“She said, “I have this unhappiness
To wear around my neck
It’s a pretty piece of jewellery
To show what I protect.”

You fall into patterns within relationships so very easily. You assume roles within the couple’s dynamic - what you do, what you believe and what you enthuse about. It’s kind of a domestic shorthand that describes, but soon imprisons, the full richness of each other’s personality.

With me, I’ve always been the ‘music’ guy. My girlfriends have pretty much been less interested in music than me. It is my thing. I know what year a song came out, who played on it and who wrote it. Whilst there are women who are every bit as obsessive in this area, I think it’s safe to say that this lauding of the ephemera of music tends to be a predominantly male trait. This characteristic plays itself out within a relationship by ownership of the playlists, control of the music; a pedantic, but ultimately futile, need to teach, to explain, each and every song. Love of something subjective becomes a dry lesson in the objective. Savage is the honourable exception.

Listening to this slow building song, I’m forever taken back by its gentle rhythm to a time in the late 80’s when life seem optimistic and everything seemed to matter. A shy girl, who loved me, said that I should listen to this track, as it was just the sort of music I’d enjoy. Like all good recommendations this was built from a solid foundation of what that person knew about me and then went off at a tangent. No-one needs to be told something obvious – it’s the unobvious and obscure, the great find, that really chimes within the soul. And so it was with Savage. The gentle girl was right, it is ever one of my favourites.

The slow, ethereal intro frames the piece; with each gentle wave of chords from the keyboard - more breathed than played - you know it’s going to be one of Annie Lennox’s betrayal songs. No one, other than Alison Moyet perhaps, does betrayal better than our Annie. The sparse backing provides a backdrop to some of Annie’s best lines. The images she plays with are disjointed, violent even – the sun displays its teeth - but her words convey a mood rather than any literal meaning. There is a brooding air of savagery hanging over the song, more vivid because it is unexpressed and waiting menacingly in the shadows.

But the Eurythmics were a duo and never more so than on this track. As the tension builds through the first two verses / choruses, a release is needed; all this musical foreplay must have its climax and this is stunningly achieved by a simple - but oh so right - solo from Dave Stewart. It’s as much about the notes that aren’t played as those that are. He puts himself into his guitar and feels his way through his solo. There is an un-80’s rawness in that guitar break, a sullen control, that matches Annie’s lyrics note for note. Other than Graham Coxon’s solo on Blur’s This is A Low, I can’t think of a guitar solo more appropriate, more understanding, of a song than this one.

Annie and Dave produced many great songs – Who’s That Girl, Julia, Here Comes The Rain Again come to mind – but I don’t believe they combine so perfectly than their collaboration on Savage. I wrote earlier about the glad-happy morning of the late 80’s. You can’t choose your time and neither can you control your era’s personal soundtrack. Of course, you filter what you hear through personal choice – which records to buy, which radio stations to listen to – but no one lives in a vacuum. My university days were the late 80’s. When so much of what was popular at the time – Kylie, Stock Aitken and Waterman, house music – retreats into the unopened drawer of memory, I’m happy that the gentle girl with the sad eyes, told me to listen to Savage. There’s a dignity in this evocation, both defiant and tender, that seems appropriate somehow.

The girl’s long gone, of course but I’ll leave it to Annie to provide the postscript:

“She said, “Everything is fiction
All cynic to the bone
So don’t ask me to stay with you
Don’t ask to see me home””

Start the video at 1.30 for a live version of Savage.

Here it - you asked for it - so I stand and deliver. Oh, dear, that’s a bad start. Suffice to say, Adam nor his ants will appear on this list (though I have a soft spot for Prince Charming, to be honest).

The only rule for this list - I had to like it at the time. You know, in the actual 80’s. And still like it now. It’s a high hurdle I set but let’s limber up and hope we don’t crash into the bar too much.

Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie (1980)

Scary, arty, new romantic cool! I remember watching this on Top of Pops with that weird and compulsive video. That strange dance on the beach, the odd costumes, the backhanded reference to Major Tom. This kicked off the decade and took it in a glamorous direction after the punk and rock of the 70’s. And the sound ain’t bad either!

