently, I've gotten
(51:53):
back into reading books and I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
A lot too.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
And I think, Lindsay, you will really enjoy this because
as narratives, you're going to feel like you're reading somebody
telling you their story. It's not meant to be an
academic exercise. I did not want this to be some dry,
boring whatever. I wanted it to evoke the emotion that
the writer was feeling at the time and now and again,
(52:26):
some of these folks are are skilled writers, and some
of them are good writers, and that's where kind of
I came in and in doing the editing, or as
I like to call it, the mixing. But I was
very impressed that they come across as conversational pieces, not
dry academic wording.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, and everybody has a story and I love that
and I can't wait to get my hands on the book.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Well, I'm going to throw this invitation out there. If
there is a volume too, I will be reaching out
to you too.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
I'm there, I'm there, I'm going to start working online.
I'm the fort some ideas.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Yeah, absolutely, I would be honored and thrilled to contribute
to such a cool, such a cool idea once again.
The book is called Life Goes On the Lessons we
Learned from eighties music. Eric, thank you so much for
joining us. We want to again plug it. It's coming
(53:27):
out in October and time for the holiday book season.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Make sure you pick that up.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Jim Lindsay, thank you so much for having me on
the podcast today and a great conversation. We could do
this for hours and I'm here for all of it,
but thank you for the time today. This has been wonderful.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
All right, sounds good. I love it. Yep. Make sure
you hit that subscribe weton so you're guaranteed to never
miss a show. And if you haven't, please consider leaving
us a five star review. That always helps us show
up a little bit better in the algorithman. I still
don't understand.
Speaker 4 (54:01):
I'm not sure if that's true or not.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Oh, it's true. I like to say it. Innerwebs told
me it was true.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yeah, But mostly the way to help us out is
tell somebody right, spread the words so they get all
of this yummy goodness of nineteen eighties fun. You can
reach us on social media at Children of Underscore Eighties
on Twitter or x as they call it now, Facebook,
and Instagram. You can email us at Children of the
(54:29):
nineteen Eighties at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Okay, well, until next time. I'm Jim and I'm Lindsay
and we are Children of the eighties. See
Welcome back to Children of the Eighties.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I am one of your hosts, Jim, and I am
joined by the book connoisseur, my co host Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Wow, I don't know about that, but today I will
be How does that sound?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
That sounds good to be So, why don't you tell
the folks what we've got going on here today.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I haven't sat down and read a book since
you and I got married until I got my hands
on an excerpt from this book.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So this book is called Life Goes On the Lessons
We Learned from Eighties Music, and we are joined by
one of the authors, Eric Shores.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Eric, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Doing very well? Jim Lindsay, thanks for having me on
the podcas cast. Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Absolutely when I heard about this book, I thought, boy,
this is right up my ali and so let's get
together with Eric and see if we can't give him
an interview, promote his book, and learn a little bit
more about what you have going on here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Oh, I'm very excited to talk about the book. And
you know, eighties music, as we know, is really connective tissue,
especially for Generation X, and that's really I think at
the heart of this book is that connective tissue that
we as a generation have with one another that we
may have thought we only had with you know, our
select group of friends within our i'll say, geographic area
(01:38):
of where we lived, where it was school or neighbors
or what have you. And and that's really one of
the things that I wanted to bring out was the
life experience of Generation X at middle age. You know,
how are we navigating now that we're in our forties,
our fifties, and you know, the leading edge of the
generation is turning sixty this year.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh oh wow, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I know that that kind of hit You're eight and
the kidneys, But you know, I've done the it works.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Why do we as Generation x ers is that a word?
Gen xers? Why do we still cling to our eighties music?
I feel like we really still hold on to those
songs from our youth, maybe more so than some of
the more recent generations.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Oh boy, that's a great question, because I think there's
so many reasons why every every generation is gripped by nostalgia.
We remember the quote unquote simpler days and the music
of the era, and and not having responsibilities. And Generation
X is a little bit atypical in that regard because
(02:45):
being latchkey kids, we had to be more mature, even
younger than maybe some of the generations before us and
after us. And so when we look at, you know,
the music of the era, and it was just so
much fun, even though a lot of the songs, when
we go back and read the lyrics now we're going,
oh my, that's highly inappropriate. So so I think, you know,
(03:11):
the music was fun, the clothes were fun, the pop
culture was amazing, and I think, really on one aspect
of it, the eighties told our story. I mean, if
you look at the John Hughes movies, we were watching
our generation live out essentially our experiences on the big
(03:33):
screen as teenagers, as young adults. And I think that's
one of those things where you know, we we missed
the eighties because that was the only thing that was
about us, because we were the generation that the adults said, literally,
you know, go play out in the street, go away,
you know, don't come back till you see the city
(03:54):
street lights come on. And we had to fend for ourselves.
And I'm sure you've seen the memes on social media
where we're a generation that was thirty years of age
at thirteen and we're still thirty years of age today.
And I think again, as a generation, we kind of
harken back to the eighties and we want to sit
in our rooms, fire up the atari, turn on our
(04:15):
pop station with the tape recorder nearby, so we could,
you know, do our mixtapes as we could do them
back with that technology. And I think that's why we
just missed the eighties so much, because that was when
it was about us and about fun, and the responsibilities
were still there, but they were different than they are today.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, you know, Eric, one thing that I've discovered since
we started doing this podcast is, you know, I think
we all grow up with a smaller sense of the world.
