This week’s forgotten song didn’t come about on the Ipod on the bus or treadmill. I didn’t hear it in the grocery store, which are surprisingly awesome sources of forgotten songs from the 70s and 80s. I didn’t see a Vh1 special on one hit wonders (Dated! Do they still have these?).
Instead, the forgotten song for the week was inspired by a bar conversation about songs I could put on a friend-a-versary mixtape for our pals growandresist and her ladyfriend. Yep, we celebrate friend-a-versaries. Double S and I got to talking about Michael W. Smith’s classic Christian (rock?) song “Friends,” while downing red beers (mmm, beer plus tomato juice) and eating hot pretzels and sliders at the Heartland Cafe (recommended!).
Anyway, Double S and I did run home and look at the you tubes for Mr. W. Smith’s “Friends,” (Yeah, we did! What?) and we found mainly weird quasi-inspirational fan made montages. Here’s one which not only has Mr. Smith’s fine Christian croon, but also some other horribleness, like a trend that we’ve all allowed to go unabated too long: babies dressed up as heterosexual adults, kissing and getting married and wearing fedoras and what not. Why, Anne Geddes? Why?
Psst...hey you! Call Child Protective Services!
“Friends” is not the forgotten song of the week though, because I fear that if you didn’t go to Catholic school for 14 years like yours truly or you weren’t a Lutheran youth group/camp nerd like Double S, you can’t forget a song you prolly don’t remember in the first place. But Double S and I did some serious bonding over it, and had a rousing round of “Kumbaya” during the car ride home. Double S knows the funky version, made to attract the youths, so we sang that one.
To my high school friends (is this thing on?), the first notes of “Friends” will probably make you start running and screaming, thinking you’re going to be forced to go to an overnight class retreat, where a nun will make you to listen to Christian rock, cradle your friends and write letters to your future selves about how much high school meant to you. We also had the joy of making self-congratulatory banners for our classmates to sign to keep forever and ever. I got a bunch of “I wish I would have gotten to know you better.” Tears. Old, old tears.
No, folks, the forgotten song this week is only tangentially related to Michael W. Smith. It’s 1986’s “The Next Time I Fall,” by Peter Cetera and Michael W. Smith’s fellow Christian rocker, Amy Grant. Yep, Double S and I tipsily bonded over Michael W. Smith AND Amy Grant. Don’t you wanna hang out with us?
This song, well mainly Peter Cetera’s falsetto, will get stuck in your head like none other. Perhaps making you sing it really loud in the shower. It’s Peter Cetera. I truly couldn’t help it.
Amy gets a bit of the short shrift in the forgotten song, so let’s talk about Ms. Grant. Christian rocker, and finally in the late 80s and early 90s, successful crossover pop artist. Her early 90s mainstream hits were happy little pop songs, with videos that are all blazers and curls and videos with John Stamos look a-likes. I think maybe my thing for women in business suits comes from the early 90s oversized blazer trend. I was young and impressionable, what can I say? That or the whole being a lawyer thing, but if you’re in legal services, the business suits on said ladies are pretty ill-fitting, crumpled and Judge-induced sweat stained, but still. See id. Both of these have to be watched on Youtube, btw. Do it, you won’t regret it!
And see this id.
Double S likes to drive like Mario Andretti, I like takin’ my time. True story!
I love the hat, the multiple blazers and the tie dye! And, I’m not afraid to say it, Amy’s looking kinda hot in an early 90s memories from high school kinda way in these videos. What? She COULD really rock an oversized blazer.
The early 90s were a simpler time weren’t they?
Anyway, let’s go back to Amy’s duet mate, Peter Cetera. Peter…is there anything you can’t do? 80s Peter Cetera could sing the phone book and I’d be out buying the cassingles. Peter had a string of massive hits with the 80s incarnation of Chicago, and as a solo artist, often with love theme-y duets. If you saw a video on MTV and it had this in the title: (Love Theme from Some Movie), Peter might have been involved in it somewhere. Let’s see, “After All (Love Theme from Chances Are)”? Yes!
Chances Are, man! What a great movie! Double S hasn’t seen it, so we’ve gotta queue it up. And then, of course, Peter sang the the greatest movie soundtrack song from all of the 80s. I don’t need to tell you what it is…but I will, “The Glory of Love.”
OK, may these Christian and romantic songs guide you through your weekend. Happy Friday, everybody!
oh, briggsy... 
Wow! Friend-a-versy mixtape!? How did we score you 2 as friends!? Guess who was my first concert? Come on! Guess…. Amy Grant. It was the late 80’s. After that I was all-Bon-Jovi-Cinderella-all-the-time.
shut up! are you serious it was amy grant!? i love it! how did i not know such an awesome fun fact about you!? remind me to show you a picture of my bedroom wall, circa 1990. all posters of bon jovi, poison, et al. then i tossed all that for REM. ah, the circle of life.
