"Contagious" by the Isley Brothers featuring Ronald Isley

2001 / #19

Rate Your Music score: 3.34 out of 5!

These Cincinnati siblings began charting long before I was even born, but they also managed to score several Hot 100 entries during what we call the second generation of lost hits, which we define as late 1991 and later. Some might argue that we should just stop this blog at 1991, but I was already interested in lost hits by then, and if we stop at 1991 now, that would be like if we stopped at 1957 then. It's like how the time someone carved "I am gay" into a table in 6th grade was as close to the mid-1940s as it is to the mid-2020s.

"Contagious" was a substantial hit at Tantrum 95.7, but it was also popular in other contexts. I remember downstairs neighbors frequently blaring the tune loudly. This brings to mind a funny story involving these neighbors.

The buildings where I've lived during my adult life have been a wellspring of stories. One of the most memorable was a kid throwing a brand new toy down the steps and breaking it and the resulting angry lecture. Another is when some loudmouths kept smashing the window in the front door during their many stupid arguments. But the story in this entry involves a dispute between my downstairs neighbors and the people in the apartment next to mine on the second floor. These are not current neighbors, as they all moved out a long time ago.

One day, I heard what sounded like glass breaking in the alley. It was accompanied by a loud thump. Then I heard the man downstairs angrily yelling.

I just thought some little kids were smashing beer bottles in the alley again, but then I heard stern voices talking outside. I ran downstairs to investigate. I saw a police car idling with its lights going. Several patrolmen were out there talking to the neighbors.

It turned out that the neighbors next to me were dropping their trash out their second-story window into the dumpster below - instead of carrying it outside like they were supposed to. They kept missing the dumpster, and glass would shatter on the pavement. The alley was littered with glass, rotting food scraps, and diapers, which caused the people downstairs to call the police.

I mentioned the incident at a family gathering not long after, and I think some relatives said they had similar dealings with an event like this.

This early 2000s episode predated more recent gentrification projects that have done even more to contribute to local mouse infestations. But if anything was contagious, it was the overall stupidity that was enveloping society.

"Farewell My Summer Love" by Michael Jackson

1984 / #38

Rate Your Music score: 2.73 out of 5!

Even the King of Pop has lost hits.

Michael Jackson recorded the vocals for this song back in 1973, the year he turned 15. The song was remixed for a 1984 compilation album just as his Thriller set was finally being exhausted. Remember, it wasn't until 1987 that Bad was released, so Michael mania had to be kept alive all those years.

During the height of Thriller's popularity, some girl at school admiringly said of Michael, "He's not a man. He's a phenomenon!" I miss Michael Jackson today, but I wasn't into him during his heyday. On the other hand, "Beat It" is said to have rescued top 40 radio from itself, so we can be thankful that Michael helped end the MOR doldrums of the early 1980s and got everyone listening to high-energy top 40 again.

People still talked about Michael all through the years when he had no new solo albums of new material. This brings to mind a classmate I had in 6th grade. For a while, he sat right behind me in literature class. Now, this was an advanced class. I don't know why the school placed me in an advanced literature class, as that was my weakest subject. The assistant principal's excuse was usually that "a computer did it."

Anyway, the classmate I'm talking about didn't start the year there, but he just showed up one day as a new student. He asked me what my favorite songs and musicians were. I know I liked the now-lost hit "Romancing The Stone" by Eddy Grant. I think I liked "I Can't Drive 55" by Sammy Hagar. I also actually enjoyed some metal and new wave that wasn't big on pop radio. Who didn't? But my classmate's favorite performer was - drum roll, please - Michael Jackson.

I guess there's really nothing wrong with that, but Michael was one of only two topics that he talked about constantly. What was the other? Well, one day, he asked me what my favorite TV shows were. I don't remember what my answer was, because network TV was in sort of a malaise at the time with its squeaky clean family sitcoms. But he said his favorite show was...

Are you ready for it?

Are you?

Sesame Street.

Yes, Sesame Street. In 6th grade!

He spent the rest of the school year talking about nothing but Michael Jackson and Sesame Street. It appears that he even wrote fan mail to Luis.

Sesame Street and Michael Jackson were better than some of the other things people talked about. A lot of kids at school just talked about bashing people's heads in. That's why I stockpiled thorns to defend myself.

I don't think I ever saw this particular schoolmate again after 6th grade until I was in high school. That was when he sat down next to me on a TANK bus, and I didn't recognize him. "Remember me, man?" he said. When he said who he was, I remembered then!

A weird one indeed.

"Don't Let Go The Coat" by the Who

1981 / #84

Rate Your Music score: 3.08 out of 5!

With such an unusual title, I had no idea what this song was about when I was growing up. Later, I read that the song was written because Pete Townshend had a guru whose followers would always grab his coat and hang on to it.

The title also brings back an early 1980s memory of some mischief I got into. I should refer to this song as "Do Let Go The Coat", because it was a surgical strike, and I would have been caught if I hadn't let go.

I was about 8, and this incident took place at a department store like Sears or JCPenney. I was with my family doing Christmas shopping. We didn't buy much at midrange stores like this, but this was special. Anyway, my nose started to tickle. It was a telltale sign of a boog.

A booger was gonna be snagged, and that's all there was to it. The problem was that I didn't know where to discard it. I didn't have a tissue handy. It had to go somewhere. I couldn't make it magically disappear.

So I waited until some woman with a little boy walked past. They were complete strangers, and they didn't say a word as they walked by. The woman was wearing a long, tan overcoat.

What an enticing target that overcoat was!

When nobody was looking, I snuck up behind the woman as she was walking and wiped the freshly snagged gob of mucus onto her coat. Then I skedaddled away!

I never got caught, and nobody knows what became of the boog.

That was a couple years before I made a department store escalator grind to a halt by shoving a metal hook into the grooves. I never got caught for that either, but it was so funny to see the look on everyone's faces when the escalator loudly screeched to a stop! It was also before I changed the radio station to static at a sporting goods store and made everyone think the stadium blew up during a Reds game.

