Beat It Him: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Listen More Closely

A friend and I have been battling on Muxtape this week. The challenge was to see who would pull the best 12 song (the mix tape limit) 80's CD. Mind you, the date range actually goes 1979-1990... Quite a challenge considering I'm "27"*. That being said, I think that I did fairly well. The only rule of engagement was that we could only use one song per year...and no repeat artists. (and no loophole tricks like having a Genesis song and then having a Phil Collins song.)

Here is mine
Here is hers
Vote at the bottom of the blog!

She went above and beyond the call of duty by relabeling each track to match a time and place or feeling that the song evoked. Great work, especially when you get to find out her favorite song of ALL TIME is by Starship. Correction, her favorite song is the THEME SONG to Mannequin by Starship! How awesome is that? Earning lots of points in my book.

Props having been given, I still think that I blew her out of the water.

I should mention that it was implied that you had to pick songs that you REALLY listened to around that time. God knows I'd like to say I was rockin' out to Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon"...but that awesome song did not grace my ears till my first viewing of "Donnie Darko". "The Killing Moon" came out in 1984, when Michael Jackson ruled the charts. While I did not ultimately decide to include any Michael Jackson tracks on my playlist, MJ does bring back a rather fun traumatic childhood memory.

1984 - "White Lines" is the trigger of this memory. No, Young Del was not blowing lines. Break dancing was the drug of choice. I tried my hardest to perfect the art, but it never really took. A damn shame, as I would have owned my catholic school courtyard with my windmills and head spins. I was no Ozone...not even a poor man's Turbo. Damn their Electric Boogaloo. My only recourse was to fall back to what was easy, and nothing was easier than aping Michael Jackson. Anyone can pull off a moon walk while wearing one glove and white socks.

A sad, sad side note: I would wear a winter mitt (didn't have gloves) and try to moonwalk in the middle of a scorching, humid NY summer on my back deck. Luckily for me there are no pictures**.

Now to the music... Back then people would buy record singles, and I was a big enough sucker to have purchased the record singles for both MJ's "Beat It" and Weird Al Yankovic's HILARIOUS parody "Eat it". However even after a big purchase like that I stopped listening to "Beat it" pretty quickly. And for an extremely good reason! As youngster i guess my ear for music wasn't fully developed and because of this I would butcher the words to songs. This led me, in "Beat It" to hear and sing "Showin' How Fucky Strong Is Your Fight" when the actual words were clearly "Showin' How Funky Strong Is Your Fight". Repeated over and OVER again.

Now I'm friggin' YOUNG, so "fucky" had LIT-TRA-LEE the same exact meaning to me as "funky" (I didn't know how to get funky or fucky back then. Now...still a bit unclear.) Unfortunately my mom felt differently, took the title of the song quite literally, and out came the dreaded "wooden spoon".

...And that's when "Beat it" was retired from young Del's record rotation. That is your Del story of the day.

*That's right 27. Don't question it.

** Being the child of six the novelty of taking pictures and general parenting pretty much wears off after #3. A Blessing and a Curse.

Which mix kicks more ass?
	1980's Jerkface Sandwich
	A Dozen Years