You know, it's just kind of us in our community,
and so we think that the life experience that we
have are our own and maybe nobody else experienced that.
(04:56):
And then the more podcast about the eighties or nostalgia
podcasts that I listen to, and the more we interact
with our listeners, it's like everybody had those experiences. Now
they may be slightly different, they maybe tilted a degree
or two, but for the most part, everybody had that experience.
And then we're able to connect as adults. Even though
we've never met each other, we're able to connect as
(05:18):
adults and it's almost like we've known each other our
whole lives.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
And that is exactly what I wanted to capture with
this book. This book has been three years in the making,
from the first germ of the idea to now. And
part of why I did the book as an anthology
with multiple contributors is because I grew up in the
middle of Iowa, cornfields in Iowa, so my experience was
(05:45):
far different than somebody who grew up in a city
in the Midwest or in the South or whatever. And
I didn't think I was qualified to speak for our
entire generation. You know, I had responsibilities, but my parents
weren't boomers. My parents were greatest generation and stayed married.
I was not a latch key kid, but I still
had responsibilities. And so that's the reason we find so
(06:09):
many authors within this anthology is because I wanted to
get a more representative snapshot of Generation X as we
were growing up and where we are now and have
that common connective thread of music tell the story in
the background. And I think that it's made for a
very fascinating book. And for me very rewarding because of
(06:32):
the sixteen contributors in this book, I only knew one
of them before I started the project.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I was going to ask you that, how did
how did you come about getting the sixteen?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
So to go to the very beginning, I was sitting
listening to my beloved eighties channel on Sirius XM Quick
Plug Get No Money from It, and Jack and Diane
came on the radio, and Jack and Diane and that
song came out in eighty two. I was a freshman
in high school, so presumably Jack and Diane were seniors
in high school in nineteen eighty two, And so I'm
(07:09):
listening to the song as I have thousands of times
during my lifetime, and this time it hit different, and
I wonder whatever happened to Jack and Diane, because you know,
Jackie was going to be the football star and Diane
debutante backseat of Jackie's car. Well, what happened? Did they
stay together after high school? Did they go to college,
they continue to play football, did they get married, did
(07:33):
they have a kid? Are they divorced? Where are they
now that they're in their fifties? And then I thought, well,
what about the rest of us too, What where's gen
X at middle age? And so, as I mentioned, I
didn't want to write that story myself because I don't
think I'm qualified to speak for an entire generation, and
so I thought, I need to find voices who can
(07:56):
speak for a representative sample of gen X. And I
wanted to do it with music because again, for all
the reasons I've said, eighties music is awesome and there's
so many stories that are told in our lives with
eighties music in the background. And so I sat back
and I just thought, well, I got to find people
(08:18):
who who want to be part of this project, and
literally just started googling, you know, gen X content creators,
gen X journalists right on down the line, and his
names came up. I'm just saying, hey, I'm Eric Shores,
and I'm writing this book about gen X, said you
know in middle age and this and that and the
(08:38):
other thing. And some people ignored it. Some people said, hey,
great idea, I just don't have the time, and others said,
I am so in what do you need? But literally
I spent by about two years to get all the
contributors in place because I didn't want it to be
a handful. I thought, sixteen people, that's a pretty decent
sample size and a pretty good sized book. Where it's
(08:59):
not it's it has depth, but it's not too heavy
so to speak as far as like being too big
of a book, because who knows, if this takes off,
we'll do a second volume or such. And I'm just
I've been so blessed because largely my friend Chavon, who
is from Ireland who moved to the United States probably
(09:20):
thirty thirty five years ago. I knew her, but all
of these other people were strangers before getting to know
them online, and they took a chance on me because literally,
I said, okay, pick a song from the eighties that
was meaningful to you, then that's still meaningful now? And
you know right why? You know why? For both? Why
(09:41):
was it impactful? Then? Why does it still have an
impact now? And I'd like, no more than three thousand
words good luck? And what came back to me was incredible.
The stories And I just said, could be funny, could
be sad, could be pointed, can be off the wall,
(10:01):
whatever you need feels to be said, say it. And
I just I was stunned with what I got and
with each essay, I'm just going this person nailed the assignment,
and I was purposely vague because I did not want
to bias them in a way that would limit them.
So they chose the song, and amazingly, nobody chose the
(10:21):
same song, and who who was on the list of
artists and who wasn't was equally surprising. And it was
just I'm just, as you can hear in my voice,
just tickled when I talk about this book, because these
people who joined in from Gen X did such a
fantastic job. And you know, when a project comes together
(10:45):
and largely you just sent out a signal, so to speak,
and it came back with what happened it was. It
was truly amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
That's fantastic, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So I've got to know, if you could sum up
or pick one artist or one musician from the eighties
that sums up the generation the best, who would it
be or what band would it be? Wow, I thought
it's CNN over here, listen.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, and I thought you were going to go a
slightly different direction with that question, because the offshoot where
I thought you were going was something that I've been
pondering that we as Generation X to try and sum
up the eighties with a song or a band For
someone who didn't live through it, what was what would
immediately give them a sense of the eighties.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Okay, well I want that question.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And not best artist, not most popular, not the greatest
song right now, and I kind of came back. I've
got two answers, but I leaned towards soft Cells Tainted Love.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
That's Lindsay's favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Probably Rio from Duran Duran oh awesome, and probably soft Sell.