"The Curly Shuffle" by Jump 'n the Saddle Band

1983 / #15

Rate Your Music score: 2.67 out of 5!

In the winter of 1983-84, this Three Stooges tribute song by the Chicago-based Jump 'n the Saddle Band filled pop radio airwaves far and wide. But later, the song would always come up in every conversation about lost hits.

Even 20 years ago, someone on a message board for alumnuses of our local school system said he was surprised to hear "The Curly Shuffle" blaring over the speakers at a Reds game, as he hadn't heard it for 20 years before.

Years after that posting, something took place that caused "The Curly Shuffle" to play in my head. During TV court shows, there were lots of commercials for a law firm called Elk & Elk. One of the attorneys in the ad bore a striking resemblance to Moe Howard. Recently, I typed in "Elk & Elk" and "Moe Howard" into a Google search to see if anyone else noticed the resemblance, and Google's AI feature said, "Elk & Elk and Moe Howard are not directly related." I'm sure Joe Biden and actor Mike Farrell aren't directly related either, but the amazing resemblance between the two has been noted.

Now there's new life to the phrase Curly shuffle. These days, a Curly shuffle is an instance of diarrhea that's so bad that no amount of toilet paper can do the job of cleaning it up, and you have to jump in the shower to get clean. Why do we call it that? "Jump in the shower" → Jump 'n the Saddle → Curly shuffle.

We never shit our pants...We get up and dance and do the Curly shuffle!

"No Myth" by Michael Penn

1989 / #13

Rate Your Music score: 3.57 out of 5!

"What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth..."

This lost hit by Michael Penn - brother of actors Sean and Chris - inexplicably includes a line about a comic strip cat. That's not a misheard lyric. It's like Billy Joel fretting over the lack of Soaftsoap in the heat of war or Paul McCartney extolling the greatness of the Sooner State in that it's a real lyric that doesn't seem to make sense.

As with Tina Turner's "Steamy Windows", I think we heard Michael's song on the same day we drove to Frankfort. I think I've pegged the date as February 3, 1990. I'm also pretty sure we heard this song on the FM radio on the stereo in the den that night after we got home. I remember this because I had just been forced to abandon my favorite dialup computer bulletin board. It had been replaced by some sort of fancy system that made an account under my name and posted stupid stories. I was unable to log on under my own name and delete these narratives. So I spent that evening making gag accounts on the BBS that I was forced to abandon.

No hard feelings, but it needed to be done.

The good news is that I had a much better high school the following fall, so not all of 1990 was the total loss that the first 8 months of it were. It's pretty bad when that school was actually an improvement, but it's truly breathtaking just how bad our schools around here are.

Also, I remember a longer version of "No Myth" that I only ever heard on American Top 40. The version in the video above is the same one that I had on cassette (that disappeared in the home invasions) and which radio stations outside of AT40 always played. But the longer version had an ending that was evocative of a swarm of bees flying out of a snake charmer's basket. Every so often, you'd hear a "ding!" that seemed to represent a bee stinging someone. I can't find this extended version on YouTube though - or anywhere.

"Steamy Windows" by Tina Turner

1989 / #39

Rate Your Music score: 3.32 out of 5!

Hearing this lost hit again reminds me of the Saturday in early 1990 when we drove to Frankfort and learned just how babyish our state legislators are.

We didn't go there to meet with lawmakers. I think the ones from our area were probably a lost cause anyway. As proud Kentuckians, we just wanted to see our capital city.

The real amusement took place when we visited the Kentucky State Capitol building. While I was in this great domed building, nature called. When I was using the men's room, I noticed a couple funny things. The first thing I saw was that the window was propped open with a perfectly good roll of toilet paper. Then I noticed that someone had locked a stall door from the inside and crawled out underneath. It's the same thing people did in elementary school. But that time, it must have been a state legislator who did it.

Anyone who wanted to unlock the stall door would have had to crawl into the stall under the door. In the Kentucky State Capitol building, of all places!

It's nice to know we elected 6-year-olds to public office.

In 2017, I was invited to a conference in Washington, D.C., in which I met with congressional staffers. When I used the men's room in the Russell Senate Office Building, I noticed that somebody - most likely a senator - had covered the toilet seat with toilet paper and peed all over it. I repeat: This was in the ornate Russell Senate Office Building.

Let that sink in.

But it was during my 1990 outing that the radio was blasting in the front seat and turning out the music fine. You always remember what songs were big during events that took place during the heyday of pop radio.

"Save Me" by Fleetwood Mac

1990 / #33

Rate Your Music Score: 3.19 out of 5!

It may seem hard to believe Fleetwood Mac actually had a top 40 hit in the 1990s. That was after the last top 40 appearances by Men At Work, Cyndi Lauper, and Devo - even though we think of those 3 acts as being later than the Mac was. Perhaps more surprisingly, the Carpenters, John Denver, and Paul Anka also made the top 40 after Devo's only top 40 hit. Maybe even more surprisingly, the Monkees' last top 40 appearance was later than that of DeBarge. Weird but true!

I forgot about "Save Me" for years, because a personal struggle wiped out my memory of its run of popularity. A few idiots around here decided to turn those months into a huge battle - just for fun. I have only very spotty memories of events at the time.

A couple years later, an interesting Mac-related personal anecdote emerged. During my first semester of college, I took a class called introduction to mass media. The professor bore a very strong resemblance to Mick Fleetwood.

This class was a real barrel of laughs. I always sat in the back next to a group of 3 students who constantly goofed off. One day, two of them were making such a hilarious scene that the professor interrupted his lesson to warn them, "I'm gonna have to split you two up in the back if it goes on any more." One other time, I had to suddenly bolt out of this class to throw up, but the stalls in the restroom were being monopolized, so I vomited all over the bathroom floor in front of a urinal.

As students in that class were goofing off and chewing bubble gum, the professor assigned a project we had to present in front of the class. Two of the group that sat next to me did their project together. Their project was a look at censorship of rap lyrics, but I think it was mostly just an excuse to recite explicit lyrics in front of the class.

