Tuesday, January 17, 2006 |
Leave the TV and the Radio Behind
“Steppin’ Out” by Joe Jackson, from the album Night and Day.
Third week of August, 1982
It surprises me that people work themselves into a froth when music that they loved (one-hit wonder or otherwise) gets bought up by some corporation for use in an advertising campaign. If anything, I feel exactly the opposite. Not only is an artist that I enjoyed putting a little coin in their pocket for their trouble, I am reminded of a song that I may have forgotten. Such is the case with Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out.” I think it was Pontiac that nabbed this song two or three years back. This song is so early-80s reminiscent that I want to go out and get a Rubik’s Cube and a Le Tigre shirt every time I hear it. And behind all that nostalgia is some surprisingly trenchant lyrics, including the mind-bending line “We are young but getting old before our time.”
Best moment: Beginning of the piano solo (@ 3:11).
—G.W.