And what I mean by that is when you listen
to that song, you've got the synthesizers, the keyboards, the
really i'll call it awesomely kitchy presentation of you know,
the singer, how he's singing and putting forth. I think
(12:22):
if you've got to sum it up, it would be that,
now what song? Hell boy? You know what? It may
sound cliche, but I'm going to go with Don't You
Forget About Me? From the Breakfast Club because there's no
wrong answer.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
But I love your answer and good job.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And here, thank you well, and here's why we are
as gen X, the most overlooked, underappreciated generation. And one
of the things that I touch on in the book.
In my introduction is, you know, when we hear the
politicians today and I'll pick on Washington, d C. And
(13:00):
we have baby boomers that have been in there for
you know, forty fifty years from both parties, doesn't matter.
They say, well, we need to pass this torch on
to the next generation, and they're talking about the frickin' millennials.
Boomers cannot get over the fact that they don't like us,
that they just want us off to the sidelines. And
(13:21):
so you know, with the Breakfast Club, there were so
many amazing things in there, again speaking of and to
our generation. And one of the most popular songs off
that soundtrack was Don't You Forget About Me? And I
would have to say that's probably if Gen x rallies
around a song, it would be that one.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Wow. So, when I was reading some of the excerpts
that you sent us, I was not to get like
too deep and or dark on this, but something that
I was struck with. My parents were older boomers, and
we didn't talk about anything.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Actually your dad was pre boomer, he might.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Have been so, but we didn't talk about anything. I'd
never got the birds and the bees conversation. We didn't
talk about feelings or anything, you know, anything. And what
that caused me to do growing up was I retreated
to my room and I relied on the music. And
(14:22):
music taught me all the things that I needed or
didn't need to know, and it taught me how to
process my emotions, how to cope with my emotions. It
taught me a little bit maybe about love. And I
don't know if that was healthy or not, but it's
just that was something that I was struck with, and
it just I'd never thought about that before that. It's
(14:45):
I definitely went to music, and in a way, it
parented me, yes, and it helped me grow up well.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And I think, you know, kind of using that as
a launch point. I didn't get the birds and the
bees talk either, and part of that was a relief
because my dad was forty eight and my mom was
forty when I was born, So, you know, kindergarten roundup
was a little bit shocking to me because I'm thinking,
aren't these people a little bit young to be parents?
(15:13):
And everybody thought my grandparents were bringing me in, you know,
for kindergarten roundup, But to me that was normal. But
you know, with with my essay life experience, and I'll
say kind of raising myself in a sense, kind of
the way you were saying about, you know, learning about
the world and how we do things. My dad was
very closed off, he was very stoic. He really kept
(15:35):
to himself, and so I didn't have really any male
role models to teach me how to be a man
and how to navigate the world as a man. I
just had to try to figure things out. And you know,
songs were a big part of that, obviously. But also
if you look at eighties movies, and I touch on
(15:55):
this in my essay, and I saw this on a
meme the other day. It was like, which is the
greatest hero of the eighties and it was you know,
Batman and Rigs from a Lethal Weapon and John McLain,
on and on and on. Who I talk about in
my essay. We didn't have heroes. Our heroes abandoned us.
(16:19):
They told us to go away and had nothing to
do with us. So who did we learn from? We
learned from the anti heroes who lived by their own code,
who still wanted to do right, but they wanted to
do right on their on their terms, and to heck
with authority. And so you know, as we looked at
pop culture, both movies and music, that really was kind
(16:42):
of a guidepost in how our norms were shaped, in
our identities as individuals, how we viewed the world, how
we viewed ourselves in the world. And then okay, here's
how I'm going to navigate the world. Because the people
that should have been guiding us decided they didn't want
to have any part of it.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
So you're saying Martin Riggs and John McClain, they weren't
for truth justice in the American way, No, they.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Were definitely though, for justice in their.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Way, yeah, justice or vengeance, yes.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, and and then you know, with an anti heroo,
you better be right because if you do it your
way and it fails, there will be tremendous consequences. And
I think you know that ran as a theme in
the movies too. The you know, the Danny Glover characters
and such were always like, no, no, we can't do
it that way. We're gonna get in trouble, somebody's gonna
(17:37):
get killed. And it's like, well, only if it doesn't work,
So let's do this thing.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Uh So, when when do you expect to release the book?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Looking to release the book mid October, in time for
the holiday book buying season. Nice, and really excited about that.
It's a it's coming together great. The manuscripts can complete.
It's just a matter of getting all the final preparations
in place and getting copies of the book ready to
go out into the marketplace. And as much as I
(18:10):
don't want to wish time away, I'm really looking forward
to fall.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, And you probably have noticed this. As you get older,
time seems to speed up. Anyway, it seems to accelerate,
So it'll be here before you know it.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Absolutely. My wife and I were just talking about that
the other day. We've been together twenty one years now,
and we you know, the math works, but we can't
understand how the heck we got here so fast. And
I said, because we're having so much fun. Time is flying.
You're welcome, but it is frightening, you know how fast
(18:45):
time is going. And the math works. But you know,
like my stepdaughter was thirteen when my wife and I met,
and she's now she just turned thirty four, I think,
and it's like, good heavens, where did that? What happened?
