"Driven Out" by the Fixx

1989 / #55

Rate Your Music score: 3.51 out of 5!

This is the first of a series of entries I call the Salmonella Three.

Each of these 3 records charted in early 1989 and peaked in the 50s on the Hot 100. All 3 are by acts from England. I call these entries the Salmonella Three because they were on the airwaves when I had salmonella when I was a high school sophomore. This bout with salmonella ruined entirely my George Washington Weekend. I think I also missed about 5 days of school, which was about 185 fewer than I wish I had missed that year.

These days, they close down schools for 2 years over a handful of COVID cases, but in 1989, these same officials took the opposite approach for other illnesses. That extreme is bad too. Thanks to their doublethink, they have absolutely no credibility whatsoever. But county officials made a rare foray into science when they correctly attributed this salmonella outbreak to contaminated drinking water. Usually, they just blame the "drought" when our water tastes weird - even if it's been raining nonstop. But putting the blame where it belongs can't bring back my George Washington Weekend.

"Driven Out" was a hit at the time. For a long time, I've confused it with another lost hit: "Cuts You Up" by Peter Murphy, which coincidentally also peaked at #55. But the words to "Driven Out" seem to be about alienation, a phenomenon that has only heightened in the decades since. If only we could have our free spaces of the 2010s back, but those have been driven out by the bottomless fascism of the 2020s. Thanks a million, media.

Not everyone appreciated the apparent message of "Driven Out." Some folks were defined by their immaturity, and they used the song as a basis for an X-rated joke. They recycled this joke from one inspired by a radio commercial for a new McDonald's location.

Another thing I remember about having salmonella was that there was one evening when someone kept ripping silent-but-deadly bunker blasts and stinking up the living room while I was laying down. It was lovely.

I'm surprised people weren't driven out of the living room!