Major change to previous post, John Cougar Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane
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Well, I was wrong. I totally forgot about one major song that should be in the top 5 of 80’s pop songs. John Cougar Mellencamp’s Jack And Diane. How could I forget that one? I am putting it at number 4, replacing Let’s Go by the Cars. Reason being that doing a little more research, Let’s Go was released in 1979, therefore disqualifying it from the 80’s. Jack and Diane is listed in the pop genre, the rest of Mellencamp’s songs will be listed in best of the 80’s rock genre list that will be a future post.
I remember the first time I heard Jack and Diane. I was at football camp in Front Royal Virginia. I was a freshman at James Madison High School located in Vienna Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, D.C. Football was a very big thing in that area of the country at the time. Our school football team would go away every year for one week to Randolph Macon Academy located in Front Royal. That is where we decided who were the men, and who were the boys. After three a day practices, the coaches would let us roam the town until 11:00 pm. My best friend Ron Lipscomb and I roomed together. What great adventures we had. We had run-ins with the “townies”, played poker, and some other interesting things that I shall not mention at this time. Well, anyway, one evening after dinner, when we were getting ready to go into town to cause some sort of trouble, Jack and Diane came blaring through the little speakers of our clock radio. The song absolutely grabbed you, and the lines,
“Little ditty about Jack and Diane
two American kids growin’ up in the heartland
Jacky’s gonna be a football star…”
Of course made it a huge hit for us. We must have heard that song a million times during that week, and it never got old. It also was a song to me letting me realize that I am in high school now, trying to grow up, looking for my freedom, etc.
So, this song lands in the top 5!
Write me a comment and let me know what you were doing when you first heard your favorite 80’s song. (Keep it clean)
i definitely agree with the author, Steve Henry.! when i hear that song, i don’t think of “Jake” nor of “Diane”…. i think of Steve Henry.! ron
Hey, see if you remember this being yelled down the hall in the middle of the night……….”Saucalito”
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……..too funny.!