But I will tell you one thing though, Lindsay, getting
(19:06):
back to your birds and bees. Yes, my stepdaughter, when
she was a freshman in high school, she was firing
very specific sexual questions at me, not to be provocative. Yeah,
when she asked me the first question, it was I
(19:28):
kind of looked at her to gauge, Okay, is she
trying to be provocative or is she really wanting to know?
And I looked at her face and her body language
because my daughter was very confrontational back in those days,
so so being snarky was not something that would have
been beyond her. And I looked at her and like, oh,
she really wants to know. So I'm like, okay, well
let's do this. And we had if she wants to know,
(19:51):
I'll just flat out tell her, right, And we had
a very frank, very open conversation and it wasn't awkward
and she he wasn't embarrassed, and surprisingly I wasn't embarrassed.
But I think that's one of the things too with
Generation X and our children is we knew what we
missed out on that we didn't want our children to
(20:12):
miss out on some of those things, especially on the
emotional side. If they wanted to know, well, how does
this work or how does this function with the ways
of the world and how they navigate in it. I
was okay with taking it head on, and I'll give
my daughter credit. She was not afraid to ask the questions.
But she also wasn't afraid to hear the answers or
(20:33):
be embarrassed by it. And I think as a generation,
we are not afraid to give it to you straight. Yeah,
you may not like what we say, but we're going
to be honest and authentic about it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I agree with that, and I think each generation is
just probably doing the best that they can with what
they have. So I think the Boomer parents they were
trying for whatever reason. Talking was not something again that
we did. But what it did show me was I
knew that when we had children, I wanted our children
(21:07):
to know we could talk about anything. Right, So I'm open,
we can talk. You don't need to be embarrassed, you
don't need to be nervous, because I would rather you
hear it from us than retreat to your room. And
of course now they have the internet, so that's super scary,
but retreat to your room and try to figure it
out on your own.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So Eric, I'm just looking at the at the mixtape,
I guess that you have here for each essay, and
it sure runs the gamut from let's see hairbands to
female rockers to like you said, John Mellencamp. But then
we've got some maybe not I wouldn't say super popular,
(21:52):
you know, when you come to like early Ram, some
Phil Collins, some Minute Works. So it kind of runs
all over the place. And I know you said you
told each person to pick what song that they wanted
to talk about, But how pleased were you when this
came in and did you feel like it encompassed at
least most of the decade.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I did, and I was happy with the song selection
from the standpoint is for exactly what you said. We
had a little bit of mix of everything you know,
from Rim to guns n' Roses, the Pogues. I didn't
see the Pogues or Rim coming in on this list,
(22:35):
if you will, But as you read with the essays,
it so fits perfectly. And that is going back to
what surprised me, because again I didn't assign any songs.
I didn't signing an artist. I said, you pick, and
nobody chose the same song. I didn't have to say
to any individual. I'm sorry, somebody's already doing that song.
(22:57):
Pick another one. But what is also surprising is the
holy Trinity of the eighties was not represented. I noticed Madonna,
no Michael Jackson, no Prince and that, And I'm still
trying to figure what that means exactly, because they had
all you know, they've all had iconic songs and hit songs,
(23:20):
but did they not have one that was meaningful in
that way, you know, from a teenager too to a
fifty something or a forty something. But no, I was
not disappointed at all by the songs that came back.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I was.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I was delighted by, you know, not to use the
bud buzzword, diversity of what we came in. And like
I say, when you read these essays, they're incredibly powerful.
Some are very nostalgic, feel good type stuff. Laura Wise,
who wrote based on subdivisions from Rush Again, who I
(23:58):
did not expect to show up, you know, on the list,
but it so totally fit about her high school experience
and trying to find a way to fit in and
things of that nature. And I thought everybody did a
great job of weaving in the lyrics throughout the story
to more or less compliment the point that they were making.
(24:20):
And one of the most powerful essays is my friend Chavaughn,
who grew up in Ireland, It's where she was born.
The Pogues the fairy Tale of New York song I'd
never heard or heard of until it came to me
in an essay and then she sent me the YouTube
link to watch the video and I fell off the chair.
It's a really hardcore song and she heard it three
(24:43):
different ways in three different stages of her life, where
at first she hated it and then she kind of
warmed up to it, and now it feels like a
warm sweater when she hears it at Christmas time. And
incredibly powerful essay. And again that's that was meaningful to
me because Jack and Diane that one time that I
(25:07):
heard it hit me differently, and I think where we
are now, whether it's you know, we're getting to an
age where we're thinking about retirement and our mortality, or
how old our kids are, or how society has changed,
or how our music hits us differently. Today, things do
hit differently because we have all this life experience and
(25:28):
experiences behind us. We hear a song differently now because
a word or a phrase has a different meaning to
us now than it did when we were younger.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well, it's funny that you say that, because on our podcast,
that is something that we do whenever we do a
music episode. You know, we talk about the song. We
talk about, you know, what it meant to us as kids,
you know, whether or not we liked it or hated
it or whatever, and really what it means to us now,
you know. And even if we hated it then and
like it now, 're liked it then and have gotten
(25:58):
sick of it and don't like it now, it still
brings back those feelings of nostalgia that take you back
to that happy place right, makes you feel good, kind
of gives you the as Lindsay likes to say, the
warm fuzzies. And it works out perfect.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
And I talk about that in the book as well.
