Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Remember when all we had to worry about was the Soviets?

I'm going to call this the "Song of the Day" post, even though I'm going to talk about 4 old songs from the 80's...

Sometimes my mind plays associative tricks on me. The recent Hezbollah aggression against Israel made me think of the old Sisters of Mercy Song "Doctor Jeep" which includes these lyrics:

Everybody shouts on I love Lucy

Pee Wee reads the evening news

A pre-owned song or a second-hand Uzi

Everybody got a job to lose

Here come the golden oldies

Here come the Hezbollah

Businessmen from South Miami

Humming the AOR


Meanwhile...


I like Cal and his dog Napalm

I like Ike and his itty-bitty A-bomb

Everybody got one, I want mine

You can order it up on channel nine

Meanwhile, in the Sheraton,

Doctor Jeep plays on and on and on



The 11 missing Egyptian students made me nostalgic for the days when we worried where missing Soviet submarines were, rather than where foreigners of the same demographic responsible for the murder of almost 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001 are wandering around at the moment. Hence a flashback to Thomas Dolby classic "One of Our Submarines":

One of our submarines is missing tonight

Seems she ran aground on maneuvers


And of course, the 1989 fall of the Soviet empire proved Jackson Browne prescient with "Layers in Love" which included this:

Last night I watched the news from Washington, the capitol

The Russians escaped while we weren't watching them, like Russians will

Now we've got all this room, we've even got the moon

And I hear the U.S.S.R. will be open soon

As vacation land for lawyers in love


And apropos of nothing other than the recent anniversary of the old German Unity Day, June 17th, commemorating a valiant 1953 anti-Communist protest in East Germany, is Alphaville song "Summer in Berlin":

This day's an invitation

And it's just for you

You've got a reservation

For the 17th of June

Open your eyes

And let the sun break in for a while

There may be something

That you've never seen inside


(The new reunification day was moved to October 3rd when the country was actually reunified after the fall of European communism.)


Aah, the old days when reading between the lines was the most intriguing part of foreign policy...