The entire time, they couldn't hold in their laughter. The professor who looked like Mick Fleetwood also had a hard time keeping from bursting out laughing, but he was really trying. It was sort of like in elementary school when I tried holding in my laughter when a teacher lectured the whole class about someone shitting on the toilet seat. It was also like when I saw the former mayor of Cincinnati at Kroger and he was trying to hold in his laughter after someone farted.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. But don't stop thinking about yesterday either - especially all the lost hits on this blog and the stories behind them.

"Give Me The Keys (And I'll Drive You Crazy)" by Huey Lewis & the News

1989 / #47

Rate Your Music score: 2.29 out of 5!

"When it gets a little dark...We'll find a place to park..."

At least that's what the official lyrics say. But there's a consensus that Huey didn't say "park."

I remember when this song was a hit and everybody agreed that, instead of "park", the word Huey sang was a four-letter vulgarity denoting sexual intercourse. And it couldn't possibly be any clearer. It isn't buried in a swirl of guitars and keyboards. It's right there staring the world in the face. So many lyrics in hit songs are completely incomprehensible, but this was unambiguous.

The only people who disagreed were radio programmers. They were naive enough to trust the lyric sheet. They couldn't possibly believe that a clean-cut everyman like Huey Lewis would drop an f-bomb. That's why every top 40 station that I remember played this record without any trouble.

I remember hearing it on Q-102 one weekend in early 1989 as we were zipping down Columbia Parkway. That wasn't long after we saw Rain Man, part of which was filmed in Cincinnati and featured Columbia Parkway. Also, as we were on this road, we tested whether we could pick up 97-X, as this station was heard in the Columbia Parkway scene in the film. This test was unsuccessful. We don't talk about 97-X much, because this station - which had a highly regarded modern rock format - hardly ever reached where we lived. We were denied a good signal from 97-X because some of the major Cincinnati stations got an allocation for another station on the same frequency at the opposite end of town from it. This protected big stations from competition from 97-X.

That tidbit about local radio has nothing to do with the topic of this entry though. And Huey's dabbling with one of the "7 dirty words" only filled our airwaves for a few weeks before becoming yet another lost hit.

"My Heart Skips A Beat" by the Cover Girls

1989 / #38

Rate Your Music score: 2.77 out of 5!

I have a pretty decent record collection, and I try to keep used records from getting ruined even worse than they already were when I found them. And sometimes, I literally found them - as in laying around somewhere. My priority isn't strictly collecting so much as building a quality media project, for I was a broadcaster. I'm a working-class guy, and I can't afford to collect every record ever made.

A record is really just a cheap plastic disc. Yet a good record can produce great audio.

But not if some clown at the post office snaps it in half. And that's where this lost hit by the Cover Girls comes in.

The narrator of this video that appeared on YouTube famously described ordering a rare 12-inch record of this lost hit - along with a Janet Jackson disc - and how it arrived in the mail broken in two...

One record cost $42. The other was $100. That doesn't even include shipping. And the post office smashed them both.

That record is going to skip more than just a beat!

That's why we very, very, very rarely ordered records through the mail. I think we ordered an LP from a record club once, but I can't remember getting any other actual records through the mail. If I had primarily collected rare Japanese imports of Cover Girls records like the star of that video did, I might not have had a choice.

We can't go wrong - but sometimes the postal service does!

"Can't Stop" by Rick James

1985 / #50

Rate Your Music score: 2.73 out of 5!

"There's something in the air...It's telling me I should beware..."

You can already see where this is headed, right?

Rick James was the stuff of legends. When I was growing up, a TV announcer said Rick had been expelled from 6 schools in his youth. I wondered if I could beat his record. But I only made it up to 4. Oh well. Can't always win.

"Can't Stop" was Rick's last record to make the Hot 100. I always heard it while I was sitting in the den listening to the boom box in the spring of 1985. Now, about those lines, "There's something in the air...It's telling me I should beware." Ahem. Ahem ahem ahem. These lines prompted the obvious fart jokes.

This was still 1985. It wasn't wall-to-wall flatulence like 1986 was. But the way things were in 1986 were the way things were getting to be in 1985. Granted, we still had a ways to go early in the year. But we were making progress slowly but surely. I believe it was around the time of "Can't Stop" that a good fart story took place. One day, the unmistakable aroma of a silent-but-deadly filled the den. The obligatory finger-pointing ensued. Nobody could agree on who the culprit was. Nobody could even agree on what species the culprit was.

Finally, I saw that a Price Is Right board game was resting on the floor. We had found this game at a yard sale but never actually played it. I don't know why we had it out that day. I noticed the box for the game included a drawing of a woman celebrating her winnings. She was holding money and standing in front of the Lucky Seven set. (It's the 1974 version of the box that appears in several photos online.) I blamed the box lid for the wafting bunker blast. I pointed at the woman in the drawing and said, "It was her."

Then I burst out laughing!

After I fell into uncontrollable laughter after blaming a fart on a drawing on a Price Is Right board game box, the resulting angry response made me laugh even harder. It was too bad that some people had no sense of humor.

It's a shame there were no family vlogs yet in 1985. This would have had a million views within a day.

Many years later, a man who happened to be named Rick James ran for city council in a small Southern town. He posted his campaign signs on his lawn. He became irate when people kept driving up and down his street and yelling at his house, "Super freak! Super freak!"

There's more lost hits in the air, so beware!

"The Kid's American" by Matthew Wilder

1984 / #33

Rate Your Music score: 2.89 out of 5!

This is probably the first time in many, many, many years that you heard those opening notes and it didn't turn out to be "Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous" by Good Charlotte - which today is itself also a lost hit. (Incidentally, Rate Your Music reviewers just hate, hate, hate that Good Charlotte track. Maybe we'll discuss it sometime.)

I first heard of Matthew Wilder when local stations kept playing his single "Work So Hard" constantly. That record surprisingly did not reach the Hot 100. The main reason I heard it so much was that it fell into the "yacht rock" category that was so common on the MOR stations my parents subjected me to. None of that dangerous Soft Cell or Steve Miller Band for us!