I reference it where you know, there's a bunch of songs,
but two that right off the bat. When I hear
that first note, I'm instantly transported back to a place
in a time, and one of those is Eddie Grant's
Electric Avenue. Because when that came out, it was the
(26:35):
end of my freshman year of high school, and at
my school we did drivers training in I think June,
between the end of the freshman year and the beginning
of sophomore year. And so I'm listening to my favorite
radio station getting up in the morning, getting ready to
go to Driver's Head, and it seemed like every morning,
somewhere between my getting up and going to Driver's Head,
(26:57):
Electric Avenue was on the radio, and it was a
beautiful summer. So I'd be stepping out of the house
on the farm and it's sunny skies, blue skies, breeze,
sixty five degrees, a little just a little nip of
crispness in the air, and I'm instantly there anytime I
(27:19):
hear that song. And the other one is Walking on
Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. My last day senior
year of high school, and I could not wait to
get out of high school and go to college and
take classes I wanted to take, not the ones they
forced me to. And the your Science teacher was my
(27:40):
homeroom teacher, and people were still getting off the bus
waiting for first bell for homeroom. I'm the only one
in the room.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
It's just me.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
The radios on teacher wasn't even there radios on to
that radio station that I loved listening to, and Katrina
in the Waves Walking on Sunshine came on and I
had this rentalin burst. I am not kidding you. I
got we had the long science tables, no sins, just
the long tables. I ran across every table top in
(28:11):
that classroom until that song was over, and amazingly, no
one came in while I was doing that. I was
just running like a maniac, which is something I would
not have ever done before that day. But I was
just so caught up in the moment and jubilant that
this was the last day of public school for me.
(28:32):
And then the song finished, I sat down, and then
people started streaming in home, and no one knew, and
no one knew. I think that's me, and I think
that's true of a lot of people were That song
at a certain moment of our lives just imprints itself
into our psychees that whenever we hear it, it's just
(28:53):
like whatever we're doing, however we old, however old we are,
whatever the years, everything just peels away boom, and we're
fifteen years old again, or we're seventeen years old again,
or whatever the case. May be. And I think that's
one of the special things about music is that it
can do exactly that, providing the soundtrack for our lives
(29:14):
and remain so as we're well into our forties and
fifties as gen xers.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
So how important do you think the walkman invention was
to our generation?
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Oh? I think the walkman and the boombox to add
to it, were incredibly important. And this is something that
I've talked about as well across the board. As much
as today's generation is like, oh look at this at Spotify.
Oh we can take our music wherever we want to,
or oh look we can watch Netflix or we can
(29:49):
stream things, it's like, yeah, well, we could take our
music wherever we wanted to as well. It was called
a walkman or a boombox. We had time shifted to
television viewing. It was called a VCR, and I think
that's one of the special things about our generation is
all the things that we ooh and ah about today,
(30:10):
twenty four hour cable channels, mobile music, time shifted television viewing,
et cetera. That started with us gaming were the og gamers. Yes,
shout out Atari and Pong for this guy. So I
think the Walkman was incredibly powerful because before that we
(30:32):
had to physically be in one spot, because the radio
had to be attached to something, whether it was a
power court into an outlet in our homes or in
the car that we were writing in. And you know,
to that point, we could only listen to music on
devices where you had a power court. And now if
(30:55):
you had you know, eight D cell batteries in your
boom box and a cassette tape, you were golden. And
I will tell you, and I can go show you.
But I still have the first boombox I bought in
nineteen eighty four, no way legit. So that's how well,
that's how a nostalgic I am. I still have the
Dagon thing and the Walkman. Now we could take our
(31:18):
music wherever we went. We could use our tape recorders
to do our own mixtape recording off the radio. And
now if we wanted to go skateboarding, or you know,
if you were in an urban area and wanted to
have you know, break dancing competitions, all you needed was
a piece of cardboard in your boom box and you
were ready to rattle some windows and get down and go.
(31:39):
So I think I think it was incredibly important, not
just for our generation, but it paved the way for
everybody else after us.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
It's funny because we literally had this conversation earlier tonight
leading up to this interview. It was like, you know,
what do you think why do you think our generation,
you know, was so connected to their music? And I'm like,
because we were able to be mobile, And I said
the exact same thing you said, Eric. We weren't tied
to either our house stereo or being in the car.
(32:07):
Right as a ten year old or eleven year old
or fifteen year old or whatever, you could strap on
the walkman and go walk into your friends who lived
a half mile and you get in you know, five
songs or six songs or whatever. And it was like
you said, it became mobile, and we are the first
generation that could do that. And I think that's why,
you know, one reason why we're so connected to our music.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
And I think along with that, Jim, is there was
also a certain autonomy it gave us because I know
at my house we had the community stereo, and my
mom and dad were Marty Robbins, Guy Lombardo, you know,
et cetera, et cetera. And you know, some of the
music I listened to and it was okay, But I
(32:51):
didn't get to play my music on the stereo, et
cetera if my parents were in the room, because A
they didn't like it, and B they probably didn't want
to listen to music at the time that I wanted to.