Vienna - Ultravox (1981)

Cruelly kept off Number 1 by an annoying one hit wonder, this was a classy song with a kick-ass video. What’s not to like? Midge Ure wandering around Covent Garden and - yes - Vienna - in a mac with pointy sidies. Peak New Romantic but staying just the right side of pretentious. Epic song, with hypnotic piano, swelling strings and the suggestion of something mysterious, something foreign, something tragic. Still never been to Vienna.

Under Attack - Abba (1982)

Abba’s sad swan song. It did nothing in the charts and the group faded away after this. Very late-era Abba, synths, electric bass, treated vocals, I first heard this at Rochdale roller ring early 1983. it has stuck with me ever since.

To France - Mike Oldfield (1983)

Updated folk for the 80’s generation. I remember hearing the song - strangely enough - in France, sat in the back of my parents car as we drove around Brittany Probably in the rain. Maggie Reilly’s voice and the folky / medieval feel and subject matter make this an ethereal postcard from a vanished age. That age being my youth. I often return to this song when I want a good song to cook to, when I’m writing, when I want to imagine being young again.

Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1983)

Frankie Says… Well, if you don’t know what Frankie Says, you weren’t there. Frankie had three massive hits in 1984. They were all over the year like a rash. I got my mum to buy this single on one of her Saturday shopping trips to Rochdale. I remember being in Spain 1984 and all you could hear in the discos (yes, I said discos not clubs) was either Relax or Two Tribes in one of their many, many, 12 inch varieties. Obviously Trevor Horn created the vibe, the driving beat, and there was a shocking amount of Paul Morley ZTT inspired marketing, but, this was an era defining sound.

It’s about sex, isn’t it?

Madonna - Like A Virgin (1984)

Oh yeah! Something about time and place gets this one in the top ten. Her singing has matured and so did her production values, but this is where’s it is at. Joyous and dance-able, even for saddos with that bouncy synth beat, it calls out thirty odd years later. But to really experience it you need to be 16 and walking into a Rochdale disco with this pumping out! The smell of cheap perfume, hair spray, cigarettes and alcohol! Nothing better.

Pride - U2 (1984)

God! I loved this song. I love this song. Edge’s eternal guitar playing a special riff, Bono’s vocals, the U2 style drumming. Martin Luther King! The sound of me heading off to the pub in Rochdale for a cheeky 5 pints on Wednesdays in The Grapes or Elephant and Castle. “Are you 18, sonny?” This song is the time and place of who I am and where I came from.

Walk This Way - Aerosmith feat Run DMC (1986)

Seriously - this record still kicks arse. Rap and rock fusion! An alternative pathway which we kinda lost on the way. But boy did it produce one memorable collaboration.

Voyage Voyage - Desireless (1987)

Ah, holiday records. That’s what the 80’s were about. Who could hate Ottowan’s ‘Hands Up, Give Me Your Heart’ or FR David’s seminal ‘Words’. Add Desireless to this trio and we a one-twp-three combination of sublime 80’s French summer Euro pop. Voyage Voyage - I heard this in Benidorm in the summer of 1988 as I perused the city’s art galleries, a fragrant girl in a white dress on my arm as we discussed art and memory. Yeah. Or, maybe it was the soundtrack to being pissed up in one of the town’s clubs trying to buy girls with tattoos and bikini tops rum and cokes. One or the other. Great Euro pop though.

All Around the World - Lisa Stansfield (1989)

How could I not put Lisa Stansfield on the list? If it wasn’t a great song however, I wouldn’t have added it, but it is here on merit. The fact that she went to my school and I knew her slightly are interesting but not clinches. Lisa bookends this decade for me. We were in the school play at the start of the 80’s and she ended the decade at Number One with this song. I remember the feeling of pride when this became a smash. That was before jealousy kicked in. Why had CBS returned my demo?

(Hint: It was shit)

I will probably change my mind in five minutes, but let’s start this way, shall we?

Savage - Eurythmics (Song Review)

TOP 10 80's POP Songs