Matthew's big successes came later with hits like the one we're profiling today. Thankfully, we were out of the adult contemporary malaise by then. "The Kid's American" got some radio play, but sometime not long after, we noticed something amusing about Matthew. It just so happened that he bore a strong physical resemblance to a certain local Republican politician known for erratic behavior.

You might think the song's phrase "underneath the hood" refers to that politician's supporters.

If this song had come out a couple years later, I would have noted the line, "Something's in the wind and it's comin' fast." This line fits with the flatulence theme that was so big then. One example we've covered is "Hanging On A Heart Attack" by Device, which includes the line, "You try to get up and here it comes again." This theme is also found in song titles like "No One Is To Blame" by Howard Jones and the lost hit "Rumbleseat" by John Mellencamp.

"Smokin' In The Boys Room" by Mötley Crüe

1985 / #16

Rate Your Music score: 2.22 out of 5!

Did Mr. Hooper appear in a rock video? No. He did not. At least not that I know of. Let's get that out of the way.

I didn't want to give this lost hit an entry, because it was a remake of a song whose earlier version still receives some play. Brownsville Station's recording of this song was a big hit in 1973. But when Mötley Crüe came out with their remake in 1985, I noticed something hilarious.

The video starts out funny enough, with the mean dog chewing up the kid's homework and the angry principal wielding his "board of education." But there's something really funny at 2:40. I saw it right away back in 1985.

Look at the man playing the accordion up on the stage. When I first saw that, I thought he looked just like Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street! But I knew it wasn't him, because I knew that Will Lee, the actor who played ol' Hoops, had died several years earlier. If he hadn't died, I would have thought it was him!

In fact, some people today actually think it was him.

It gets funnier, as we see the Mr. Hooper look-alike wrapped in toilet paper and sticking out his tongue.

I think the character in the video was designed to be sort of a typecast of an unhip performer that school officials might invite to play at a school event. It's like how in 1990, when I was in high school, my school had a dance where they hired a DJ who only played old MOR standards instead of exciting new rock 'n' roll. My school pals made fun of that dance for months.

Another organization I dealt with shortly thereafter was just as bad. It had a dance that was as tame as a 2020 Zoom prom, and its idea of contemporary music in 1990 was acts such as New Kids On The Block who appealed mostly to young kids. It didn't allow music that older teenagers listened to, such as rock, rap, and some other styles. In fact, one of my contemporaries tried smuggling in a Mötley Crüe tape in the front of his pants, and it was confiscated and destroyed.

"A Fine Fine Day" by Tony Carey

1984 / #22

Rate Your Music score: 3.25 out of 5!

Did Boss Hogg appear in a rock video?

In my day, I probably saw this video more than any other on MTV, with the possible exception of Paul McCartney's "No More Lonely Nights", which is now also a lost hit. Tony's song was a tale of an uncle who was in the Mafia who escaped from prison. But I don't think it was a real story. I remember some spoiled kid in school trying to glamorize his uncle who was involved in organized crime. Later I found out the real story, and it was actually almost as sinister as what you'd expect from a Mob guy, and not glamorous at all. But my schoolmate couldn't have told the story as well as Tony Carey did.

I also remember hearing this song on the car radio in a school parking lot, but MTV gave it more exposure than anyone. Every time I turned on MTV, those black-and-white photos of Uncle Sonny would inevitably appear on the screen.

But all the times I saw this video, I missed something that should have been very obvious. Fast-forward to the bridge of the song at 3:45. Pay attention to the man in the suit in the meatpacking plant lip-syncing the lyrics.

Isn't that Sorrell Booke, who played Boss Hogg on The Dukes Of Hazzard? I'm pretty sure that's him, but he wore a wig to hide his bald dome, so I never realized it was him.

I loved The Dukes Of Hazzard in its heyday and even went to see Boss Hogg when he came to the Cavalcade of Customs. That was one of the greatest days of my life! I even had the toy cars. But the show was starting to wrap things up by 1984. By the time Tony's video came out, I had practically forgotten the show ever existed. So it was only recently that I realized the man in the clip was probably Sorrell Booke.

The idea of Boss Hogg lip-syncing a rousing rock 'n' roll track is amusing enough. But there was another lost hit with a similar story. I didn't want to give it a separate entry, because it was a remake of a well-known song. But I'll give it one anyway. The smoke-filled room in the next entry has nothing to do with mobsters.

"Come As You Are" by Peter Wolf

1987 / #15

Rate Your Music score: 3.31 out of 5!

Peter Wolf is like the patron saint of lost hits. The former J. Geils Band lead singer had 3 solo top 40 hits, and all of them became lost hits right away. Peter is also known for his resemblance to Michael Richards after the defective shower head flattened his hair.

Among his lost hits is this feel-good rocker. Some have surmised that airplay for this tune was stymied somewhat because radio programmers misheard the line, "Ain't gonna be no masquerade," and thought it was something off-color. Yet I remember similarly misheard lyrics in other late '80s songs that seemed to get more radio play yet charted much lower. In fact, I remember real lyrics in that era that clearly used one of the "7 dirty words" and got gobs of pop radio airplay. Yes, Huey, we're getting to you.

The "Come As You Are" video is noteworthy for Peter jumping, hopping, and dancing throughout the song. I don't know how he did it. Peter turned 41 in 1987, and I could barely walk or stay awake more than an hour at a time by the time I was 24. It's like how Brett Favre somehow still played football when he was 41.

Sharp-eyed music and TV fans have noted that the video was filmed on the same Warner Brothers backlot used for The Dukes Of Hazzard. There are several telltale signs. This was a couple years after The Dukes Of Hazzard ended its run, and we can see the Route 36 sign that depicts that mystery state that looked like a cross between Georgia and Missouri. I'm pretty sure the gazebo at the end of the video was also in The Dukes Of Hazzard, and some have noted that it also appeared in Gilmore Girls.

What can be more entertaining than Peter Wolf jumping all over the Dukes Of Hazzard set?

"Move Any Mountain" by the Shamen

1991 / #38

Rate Your Music score: 3.4 out of 5!