Maybe they're watching on something on TV, et cetera. So
the walkman, then I could listen to my music when
I wanted, wherever I wanted. And and then I could
(33:12):
go share it with my friends and say, hey, you know,
I take off the headphones, hand it over so they
could put it next to their ear and listen to
that as well. So it gave us that freedom that
we could not only listen to our music wherever we wanted,
we could listen to it whenever we wanted without an
adult say so.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Beforehand, before we started recording, we were doing a little
game of six degrees of Bacon. Yes, only it wasn't
Kevin Bacon, It's someone else. So I got to know,
can you retell that for us?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Absolutely? I was listening to your episode on Number One
Songs of the Eighties and and Jim was speaking of
his love for Rio Speedwagon, which I share. But as
I was listening, I thought, oh, Jim's going to be
happy to talk to me because I need him. You
know a couple steps closer, you know the Ario Speedwagon,
and that is Neil Dody, the keyboard is from Ario Speedwagon.
(34:10):
Is married to one of my good friends, Daria, and
they have been to my house to share a meal
with my wife and me, probably about fifteen years ago now.
And I also have the backstage pass from when they
played the surf Ballroom not long after. Neil and Darry
were here for a meal with us at the Surf
(34:31):
Ballroom in clear Lake, Iowa. Oh it's cool twenty ten.
So you know you don't need seven degrees. You got me.
So you're almost in the band, Jim.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
So I have to know, did you like when you
first met him, or maybe when you had dinner, did
you just like totally like nerd out and ask him
all the questions you possibly could about the band and
how we got started and life on the road and
all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Actually, I'm proud to say I didn't, because I did.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
You were playing it cool.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I didn't want to be that guy, and I will
tell you that this is a funny story before I
completely answer the question. Because Neil Dody lived in Austin
where I do for a handful of years when he
and Darry were together here in town, and Derry and
(35:24):
I had a running joke about Christmas and I forget
what it is now, it's been enough times. But she
was just she was more of a Festivus person. And
so I had found at Barnes and Noble, you know,
George Costanza's Guide to Festivus, and and I thought, oh,
I've got to drop this off as kind of like
a gag gift. And she didn't live that far from
me here in town. And so one morning I drove
(35:46):
over there as I was out and about, and she
wasn't home, and Neil opened the door. I had never
seen Neil Doty's picture. I didn't know who I was
talking to until as I'm talking to this guy, I'm
hearing things in my head of conversations I've had with
other people, and I go, oh, crap, this is Neil
(36:06):
Dodi of Ario speak and nswering the door. This isn't
just some you know, random person. And and she was
at home and I said, oh, hey, you know I'm
a friend of Darius and Festivus and YadA YadA as
assigned another sign field reference and and just wanted to
drop off this this book and it was all well
and good. So then when they were here for supper,
(36:27):
I just wanted It's like, I didn't want to be
one of those guys that it was, you know, tell
me all about you know, blah blah blah blah blah.
I wanted to get to know him. And and he
had done his best, he didn't shy away from being
Neil Dody. But at the same time, he just wanted
to be a you know, a guy living with his
wife in a community and and very chill. And so
(36:49):
that's I. We just had conversations about life and and
interests and things of that nature. And then we have
a We built a movie room in our family room
in the basement, so we essentially painted a movie screen
on the wall and then put a wooden border around it.
And then here's the movie. And I can't remember which
star trek Mute movie it was. It was whatever one
(37:12):
that was out in the vicinity of two thousand and nine.
And so the four of us went to the movie room.
We watched this movie. Well, then the movie's done and
we're chit chatting and he starts talking about quantum physics.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
And he is an incredibly smart, interesting guy to talk to,
you know, the stereotypical rock and roller, bad boy partier,
you know, whatever you want to say about the stereotype.
And he was talking about stuff. You know, it's like, well,
you know in Star Trek where they talk about this
(37:48):
and quantum mechanics, and he's just like, but just rattling
this stuff off, like like he wrote the movie. Kind
of a thing as far as the scientific expert. Fascinating guy,
really smart guy, enjoyed, enjoyed getting to know him. And
years later they moved and I think they're in Minneapolis
now if I remember correctly. But man, just just an interesting,
(38:11):
interesting guy to talk to.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
That's a cool story.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
You know, you had mentioned movies earlier, and obviously you're
kind of talking about a little bit of a soundtrack
of your life. But do you think that music in
the movies in the eighties was so important because it
was really the first decade that I can remember where
it was so prominent. I mean, there may be you know,
(38:38):
hit songs in other movies like I think like The
Graduate or Butcher Cassidy, The Sundance Kid with rain drafts
can falling on my Head. But it seemed like movies
in the eighties, with their soundtracks and everything else, it
was like popular music was either already there and put
on the soundtrack to try to attract people, or they
made movies are songs specifically for the movies, which then
(39:02):
became popular maybe because of the movie. I'm thinking, like
don't you forget about Me with the Breakfast Club right?
Or let's see what else do we have? Like Who's
that girl? Right? Madonna wrote that for that movie, And
so do you think that's why we connect so much
(39:23):
music with movies.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
I think, going back to what I said earlier in
the interview, is you know the John Hughes movies in particular,
we're talking to our generation. They were telling our story,
talking to us about us. And I think if you
look historically at music prior to and now since Generation X,
(39:47):
since the eighties, that music that wasn't in the eighties
was primarily music and situations that people could identify with.
Our music as it related to the soundtrack, was our identity.
