This song just might be too dangerous to play. I’m talking an eighties one hit wonder with not one, but TWO modes of audience participation (clapping AND response singing during chorus), a title almost everyone screws up, and peculiar lyrics including the gem “labadab dab dab life”. Add in the fact I owned this on a 45 and the melty, gas station convenience store cheese factor hits supernova levels.
Ah the 45 rpm record. Do they even make them anymore? I know vinyl is making a comeback with the audiophile (I have too much money) crowd, but I can’t imagine there being much market for 45s anymore. For you youngsters, 45s were the prehistoric equivalent of an MP3. A record containing one song on side A and one song on side B (usually), these 7” records were the way to buy a single hit song without having to by an entire album. Of course, in the fifties when rock and roll was in its infancy, this was practically the only way to buy music. Depending on your age, either your grandparents or your parents would have owned them almost exclusively.
My first exposure to the 45 came courtesy of a two hand-me-downs from my mother’s youth, “Sweet Pea” by Tommy Roe and “Runaway” by Del Shannon. My sister and I played them endlessly on our toy record player. By the time I was a kid of record buying age in the eighties they still existed but were quickly becoming an obsolete novelty. I did manage to buy two, though, before the cassette tape took over the music industry. One of those 45s is a testament to the lack of shame I had when purchasing music. If my first LP being Colour By Numbers wasn’t embarrassing enough, I purchased with my own, hard earned money, a 45 of “Spies Like Us” by Paul McCartney (at least I wasn’t in that video).
The other is a far less excruciating admission. It’s still got mondo eighties cheese factor, but it’s also a great song. Put your hands together and kick off your weekend with “Live is Life”, the title track from the 1984 album by Opus. Possibly the greatest one hit wonder of all time.
Official Video Version:
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