Time for a lesson on the English language. This lesson seems to have been lost on this Scottish band, even though they ostensibly spoke English.

A shaman is a traditional faith healer. The word came from a German or Russian word, which in turn came from a word in Evenki, a language found in Inner Mongolia. Now, the thing about this is that the word shaman is unrelated to the word man. Thus, the plural of shaman is shamans, not shamen.

Likewise, a female shaman is not called a shawoman - and the plural is not shawomen.

English is a funny language sometimes.

This also brings to mind how George Orwell's 1984 had a big section about Newspeak, the only language whose vocabulary kept getting smaller. Well, except English, judging by all the bad radio edits and banned books these days. In Newspeak, the plural of man was not men but mans, e.g., "Three mans walked into the store."

Thus, you'd think the past tense of be would be beed, but I think that might have been an exception to the rule of abolishing irregular forms of words. Language police were probably working on it though. It's like how these days, people keep replacing letters in half the words in their Twitter posts with asterisks, even if the words aren't even remotely vulgar.

You might also suspect that the band Journey would be spelled Jernie - or that Ernie from Sesame Street would be spelled Ourney.

"I Live By The Groove" by Paul Carrack

1989 / #31

Rate Your Music score: 2.84 out of 5!

"It ain't written in the statute books...It can't be learned in school..."

Power 94½ loved this guy. If Paul Carrack had recorded "B Is For Bubble", Power 94½ would have played it once an hour. Paul was also known for his physical resemblance to Phil Collins. Now Paul has become a wellspring of lost hits.

This action-packed lost hit had a long tail at Power 94½. I'll give that station credit, as this was a better choice than many of the selections Q-102 made. Remember, Q-102 would still occasionally play Dan Hill's "Never Thought" in 1990. A few years earlier, WCLU actually made very good choices as to what minor hits to occasionally throw into the mix after these songs had peaked, such as "Space Age Whiz Kids" by Joe Walsh and "10-9-8" by Face To Face - both of which are now lost hits. But it was Paul's hit that elicited one of my great bursts of lyrical genius.

I think "I Live By The Groove" was popular right when we buyed a new stereo for the den, and the song blasted across the airwaves for months on end. This was also around the time people kept setting fires at my high school. I think that started when the cardboard pizza box got burned on the front steps after the Walk-a-Thon. In any event, I spoofed the line that went, "It can't be learned in school." I would always sing, "It can't be burned in school."

I went to a strange school.

"Runner" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band

1984 / #22

Rate Your Music score: 3.51 out of 5!

I don't know why Manfred Mann called his ensemble the Earth Band. Maybe it's like how there was an act called the Dirt Band. What's next? The Poo Band? Maybe it's like how Q-102 kept conducting a One Earth Party (mentioned on some old websites on Angelfire that haven't been maintained in decades).

In any event, the lead vocals on the Earth Band's big hits in the 1970s and 1980s were handled by Chris Thompson. I believe that's him singing in the video above. Hearing this lost hit today brings back memories of the musical excitement that loomed large in 1984. That was probably also the year in which I watched MTV more than any other. But I usually wasn't allowed to watch it for hours on end. I had things I had to do.

Fast-forward to 2013, when one of the strangest Earth Band-related incidents ever took place. That was when I had a weird dream that involved Little River Band and the Earth Band. In this dream, the lead singer of Little River Band posted a message insulting me on an online message board about the radio industry. This prompted me to get in a lengthy online argument with him. In response, the Earth Band's Chris Thompson - the man you see above - also started attacking me. He posted a message that said, "Some people are like mice disguised as dachshunds. At first, Mr. Brown appeared to be a dachshund. Now he has proven himself to be a mouse."

This prompted me to track him down. I discovered that Chris was lodged at a hotel in Missouri, so I made a special trip to the Show Me State to confront him. I entered the hotel lobby and found him there. When he refused to apologize, I grabbed his glasses off his face and hurled them across the room.

But this was just a dream! A ridiculous, absurd, preposterous dream!

It wasn't real! Get a grip!

Hopefully, Q-102 won't be having a One Poo Party anytime soon.

"Caravan Of Love" by Isley-Jasper-Isley

1985 / #51

Rate Your Music score: 3.33 out of 5!

This Cincinnati trio gave us this lost hit, and hearing it again brings back memories of sitting on the floor in the den listening to the boom box.

After the song fell off the chart, I hardly ever heard it again. But it did resurface once in 2022.

That was when I took a Greyhound bus to and from an event in Chicago. Greyhound is not the most efficient outfit around, but I didn't have a choice. For some reason, the route home from Chicago to Cincinnati took us through Louisville. And every Greyhound route leaving the Louisville terminal that morning was hours late. It was so bad that Greyhound had to call an Uber for folks going to Lexington.

The men's restroom at the Louisville bus station had pee-soaked toilet paper all over the floor. I also heard a squeak of flatulence while I was waiting for the bus.

I overheard a man saying that another man was picking paper off the floor in the bus terminal and eating it. Later on, the first man started singing. Guess what song? "Caravan Of Love"!

Greyhound isn't a caravan of love. I've heard horror stories about Greyhound that are even worse than anything I've been forced to put up with from them. It's a shame they're a monopoly. If any song title describes Greyhound, it's Supertramp's "Take The Long Way Home."

The "Caravan Of Love" video represents its era well. But why are people watching TV in their car? I think having a TV in your car is illegal, because it distracts the driver. I've heard of people installing TV sets in their car, but I'm pretty sure it's against the law.

"Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrmann

1999 / #45

Rate Your Music score: 3.15 out of 5!

"Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum..."

You knew we'd get to this one eventually, didn't you?

This lost hit was a spoken word record that recites a commencement speech that might be delivered to a graduating class. I'm not sure if this speech ever was read at any graduations though. I didn't attend my high school graduation, so I don't know if it had any speeches like this. I didn't attend my 8th grade graduation either, because I was kicked out of the school a few days before it for getting in a fight which caused the school's precious drinking fountain to get dented. It was a good thing I got kicked out, because I hated that school so much and would have done anything to avoid even going to my own graduation.

