"Right Here And Now" by Bill Medley

1982 / #58

Rate Your Music score: 2.62 out of 5!

I didn't set out to do a blog full of adult contemporary ballads, but when a performer strongly resembles your high school principal, you just can't help it.

Bill Medley is best known as a member of the Righteous Brothers and for his chart-topping duet with Jennifer Warnes "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life." I heard "Right Here And Now" on the radio quite a bit back in 1982, but it was 5 years later when Bill and Jennifer's duet was a hit that Bill's resemblance to my principal was first noted.

I started high school right when "The Time Of My Life" came out. What great timing! One day, we were watching TV at home, and that video came on. A family member noted that Bill looked quite a bit like the headmaster of my school. All he needed was a pair of tinted eyeglasses.

Incidentally, my principal was a titanically incompetent clown, and was one of the worst people I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. I was forced to put up with him for almost 3 years.

Because Bill Medley looked like my principal, this blog wouldn't be complete without him. But I damn sure wasn't going to include "The Time Of My Life", because after all, this blog is for lost hits. If you don't understand why "The Time Of My Life" doesn't belong on a lost hits blog, ask an adult.

"It Must Be Love" by Madness

1983 / #33

Rate Your Music score: 3.62 out of 5!

Madness madness was going strong in 1983! You may know this London band for their smash hit "Our House", but they had this chart entry too.

I heard "It Must Be Love" a little bit on the radio, but I only saw the video once on MTV, and missed most of it. I think I was busy letting the dog outside or sweeping potato chip crumbs off the kitchen floor. So I had little memory of what appeared in the video.

Perhaps 25 years later, I heard a rumor that there was a video on MTV around that time that featured Big Bird falling from the sky and landing on a band. If I had seen Big Bird in a music video in late 1983, I surely would have remembered. That was at the height of my stage of writing tasteless Sesame Street fanfic and threatening to start watching Sesame Street again if my cartoons kept getting preempted.

It turned out the video in question was this one. The clip clearly shows Madness vocalist Graham "Suggs" McPherson catching Big Bird as he falls into his arms. It wasn't one of the Big Birds actually used on Sesame Street, but it was clearly intended to be Big Bird.

A YouTube commenter said of the video, "I noticed four dangerous stunts: running in front of a moving car, playing an electric guitar under water, a back flip into a pool, and Big Bird jumping into the man's arms."

This might not be the only mid-'80s lost hit that had a video with a Big Bird connection, so keep your beak peeled!

"High On Emotion" by Chris de Burgh

1984 / #44

Rate Your Music score: 3.06 out of 5!

I've always thought of Chris de Burgh as being one of these guys like Phil Collins who has this everyman image that people think is strangely funny.

The top 40 stations in Cincinnati seemed to be unusually fast on adding anything Chris put out. I remember listening to American Top 40 and being surprised to hear that "Don't Pay The Ferryman" - now a lost hit itself - was only in the 30s and still climbing the chart. Judging by radio play back then, I would have thought it was a chart-topping smash that had run its course by then.

"High On Emotion" made it to our biggest top 40 station pretty quickly even though this same station was slow at adding most other new music. The video got a lot of play too, and it was noted that members of Chris's band bore strong resemblances to other famous people - David Bowie and Paul McCartney among them.

And Chris looked like Dr. Shrinker, the title character of one of the 1970s Saturday morning shows created by Sid and Marty Krofft.

This isn't the only such link between popular music and a Krofft show, as Carly Rae Jepsen has been said to strongly resemble Dyna Girl.

And how come you never see people wearing those shirts that say "Bah!" anymore?

"Why Me?" by Planet P Project

1983 / #64

Rate Your Music score: 3.51 out of 5!

This is a song that everyone insists does not exist - even after having the evidence shoved right in their face.

Planet P Project was like a one-man band. It was actually a pseudonym of Tony Carey - who has had several lost hits under his real name. It appears as if some other musicians did work with Tony, but Wikipedia suggests the name Planet P Project refers to Tony himself.

Radio stations in Cincinnati aren't exactly known for making the best choices as to what music to play, but this is one they got right. This record only got to #64, but both top 40 stations in Cincinnati at the time regularly played it, and it was apparently big on our album rock stations too. This was a better choice than some of the others that have been made, despite the record's low chart peak.

But when it was gone, it was gone.

I mentioned this song sometime later, and everyone insisted I made it up. It was like they couldn't remember anything that happened more than a few months earlier. For years, I would mention this song, and they would still deny it ever existed.

Finally, maybe around 1992, I found a 45 of it. I played it for them, and they still insisted it wasn't real!

What did they think it was? Did they think I just put one of our record-shaped beverage coasters on the turntable and played instruments and sang along with it?

It's real! Cope!

At least the cast of Sesame Street knew Mr. Snuffleupagus was real when they finally saw him. But in this crazy world we call real life, sometimes solid proof isn't enough.

I didn't post the video above. That's from someone who had a much bigger 45 collection than I have. The single version posted above is the mix that everyone was familiar with - before they began denying it existed. The song had a video too, but it used a vastly different mix...

Although the single version was better known in 1983, I need to handle my 45 with care, because that mix is so rare today. The rarity of that version is also one of the reasons I keep records instead of relying on YouTube.

Just a few years ago, everyone insisted Toby Beau wasn't real, and that I made them up. But we can count on YouTube to embarrass musical naysayers!

"Get Used To It" by Roger Voudouris

1979 / #21

Rate Your Music score: 3.14 out of 5!

If you hadn't seen the year listed above, what year would you guess this lost hit was from? 1987?

This record sounds quaint today, but it was considered way ahead of its time in 1979. It was popular during the summer I turned 6, and back then, I thought the beginning of this song was like nothing I'd ever heard before.

