Okay, here are the rules for the November theme, Chris. Open up iTunes (it has to be a fresh open). Go to your 5-Star playlist and hit shuffle. Write about the first song that comes up. No skips allowed, unless by some crazy circumstance, you hit the same song on your next post. So here goes. Wow…
“Lake Shore Driving”
by Duran Duran
from the album Big Thing
1988
Buy the album on Amazon
I’ve been in love with Duran Duran for years. I came a bit late to the party, missing their early-80s works when they were crazy popular. Big Thing was probably the album that first got me into them but I quickly added their more popular and poppier albums to my collection. Big Thing is kind of an odd album coming off the pretty funky turn they took with 1985’s Notorious which saw the once quintet reduced to a trio. If Big Thing is odd, then “LSD” is an accurate acronym for this weird-ass, but wonderful track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQq3q6CzBQ
“LSD” is a guitar-heavy instrumental track and actually the second song in a pair of connected songs (similar to “Need You Tonight/Mediate” from Chrance-favorites INXS). There’s an abrupt ending which apparently is the result of the tape running out in the studio. As a younger man, I thought it was an actual decision, a part of the storytelling. In my mind, the people that were making that lake shore drive that evening, took a bad turn and plunged into the frigid waters. And died. It’s a wonder I didn’t go goth.
Here’s part one, “The Edge of America.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnz_7hwInRs
I was big into Duran Duran in the 80s and maybe early 90s. I’m pretty sure I had a poster of them right next to my two Depeche Mode posters, but unlike Depeche Mode, I didn’t carry them with me past that. In fact, I think I purged them from my interests pretty completely. I love when you sing them at karaoke (and I love singing back-up), but only in a nostalgic 80s way. Seeing the album cover above made me remember I definitely had this album, but the songs don’t ring a bell at all.