I hated, hated, hated that school. My mom thought I was the victim of some grave injustice by being barred from the ceremony, but I thought it was a reward. The real injustice was having to go to this school at all.

The kid I got in a fight with had the brains of a rock, but I heard that he went on to attend a very prestigious high school for "academically talented" students. So obviously I didn't go to high school with him. He wasn't even punished for fighting with me, because his folks had money.

I probably should have gone to my high school graduation, but I had only gone to school there for a year. I don't have a senior photo either. But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, because many graduating seniors of 2020-22 were robbed of their graduation ceremonies. Society was ruled by people who had zero regard for special milestones in life.

This lost hit was a shoo-in to be included in this blog because the line about how "worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum" brings a hilarious image to mind. You could just imagine someone poring over an algebra book with a huge, pink bubble expanding from their piehole. This record was a hit at the same time we drove to southwestern Indiana and first heard Jordan Knight's ridiculous "Give It To You." I remember hearing Baz's track on the car radio and trying to avoid bursting into laughter over the line about bubble gum.

Also, 1999 wasn't exactly full of economic or social dynamism, so my memories of that year consist mostly of watching daytime TV and repeatedly seeing the Arm & Hammer toothpaste commercial where the guy's yellow teeth scare the woman away in the art gallery. I think that was also the year I threw up at Americana and their bear mascot cleaned it up. It may have also been the year a man dropped a hamburger on the floor at Wendy's and ate it, but I'm not sure.

"Gold" by Spandau Ballet

1983 / #29

Rate Your Music score: 3.63 out of 5!

My dream of hoarding gold and living off of it in perpetuity was shattered when I was 10.

I was in 5th grade when this lost hit was popular, and I noted that the song said gold was "indestructible." So I got the brilliant idea that I could get a bunch of gold, hide it somewhere, and not have to worry about it getting ruined. I didn't think of one important thing though: Where would I get all that gold? Gold doesn't grow on trees. But not knowing where to get gold wasn't what dashed my hopes.

My dream was demolished one day when I was in the car in the school parking lot. The Spandaus' hit was on the radio. I asked my mom if gold was indeed "indestructible."

The answer? No, it was not. There were certain chemicals that could destroy gold on contact.

That meant I couldn't stockpile gold and count on it not falling to shambles. I was doomed to be near the lower end of the economic ladder forever. What a life!

By then, Spandau Ballet was like an entire universe itching to be ridiculed. The "Gold" video showed lead singer Tony Hadley wearing his famous suit that looked like it had a necklace embedded in it.

In later years, it became clear that theft would have been a bigger threat to my gold stash than corrosive chemicals. People stole valuables from me at school no matter how tightly I guarded them. The exact same thing would happen repeatedly - at several different schools - and the school wouldn't do anything about it.

I also got a book that had a brief article on how to pan for gold. The funniest part is where it says that if you find gold, you're supposed to put up a sign advertising it, instead of taking your prize and running home with it.

"Love Is Like Oxygen" by Sweet

1978 / #8

Rate Your Music score: 3.73 out of 5!

Let's again slog back to my college radio days, circa 1993-94. Let's take another peek behind the big door to room 205. "You've got a buddy in the condom business!"

I am of course talking about WRFN, the carrier current station at Northern Kentucky University. As you know, I had a show on WRFN in which I would throw in a lost hit here and there. It's a shame it all ended on the wrong foot, but that was the school's stupid fault. After all, it's a pretty stupid school.

One afternoon, "Love Is Like Oxygen" bounced to the top of the hopper for lost hits. When I say lost, I mean it was lost. I was floored to hear it once on WCLU in 1985, as it had already been lost for years then. But when I was on WRFN, it elicited a funny.

You may remember when Johnny Fever of WKRP In Cincinnati said, "Boooooger!" I did something similar on WRFN. After I played the Sweet record, I said over the air, "'Love Is Like Oxygen', except there's none of it in a fart." The airwaves became a funnier place!

Flatulence does contain some oxygen, but it has more nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane. I'm going by scholarly books and websites, not the AI feature on Google that has a section called "Key points about fart composition." Hydrogen sulfide provides much of the peculiar aroma. One site gives the percentage of each chemical that makes up a fart, but I have no idea how they measured it.

My commentary on Sweet's lost hit isn't what got me hounded out of the station. That happened later.

I miss WRFN. I want to go back there and blast some tunes! Unfortunately, retirement homes are far less likely to have radio stations than colleges are.

"Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk" by Dr. Hook

1982 / #25

Rate Your Music score: 2.9 out of 5!

"The queen of falling diapers..."

Because this is a day ending in y, it's time for another misheard lyric!

This was the last top 40 hit for these guys from New Jersey, and it was all over the airwaves just before I turned 9. I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of one line in the song: "The queen of falling diapers."

Unfortunately, that's not the real lyrics. It might as well be, because the misheard words actually sound real. But the real line is, "The queen of all the night birds."

Oh, the video. It is hilarious. I never saw the video until YouTube came along. When I did finally see it, I burst out laughing! The clip mostly consists of members of Dr. Hook following a woman as she walks down the street and staring at her butt. Bystanders stand around chewing bubble gum (but they don't bubble).

This isn't the only jeans-related surprise ending story from that era. Around the same time as this song, there was a TV commercial for Lee jeans that was even more ridiculous...

What sort of weirdo came up with the idea for that ad? In that commersh, some little kid walks around in a hardware store and brands random people's butts with his fingers. He angers most of them, but the ad still tries to portray him as some sort of macho hero.

What an incredibly idiotic ad. People probably went around grabbing strangers' asses in public because of that commercial.

"Dream Lover" by the Rebel Pebbles

1991 / #42

Rate Your Music score: 2.38 out of 5!

Fond memories of the spring of 1991!

That was when a kid at school showed up drunk. It was also when a student who attended my school for one day goofed off all day.

And it was the spring of the "Coke can trip." I went on a trip to Pittsburgh back then in which a Coke can kept crinkling in the middle of the night. Someone kept farting really loud too. That was also when the motel was hosting a convention of dog lovers, but dogs barking wasn't nearly as loud as the flatulence or the soft drink can.