If you look at pretty and Pink Breakfast Club, all
(40:08):
of those types of movies in the eighties. The songs
didn't speak just to what was happening in the movie.
It was happening to us as well. And I think
that's why we embraced the movies as they were, because
there's not really any other era of movies where you
can look at it and say, well, this was obviously
speaking to a boom er audience, a millennial audience, or whatever.
(40:31):
It was representatives of the times that they were living in,
but it wasn't representing their generation specifically. And I think
when you had that music in that movie tie In,
you got the best of both worlds because when you
were watching the movie, the music really solidified what you
were seeing on the screen, and then when you heard
(40:53):
the song on your walkman or your boombox or your stereo,
you were then reliving that experience of the movie in
your head, which then solidified the identity of yeah, me too.
And I think that's really as you talked about Jim
earlier in the interview, is you know we're finding out, Oh,
(41:13):
it wasn't just me. The whole generation by and large
felt that way about, you know, fill in the blank.
And I think that music then is is something that
unites us more than any other generation.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
I would agree, Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
We could just talk about this all night. We could
just hold Eric hostage.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Careful, I could do it. I could go all night
coffee well, and again, the blessings of the book is
that we could go on because of the stories that
these people are sharing. That it may not be exactly
our story, because there's a lot of stories, you know,
in the narratives that came back to me that weren't
(41:58):
my experience, but how they adapted, how resilient they were,
I could identify with because we as gen X, had
to be resilient, had to be adaptive, had to figure
things out on our own, because there was not somebody
who was putting an arm around to saying, hey here,
let me help you, let me show you how things
are done. And you know, we as a generation, I think,
(42:21):
have a very dark sense of humor. We're very sarcastic
because in part we had to be. It helped toughen
our skin and that protective shell to navigate a world
that wasn't necessary always friendly and wasn't always one we
exactly knew how to deal with we just did the
best we could with what we had and what we knew.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah, I agree, that's right.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
So I'm going to turn the tables real quick. Yeah,
Lindsay you you put me on the spot, and I oh,
no for it. What song? And Jim's same question after
Lindsay answers what eighties song would you say would best
be rep presentative of our generation?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Our generation? I have my answer, of course, because Jim's
good on his feet, Jim go first. I probably would
have said Tainted Love, but now I feel like, oh,
I can't piggyback off that, So so I.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Would go with everybody wants to rule the world by
tears of course that one. It's it's British synthpop, which
is huge in the eighties, right, And uh, there is
that sense of, you know, people trying to grab power,
(43:38):
and I know, our generation, like you said, kind of
feels like, you know, the greatest generation and the Boomers
tried to grab that power, and now we feel like
that power is trying to be grabbed by the millennials.
And I just feel like, especially if you look at
our country, our political system, anybody's politicals, not just our country, right,
anybody's political system. Everybody is trying to grab that power
(43:59):
and be the most powerful person in their city. Not everybody,
but certain people city, state, country, county, whatever. And I
do think that that that rings true with everybody wants
to rule the world.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Man, that is so deep and profound. I am never
this deep. What about take on me? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (44:24):
Yeah, I think I think that's right in line with.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
The deep reason. Like I can't go on and on
about political parties or whatever nonsense he just shared. I
just think it's a really good song that sums up
the decade really well.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
And I will go to my grave saying that video
still holds up. It does, and I cannot believe they
did that with nineteen eighties technology because it still stands up.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
It does.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
You could watch that and go, oh, well, somebody just
you know, made that today, and I was just it's phenomenal.
But you know, Jim, when you were talking about everybody
wants to rule the world, you know, I just had
this this vision in my head of our generation still
as it exists today. We're kind of like alligators because
(45:10):
we're just we're minding our own business. We're not we're
not messing with anyone and you just see our eyes.
But watch it because we'll bite.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
You know, it's funny because uh in the excerpts that
I read, I didn't hear a whole lot of talk
about MTV. And I feel like that that was important
to our generation when it came to music, because we
were able to put uh faces with with music and
you know, certain videos with music. When you said Electric
(45:47):
Avenue by Eddie Grant, immediately what popped into my head
was that video. That's where I first heard it was
on MTV.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
And so.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I'm curious what you think about that. Okay, but before
you answer, I'm going to go out on a limb, Eric,
and I'm going to say that you may have been
like me, and I bet you didn't have access to
cable growing up. You're correct, Yeah, yeah, I had a feeling. See,
Jim grew up in a much more urban setting, and
(46:18):
so sometimes he and I have this disconnect because I
didn't see the music videos like he did because MTV
was on in his house every day and living in
a much more like country farm setting, I didn't have
access to that.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
And so Jim, I'll come back to that because I
do have an answer. But Lindsay is with my experience. Yeah,
I grew up in a farm, so I didn't have
access to MTV, but I had a relative who lived
in Des Moines who worked for the cable company, who
had cables. So when we'd go down to visit the summer,
I was glued to that TV. Because I could watch
(46:59):
the cubs on WGN, I could watch MTV and it
was fascinating as heck. And a trivia question. The first
MTV video I saw, She's a Beauty by the Tubes.
Speaker 4 (47:11):
Oh, that's agreed, Yes, love that.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
And I have it on forty five, which when I
probably exclaimed that to my daughter, she goes, what's forty five?