The only context I ever remember hearing this song though was through an external speaker we set up on the back porch. We had a Magnavox console stereo with an AM/FM receiver from circa 1972 in the living room. For years, I think it was the only radio we had with FM, except for a transistor radio that later got broken when the dog knocked it off the kitchen table. Somehow, we ran a wire from the stereo all the way to the back porch.

I don't even remember where the wire went. We might have run it up through the living room closet and through an "attic" that supposedly existed, but which I never saw.

This was also in the days when radio DJ's used to tell listeners, "Don't touch that radio!" How was a DJ supposed to know if I touched the radio? I once tested this admonition by fiddling with the bass, treble, and balance knobs on the stereo. The DJ didn't come to my house and beat me up.

In the 1980s, we moved the external speaker into the den - yet hardly ever used it anymore. The only time I remember the speaker being on in the den was one day when I got into a famous sibling squabble. My mom tried to make us behave by putting the stereo on some weird station and blasting it in the den. It's like how stores blare the same music nonstop to chase away loiterers (while not caring what nearby residents think), or when Sesame Street songs were played for days at a time to torture Guantanamo Bay inmates.

Playing the same music over and over as a torture technique is actually what radio stations today do. In contrast to this, this lost hits blog commemorates music we never get to hear anymore.

"Forever In Blue Jeans" by Neil Diamond

1979 / #20

Rate Your Music score: 2.97 out of 5!

"Money talks...But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk..."

Time to grow those sideburns!

For a song you never hear anymore, this lost hit sure is memorable. The opening lines have been repeated fondly many times over the past 46 years. It's not because of the image these lyrics bring to mind when taken literally, but because these words have a very important meaning.

And what is this song's meaning? I once read an article that said it was about how you don't need fame, money, and glitz to get satisfaction in life. The piece said it was a message against wastefulness, greed, and flaunting wealth. It sounds like a good anthem against capitalist excess. You don't need gold-plated tennis balls or marble toilets. You can be happy just living in harmony with your surroundings.

Sure, our rulers have made it harder to do - even as everyone gets poorer and poorer - but it brings the satisfaction that we have a right to expect from life.

People who have seen Neil Diamond in concert say this song brings the best audience reaction out of all of his many tunes.

Of course, no song has a constitutional right to be free from parody. Apparently, a local radio station made a parody of this record titled "Forever In Beer Cans." I don't remember if it was anything like "Pee-Pee Song." When I was about 8, I compiled a personal ranking of favorite songs I heard on the radio, and one of them was "Pee-Pee Song." I didn't find the list again until years later. I think "Pee-Pee Song" was a parody of "No No Song." If I remember correctly, this parody went, "No no no no, I don't pee-pee no more...I'm tired of it landing on the floor."

We'd do OK forever in beer cans.

"Money Changes Everything" by Cyndi Lauper

1984 / #27

Rate Your Music score: 3.57 out of 5!

"It's all in the past now...Money changes everything..."

One of the most misused statements in the entire English language is, "It's all in the past now."

If you rightly complain about some mistreatment you got only a day ago, someone will inevitably shrug it off, saying, "It's all in the past now." It's this dismissive attitude that ensures a complete lack of accountability for atrocities of all sorts. These days, those who maliciously do wrong not only evade punishment but are actually elevated to even more powerful positions.

Meanwhile, my adversaries went on and on about the same shit for 35 years. Considering their record, I don't think they're done yet. They've just been distracted by new powers they've been given over the past few years. This feud of theirs lasted longer than the Hatfields and McCoys. Get over it! (Relax, we'll get to that one.)

The lost hits profiled on this blog seem to be all in the past now, but most actually do turn up in some venue once in a great while - just not in regular rotation on traditional radio. Yet it's not quite like it was 30 years ago when you couldn't hear lost hits anymore unless by some chance you had the record. I'm pretty sure "Money Changes Everything" turned up on Sirius XM's '80s channel a few years ago, and that I have a video from a road trip in which it happened to be playing in the background in the car. But this record never appears anymore on regular radio that you don't have to pay for. Money changes everything!

"When The Lights Go Out" by Naked Eyes

1983 / #37

Rate Your Music score: 3.66 out of 5!

Shh! Naked!

This lost hit was a memorable one, but I'm giving it an entry for one reason and one reason only. It's because the singer in this band tried to sound like Paul McCartney!

In fact, the first time I heard this song, I actually thought it was Paul. I was 10, and I had just gotten a new bedroom, which was tiny. I had the clock radio on - back when clock radios were actually easy to use. This song came on.

And I thought it was Paul McCartney!

That was back in the days when Paul kept doing ridiculous duets with Michael Jackson. After all, lots of performers had goofy duets back then. But I was surprised there'd be a new Paul McCartney single coming out so soon after "Say Say Say." I was even more surprised to discover it wasn't Paul, but Naked Eyes.

Naked Eyes were best known for their version of "Always Something There To Remind Me", a well-known song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. I recalled that a few months earlier, Marilyn McCoo performed that song on Solid Gold. I burst out laughing because of the spacey keyboard in the chorus. Fast-forward to 19:30...

Also, around 1983-84, there was a lot of fine music I didn't appreciate then. Much of this was because of some personal experiences I had during the preceding couple years that just stuck in my craw. I also fretted that Men At Work were being unfairly prevented from charting higher. But, along with 1978-79, that era actually had some of the best music ever.

I started appreciating music more in 1984, thinking much of it was strangely funny or some sort of spectacle. For a long time, I couldn't figure out why, but someone told me it must have been because there were so many goofy videos on MTV then. Much of popular culture was built around music videos, and it emerged in weird ways.

It just goes to show the influence of mass media!