The lost hit profiled in this entry brings back memories of the "Coke can trip"!

By 1991, however, major pop stations in large cities played very little rock. So I probably didn't hear this record on a Pittsburgh station. It might have been when we had the radio on a Steubenville station.

One of the reasons I'm profiling this lost hit is to note that the Rebel Pebbles might be the highest charting act in the history of Billboard's Hot 100 to not have a Wikipedia entry. But they've had stiff competition from Colourhaus, the Johnny Average Band, Or-N-More, and St. Paul.

I wouldn't expect World Book in 1991 to have an entry on the Rebel Pebbles, because encyclopedias always excluded famous rock acts, even though they included other contemporary entertainers (such as Dan Quayle). But Wikipedia even has an entry on Domino Rally, so it should have an entry on music notables like the Rebel Pebbles.

"Something Real (Inside Me/Inside You)" by Mr. Mister

1987 / #29

Rate Your Music score: 2.95 out of 5!

Almost nobody remembers this song, but they remember the video. But mostly they only recall the first verse, where lead singer Richard Page's disembodied head floats through an alley like it's on a conveyor belt.

I think music videos were past their peak of influence by 1987, so I guess it's surprising that people remember the video at all. Videos shouldn't have been losing influence, but much of this loss was MTV's doing. The channel started to slowly but surely replace its old format of music video clips with shows that had nothing to do with videos or music. I don't even have the faintest idea what MTV airs now.

But let's talk about something that happened when I was in 7th grade - about 18 months before this record was a hit. That was when Mr. Mister was concluding a string of #1 hits.

This story is about an 8th grade girl at school. She was absolutely obsessed with Mr. Mister. She was weird. I know the preceding two sentences are redundant, but anyway, any male student was subject to ribbing by their friends about how they should take her out on a date. Apparently, Mr. Mister was coming to town for a concert. So people joked about taking her to the Mr. Mister show.

There were a few problems with that. For one, nobody in our class was old enough to drive, so how would they get to the concert? For another, how could kids who were only 12 or 13 afford Mr. Mister tickets? My allowance each week was only a dime or something like that, and I often didn't get one at all, because I had to pay for things the school falsely accused me of ruining.

Back then, you had more responsibilities at a younger age, but you also had more privileges. However, they didn't give driver's licenses to 12-year-olds.

I admit that I did destroy something once in high school and had to pay for it. There was some counselor or social worker type at my school who kept deliberately goading me to get angry. I kept my cool as long as I could. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I picked up some toy that had some name like Binary Beads and just snapped it right in two. There was one other time when they kept goading another student all day, and finally, he lost his shit. He did something really horrible like knock a book onto the floor. They wrestled him to the ground, and I never saw him again.

I shouldn't have had to pay for the Binary Beads, because everyone has their breaking point if they're being egged on. Angrily damaging books and toys was sort of like John McEnroe smashing tennis rackets. Breaking inanimate objects wasn't nearly as bad as if we had actually injured people.

But by then, it was the '90s, so most of the time, we were being talked down to like a baby.

"Sign Your Name" by Terence Trent D'Arby

1988 / #4

Rate Your Music score: 3.49 out of 5!

You knew this one was coming, didn't you?

You'd think a record that went all the way to #4 wouldn't be lost, but I can't even remember the last time I heard this song on regular radio, except maybe in an American Top 40 rebroadcast. Also, don't be confused by the YouTube link: Terence legally changed his name to Sananda Maitreya in 2001.

I'm profiling this lost hit because of the treatment it got from my high school sophomore class. We had an assignment in English class that was supposed to involve pop music somehow. Someone used the bridge of this song - specifically, the "shoo-bee-doo" background vocals - for their assignment. I can't remember any details of how the song was supposed to be used for this project. But for months after, people kept singing that bridge in a hilariously exaggerated manner.

It was like how everyone kept replacing words in songs with "baste." I remember "Armageddon It" by Def Leppard becoming "Armabastin' It." "Blame It On The Rain" by Milli Vanilli became "Blame It On The Baste."

That assignment was in the same class where a student kept loudly passing gas and another student told the teacher, "He's back here fartin' up a storm!" And it was the same class where I had a textbook that had been defaced because a guy in a photo looked like Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet.

"Ready For The 80's" by the Village People

1979 / #52

Rate Your Music score: 2.67 out of 5!

Who ever thought the Village People were the right group to sing a song called "Ready For The 80's"? That's like when Air Supply sang, "I can make all the stadiums rock!"

I remember the Village People performing this song on TV on New Year's Eve to ring in 1980. Much as the '70s were the decade of the Bee Gees, the '80s were going to be the decade of the Village People! The nation's youth were probably buying up construction worker and cowboy outfits after seeing that performance.

Actually, not quite. "Ready For The 80's" was the group's last chart appearance. They weren't ready for the '80s! This single actually charted months after Disco Demolition Night. By the time it charted, the Hot 100 was starting to look more like an '80s chart, so they were lucky the record even reached #52.

Although the Village People never charted again, you'd still occasionally see them mentioned. When I was in high school, a teacher gave us an old Village People word search to work on after we finished our busywork. By then, it was the '90s, which the Village People weren't ready for either.

Years later, the cop from the Village People got in trouble for a series of run-ins with the law. He gave police a fake name during one of the incidents, but the police recognized him as the Village People cop.

I don't know of anyone making a song about being ready for the 2020s. If they did, it's already aged poorly.

"C-I-T-Y" by John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band

1985 / #18

Rate Your Music score: 2.55 out of 5!

Remember the city craze of 1985?

With songs like "You Belong To The City" and "We Built This City", cities loomed large. That may have also been the same year I borrowed a book from the public library about the design of buildings in several of America's major cities. Cities were the home of pioneers, since that was before gentrification ruined our cities.

It was also the year of towns. We had "Small Town" and "Life In A Northern Town." Bruce Springsteen gave us "My Hometown." When that song came on the radio in 7th grade home ec, it prompted a response from a particularly troubled student. He declared, "My hometown is Pennsylvania, Kentucky!" Also, he used to fight by biting his adversaries.