And then I cry. So it was hugely influential because
again MTV is ours and it will only be ours
because by the time that the nineties rolled around, it
had gone to reality shows and away from music videos.
(47:36):
And again it was us on display, it was our music,
it was our artists, you know, the artists wanted to
be on MTV. I want my MTV. My relative for
my high school graduation gave me a satin MTV jacket,
which I still have and can still fit into. By
the way, Wow, MTV beach blanket, MTV trucker hat. I'll
(47:59):
email it to you. That would probably be the easiest way.
It's one of those things that we can claim is ours.
But also again getting back to today, we talk about
social activism. Well, if you look in the eighties, Generation
X was activism and it was around music, and it
was around MTV. We Are the World, USAID or USA
(48:24):
for Africa and farm Aid and all of these musical
acts that were affecting social change hands across America, you know,
and a lot of it was wrapped fully around MTV
and Generation X that our music was exacting social change.
(48:45):
If you look at the Boomers, their music was we
want change and we're going to protest and somebody better
do something about it, but we don't want to lift
our own fingers to do it. Jen X is going like, hey,
somebody needs help. Let's get in, get hands dirty, and
get this done. And I think MTV was at such
the forefront of that, and we embraced it because it
(49:07):
was ours. It wasn't for the Boomers and our kids
didn't exist yet. It was fully ours and by the
time our kids were around, MTV was no longer what
we had grown up with. So it's something that is
fully ours and again wrapped right around our generation and music.
And as you said, we got to see our artists
(49:28):
for the first time without having to go to a
concert or look in a a People or an US
Weekly or a National Inquiry or whatever your magazine of
choice was back in the day. And here was a
theatrical presentation of what that song meant to the artist.
And it would and some of those music videos were incredible.
(49:51):
I mean you look at take on Me from Aha
Thriller by Michael Jackson. Remember the phenomenon that was, like
be watching on this day We're going to release the
video and everybody just flocked to a television set to
watch this video. And of course, you know, Lindsay and
(50:11):
I were out in the country, we couldn't see it.
But my friends recorded it and brought it to school
and we watched it on the VCR at school and
we're just like, did they do that? That was incredible,
and I mean it was it was not only a song,
it was a mini movie. And as an interesting aside,
and this is not mine, a friend of mine gave
this to me and forever ruined the song when you
(50:34):
listen to Thriller. If you substitute Phyllis Diller or Thriller,
the song still works. You know, it's Philis Dillah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Never heard that?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Yeah, I had either, and now I can't hear anything else.
That's all while here, So I'm sorry, and you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
I can't wait for the book to come out. I'm excited.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
I'm so happy to hear that. You know, as whether,
regardless of what type of artists you are, you want
your art to be seen and recognized and hopefully loved.
So the fact that you've seen excerpts and are excited
to see the full work, thank you. I that means
a lot, It truly does.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
And if she's excited about a book, Eric, because like
she said, I haven't seen her read a book in
the fifteen years i've known.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
No, I take that back.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
She read one book about Johnny Cash's first wife and
it changed her life, she said. But other than that,
that's the only thing I've seen her read. Whereas when
we first met, I was a huge reader, and now
we have these stupid things. Oh yeap, that take away
a lot of my reading time because I read on
that instead of a book. But just recently, I've gotten
(51:53):
back into reading books and I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
A lot too.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
And I think, Lindsay, you will really enjoy this because
as narratives, you're going to feel like you're reading somebody
telling you their story. It's not meant to be an
academic exercise. I did not want this to be some dry,
boring whatever. I wanted it to evoke the emotion that
the writer was feeling at the time and now and again,
(52:26):
some of these folks are are skilled writers, and some
of them are good writers, and that's where kind of
I came in and in doing the editing, or as
I like to call it, the mixing. But I was
very impressed that they come across as conversational pieces, not
dry academic wording.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, and everybody has a story and I love that
and I can't wait to get my hands on the book.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Well, I'm going to throw this invitation out there. If
there is a volume too, I will be reaching out
to you too.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
I'm there, I'm there, I'm going to start working online.
I'm the fort some ideas.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Yeah, absolutely, I would be honored and thrilled to contribute
to such a cool, such a cool idea once again.
The book is called Life Goes On the Lessons we
Learned from eighties music. Eric, thank you so much for
joining us. We want to again plug it. It's coming
(53:27):
out in October and time for the holiday book season.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Make sure you pick that up.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Jim Lindsay, thank you so much for having me on
the podcast today and a great conversation. We could do
this for hours and I'm here for all of it,
but thank you for the time today. This has been wonderful.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
All right, sounds good. I love it. Yep. Make sure
you hit that subscribe weton so you're guaranteed to never
miss a show. And if you haven't, please consider leaving
us a five star review. That always helps us show
up a little bit better in the algorithman. I still
don't understand.
Speaker 4 (54:01):
I'm not sure if that's true or not.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Oh, it's true. I like to say it. Innerwebs told
me it was true.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yeah, But mostly the way to help us out is
tell somebody right, spread the words so they get all
of this yummy goodness of nineteen eighties fun. You can
reach us on social media at Children of Underscore Eighties
on Twitter or x as they call it now, Facebook,
and Instagram. You can email us at Children of the
(54:29):
nineteen Eighties at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Okay, well, until next time. I'm Jim and I'm Lindsay
and we are Children of the eighties. See
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