Oh, and the crazy-over-sexualizing of children is frightening! Anne Geddes is creepy. Have we not discussed this over beer!? We must!
we must discuss this over beer! anne geddes has been deeply disturbing me for years!
This is so timely b/c 2 weeks ago I was guilty of checking out Peter Cetera’s greatest hits at the library. I swear it was b/c I needed Glory of Love for an 80s mix, and I don’t care what anyone says, I love that song! It’s funny, I was standing in line to check out & the two librarians were a frumpy old lady and the other was this hot hipster. I was like “Please God, let the old maid check me out, not the hipster, not the hipster.” I go to this library a lot. I have a reputation to protect. Of course I got the hipster. My other check out was the Brit Box (which is completely awesome btw), but the damage was done, the Cetera was noted.
there should be no shame in the peter cetera loving game! the glory of love is truly an awesome song, and is regularly played on my ipod. in fact, love me tomorrow is playing on my pandora station as i type this.
hilarious story about the hipster librarian! there’s one at every branch, noting when you check out three’s company dvds and never there to see you check out obscure banjo hip hop.
I’m DYING! This is a post tailor-made for me! Briggsy, you & I are pop-culture soulmates, in case you haven’t realized that yet. We must discuss this blog entry next time we see each other! I have a LOT to say. (“Midwest in the ’90s”, for a start. . .) Also, _Chances_Are_ stars my actor life partner, Mary Stuart Masterson. Yes, I have it on VHS, & yes if Double S & you haven’t seen it yet, you’re coming over to watch it! (& I may or may not have called & requested “After All” on the local radio station (92.5!) a few dozen times in 7th grade. . .) Yet another in a long line of body-switching (or, in this case, reincarnation) ’80s movies. (see: _Like_Father_Like_Son_, starring a pre-born-again Kirk Cameron & Dudley Moore.)
dude! thanks for reading! im loving that you have an actor life partner. what is MSM up to these days, i wonder? we accidentally had pay per view for like a year right after chances are came out, and i taped it and watched the hell out of it. i actually kinda had more of a thing for cybill shepherd in it. i liked the older ladies. anyway it’d be super fun to hang out and watch chances are, oh maybe with like father like son! kirk was the coolest before the whole born again thing.
meg and i have been known to copy anne geddes photos for irony and fun. plus, one of my “theme songs” is an amy grant song–i’m gonna fly! and…mary stuart masterson makes me weak in in the knees all the time. and peter cetera has quite the falsetto…what up with that!?
my first concert was john denver when i was 4…at the red rocks….in colorado….i’m sure that my parents were….let’s just say….very happy.
i love the image of you and meg copying anne geddes pics for fun and irony! let’s get together and do this and photoshop in our faces being cradled by oversized egg shells or creepily large hands. hilarity will most definitely ensue!
i’m gonna fly…i hate to say i’d never even heard that one. i just listened to it! awesome!
and john denver at red rocks at age 4…awesome. just awesome.
Oh Missy, I wish I could have gotten to know you better in high school, we have such similar musical tastes. I love these songs, they make me cry. And every time I look at our yearbook, I think about how CJ was the absolute best time of my life. I still chat with Sr Sheila over FB. I’m trying to ‘friend’ as many of the CJ nuns from 89-93 as I can find.
Well, I better go, my daughter has an appt. at the Anne Geddes studio. She takes such darling photos!
totally! LYLAS though and good luck in college! i hope the anne geddes appointment went well. i sold all the rights to my future children to anne geddes because i figure they’ll be better off in anne’s loving hands! hee hee!
in all seriousness though, did you see on FB that what you are saying about our former classmates, the nuns and FB is scarily true?
Between all these comments, there are some fabulous ideas for future parties/hangouts: baby photo shoots and photoshopping adults into anne geddes’ eggs, movie marathons, lip sync performances, karaoke songs, mixtapes, crafting projects…. Nice work fans of Briggsy! If you want to learn the funky version of Kumbaya, full of “rain, wind and fire, ” we will be having a campfire in the yard next week with a lesson beforehand for all interested parties.
For those who like to plan ahead and want to participate in Briggsy’s birthday present next year: i will be coordinating a femme fashion show featuring 90s business suit outfits. Sign up now to attend!
My son and I are working on a play with our cat called “Karate Cat” which culminates in her “dancing” and singing Glory of Love (Kitty Remix) (i.e. “I am the cat who will fight for your honor…”)
It’s pretty cool, but I’m not sure it will reach the heights of the “it’s not a choice, it’s a baby fly” fly abortion pro-life PSA.
p.s. I think after this retreat when we get back to school we’re all going to be best friends!!
i love making cats dance. plus, the cat who will fight for your honor flows so nicely. capital job, mate!