20 Songs Released in 1980 You Must Hear


My rules:

  • Only one song per artist/group
  • The song must be released that specific year
  • Songs from live albums not allowed
  • Restricted to only 20 songs

A lot of wonderful music was released in 1980, here are my 20 chosen songs.

Summertime in England – Van Morrison

The longest & best song on Van Morrison’s 1980 album, Common One. Although the album on which the song appeared was not critically or commercially successful, the song would be performed by Morrison in concert for almost two and one-half decades, taking on new meaning when performed live. A truncated version of the song with an early fade-out was also released as the B-side of the 1983 single “Cry for Home”.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Can you meet me in the country
In the summertime in England
Will you meet me?
Will you meet me in the country
In the summertime in England
Will you meet me?[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Spotify:




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Christmas is here – Videos to help us celebrate (Dylan, Cash, Cohen, Lennon, Tom Waits, and more..)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Let us have music for Christmas…
Sound the trumpet of joy and rebirth;
Let each of us try, with a song in our hearts,
To bring peace to men on earth.
–> Mildred L. Jarrell[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

“So this is Christmas…” Here are collection of Videos that hopefully will set you in nice Christmas mood.

Bob Dylan recites the Clement Clarke Moore poem “Twas The Night Before Christmas”


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October 15: Tom Waits released The Heart of Saturday Night in 1974

Oceanside ends the ride
With San Clemente commin up
And Sunday desperados slip by
And cruise with a dry buck
And the Orange drive-in, neon billing
And the theaters filling to the brim
With Slave Girls, Hot Spur, Bucket Full of Sin
– Tom Waits, Diamonds on my windshield

The Heart of Saturday Night is the second studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released on October 15, 1974 on Asylum Records.

It is a fantastic album!

(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night and San Diego Serenade, PBS soundstage in 1975:

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September 30: Tom Waits Released Rain Dogs in 1985


[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]We sail tonight for Singapore
Don’t fall asleep while you’re ashore
Cross your heart and hope to die
When you hear the children cry
Let marrow bone and cleaver choose
While making feet for children’s shoes
Through the alley
Back from Hell
When you hear that steeple bell
You must say goodbye to me
~Tom Waits (Singapore)

If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
~Tom Waiys – “Blind Love”[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Tango till they’re sore @ San Remo 1986:

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Great Tom Waits Song – Kentucky Avenue


[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Well, Eddie Grace’s Buick got four bullet holes in the side
And Charlie DeLisle is sittin’ at the top of an avocado tree
Mrs. Storm will stab you with a steak knife if you step on her lawn
I got a half a pack of Lucky Strikes, man, so come along with me
And let’s fill our pockets with macadamia nuts
And go over to Bobby Goodmanson’s and jump off the roof[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Still more lushly sentimental was “Kentucky Avenue,” the great song of Waits’ childhood. One of his most unashamedly emotional outpourings, it mourned lost innocence with a compassion few other songwriters have ever attempted, let alone achieved. This wasn’t The Waltons—the lyric was full of wanton violence and vandalism—but as the song reached its climax, the love in Waits’ voice, heaved from his memory, was almost too much to bear.
-Barney Hoskyns (Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits)
[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Studio version:

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September 8: Bone Machine By Tom Waits Was Released in 1992

bone-machine

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“it ain’t no sin, to take off your skin and dance around in your bones”
~Tom Waits[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

From Wikipedia:

Released September 8, 1992
Recorded Prairie Sun Recording, Cotati, California
Genre Rock, experimental rock, blues rock
Length 53:30
Label Island
Producer Tom Waits

Bone Machine is a critically acclaimed and award-winning album by Tom Waits, released in 1992 on Island Records. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, and features guest appearances by Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, Primus’ Les Claypool, and The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards.

Bone Machine marked a return to studio material for Waits, coming a full five years after his previous studio album, Franks Wild Years (1987). The album is often noted for its dark lyrical themes of death and murder, and for its rough, stripped-down, percussion-heavy blues rock style.

Tom Waits

Recording & production:

Bone Machine was recorded and produced entirely at the Prairie Sun Recording studios in Cotati, California in a room of Studio C known as “the Waits Room,” in the old cement hatchery rooms of the cellar of the buildings.

Mark “Mooka” Rennick, Prairie Sun studio chief said:

[Waits] gravitated toward these “echo” rooms and created the Bone Machine aural landscape. […] What we like about Tom is that he is a musicologist. And he has a tremendous ear. His talent is a national treasure.

Waits said of the bare-bones studio, “I found a great room to work in, it’s just a cement floor and a hot water heater. Okay, we’ll do it here. It’s got some good echo.” References to the recording environment and process were made in the field-recorded interview segments made for the promotional CD release, Bone Machine: The Operator’s Manual, which threaded together full studio tracks and conversation for a pre-recorded radio show format.

Artwork:

The cover photo, which consists of a blurred black-and-white, close-up image of Waits in a leather skullcap with horns and protective goggles, was taken by Jesse Dylan, the son of Bob Dylan. He wears this same outfit in the video for “Goin’ Out West” and “I Don’t Wanna Grow up”.

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