And John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band graced us with "C-I-T-Y." This memorable song is now a lost hit.

While John is a real person, it appears as if we can't say the same for ol' Beav. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, the band got the name Beaver Brown from a color of paint. I'm not sure how much we can still trust Wikipedia though, since the CIA makes so many edits that are full of disinformation. If anyone would make up something about John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, it's the CIA.

The band's musical spelling lesson was all the rage in the fall of 1985. I remember one time we were in the car on Interstate 71, and I noticed the people in the car next to us were spelling out "C-I-T-Y" with their hands - just like in the video. So I knew what song was on their car radio.

Apparently, this band is still around, and has been in existence since 1972.

"Fool's Game" by Michael Bolton

1983 / #82

Rate Your Music score: 3.04 out of 5!

Michael Bolton a hard rocker?

I repeat: Michael Bolton a hard rocker?????

This lost hit appeared in 1983, when I really didn't appreciate all the interesting music that was out there. I had a few rough times with some things in life during the preceding time frame. Fourth grade was a disaster (but still somehow less of a disaster than high school). Even outside of school, there were a couple of incidents that still stuck in my craw.

So I hated to lose, and almost anyone who challenged Men At Work's dominance met my wrath. Take the Eurythmics and the Police, for instance. These were generally decent bands. But they incurred the displeasure of the Great Royal Tim when their hit singles prevented Men At Work from charting higher.

I think I liked "Jeopardy" by the Greg Kihn Band. But even Greg wasn't safe from my disappointment, because he was one of many music stars of the era who appeared in annoying radio or TV commercials for soft drinks. I think it was the same for Laura Branigan.

Anyway, back to Michael Bolton. "Fool's Game" only peaked at #82, so it wasn't much of a threat to Men At Work's chart prominence. But Michael elicited my chagrin because stations kept playing this track when they could have been playing Men At Work instead.

It's actually surprising that this lost hit only got to #82. I know competition was fierce in 1983, but maybe the sound was just too familiar. I think "Fool's Game" sounded a little bit like the previously popular "Shadows Of The Night" by Pat Benatar, so maybe that sound wasn't considered new anymore. But, a couple years later, "Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)" by Kim Carnes - which is now a lost hit - actually did pretty well on the chart, and it had that same sound.

A few years after "Fool's Game", Michael reemerged as an MOR crooner. I kept reminding folks that he had that action-packed rocker "Fool's Game" a few years earlier, but somehow that song had been consigned to the memory hole. Everyone thought I was making it up.

Michael Bolton. The man, the myth, the legend!

"High Time" by Styx

1983 / #48

Rate Your Music score: 2.64 out of 5!

Cashbox called this lost hit a "strong defense of freedom of expression." What a novel idea!

These days, there are entire agencies to find things to get offended about. Things weren't as bad in the 1980s, but they weren't perfectly hunky-dory either. Our cable system took forever to get MTV, and Q-102 reportedly refused to play certain songs because "morality" groups threatened to picket the station's advertisers. According to an online post, the records in question included "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and "I Want Your Sex" by George Michael. The picketers were probably just bluffing, as I don't remember anyone picketing Campbell County Chevrolet because WCLU played "Relax." (This station went under just weeks before George's hit was released.)

As for "High Time", I didn't hear it much when it was a current hit, but I know I did hear it some. That's sufficient for it to be profiled here as a lost hit. It's like the kid in school who you didn't see much but you remember because they understood free expression better than school officials did.

What makes this track especially amusing is that ARSA has a WCLU survey sheet that mistakenly (?) calls it "High Times" - as in High Times magazine. There was one time in high school when an anti-drug speaker came, and he held up a copy of High Times. He called it a "druggie magazine." At another one of his presentations, we were all supposed to keep stomping our feet and flailing our arms in unison.

In the lost hit profiled in this entry, singer Dennis DeYoung declared, "I see the kids of a new generation...And they won't stand for this mind control." I guess he never saw my high school. Outside of my school, however, the 1980s were better than today. These days, everyone - even at other schools - just snaps into line.

"Alibis" by Sérgio Mendes

1984 / #29

Rate Your Music score: 3.13 out of 5!

Although this lost hit was credited to Sérgio Mendes, the lead vocal was by Joe Pizzulo. Joe was the guy who attempted the Lyle Alzado look in the above video. This single was at the tail end of the era in which everyone tried to sound like Michael McDonald.

And the beat of this song still comes in handy after 41 years. Every time someone accuses me of something I didn't do, and I have an alibi that proves I didn't do it, I start humming this beat. That usually shuts them up right quick, but some people are allergic to facts, so they continue to keep up with their bullshit.

Probably the most noteworthy example of this was in 1997 when one of the usual suspects on the Internet accused me of hacking his ISP and knocking it offline. The problem with this was that it went offline while I was on a little road trip - specifically, the one that included Mount Mitchell - and this was before wi-fi access was as ubiquitous as it is today. Unless you seriously think I lugged my Power Mac and dialup modem into a motel room, I think we can establish my innocence. I couldn't broadcast myself humming "Alibis" across the Internet back then, but I'm sure I hummed it to myself when the accusation arose.

For years and years, there has also been a strange tendency by some to charge that anyone who agrees with me on any online forum is actually me using a sockpuppet account. That has been debunked so many times it'll make your face spin. Some people just can't accept that their opinions are in the minority. I've often had an alibi on these occasions too, but sometimes the person who I allegedly impersonated appears in plain sight in a video. This proves they're real people, but for some, even that isn't proof enough.

The only times I did use a phony account were the times I wasn't actually accused. I once made an account on a dialup bulletin board with the name of a porn publisher (not one of the big 3), and it was met with just a shrug. Later, I made an Internet account with an obviously fake name. I didn't even try to hide that it was me. Only one person ever made an issue of it, and he was the same guy who accused me of hacking his ISP.

Dum-da-dum-dum-dummm-dum, dum-da-dum-dum-dummm-dum...