133. They Might Be Giants, “Ana Ng” According to John Linnell, “Ana Ng” has its foundation in his childhood memories. “There’s a cartoon I read as a kid in which a character shoots a gun through a globe to find out where the other side of the world is. So that was sort of the beginning,” he told MTV at the time. The comic in question was an installment of Walt Kelly’s great Pogo, and Churchy LaFemme was the pistol-wielding geographer. Further inspiration came from Linnell letting his fingers do the walking through a New York City phone book, noting there … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 133 – 131

139. Genesis, “Abacab” “It was just time to be a bit braver,” Mike Rutherford explained about the creative process that eventually resulted in Abacab, the eleventh studio about from Genesis, released in 1981. Driven largely by the deliberately overblown theatricality favored by Peter Gabriel, the band’s founding lead singer, Genesis were prog rock cult heroes in the nineteen-seventies. As the band pared down through the years, eventually settling on bassist/guitarist Rutherford, keyboardist Tony Banks, and singer/drummer Phil Collins. Established as that trio, the group started finding a way to pare down their sound with the hope for more radio-friendly singles as … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 139 – 137

142. Bangles, “Walk Like an Egyptian” “Walk Like an Egyptian” was written by Liam Sternberg after he saw people awkwardly trying to keep their balance as they crossed the deck of a fairy, putting him in mind of the stiff figures in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Sternberg shopped a demo featuring Marti Jones on lead vocals. Toni Basil turned the song down, and Lene Lovich recorded it, though her version never saw release because she decided to take a sabbatical from the music business for most of the nineteen-eighties. So the demo track kept kicking around, eventually landing on cassette sent to producer David Kahne … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 142 – 140

145. Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing” Dire Straits’ biggest hit came about because Mark Knopfler eavesdropped in a New York City appliance store. According to the singer, guitarist, and chief songwriter for the band, he was browsing toward the back of the building, where an imposing row of televisions were all set to MTV, back when the cable network was still a sensation and took seriously the programming focus implied by the first letter of its name. An employee of the shop watched whatever music video was playing and offered a real-time, highly derogatory, and fairly offensive editorial reply. Knopfler reported grabbing a pen … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 145 – 143

151. The Dead Milkmen, “Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything)” The adamant disdain suggested by the parenthetical annexation to the Dead Milkmen single “Instant Club Hit” wasn’t a mistake. It was a clear expression of lead vocalist Rodney Anonymous’s intent in writing the song. “For a couple months, I hung out at this club in Philly,” Anonymous reported. “I have, like, no sense of rhythm, so I can’t dance. So I wouldn’t dance at this club. I’d just sit there at the bar and drink and growl, basically. To people like me who aren’t hair farmers, it’s just a horrible … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 151 – 149

154. Stray Cats, “Rock This Town” To get noticed, and appreciated, for their quintessentially American sound, Stray Cats needed to got to the U.K. Lead singer and guitarist Brian Setzer explained that the journey across the Atlantic was spurred specifically by a lack of stateside interest in their rockabilly sound. “We were getting fed up because the record companies didn’t want to know about it,” Setzer said. “We had heard that in places like France and England rock and roll never died. We just decided to go over there for the hell of it. We sold everything we owned. Jim … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, #154 – #152

157. XTC, “Earn Enough for Us” Andy Partridge and his cohorts within XTC weren’t exactly renowned for being accommodating with the producers foisted upon them by their label (not were they especially accommodating with their label either), but their combativeness with Todd Rundgren during the recording of the 1986 album Skylarking was especially notorious. They’d chosen Rundgren from a list of names given to them by Virgin Records, delivered with the warning that the band needed to start selling records in the United States. According to all involved, Partridge and Rundgren were viciously at one another from the jump, with the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 157 – 155

160. Patti Smith, “People Have the Power” When “People Have the Power” arrived, nearly a decade had passed without any new music from Patti Smith. She’d been effectively living in semi-retirement while starting a family with the man she married in 1980, Fred “Sonic” Smith, a punk icon in his own right thanks to his tenure in the foundational band the MC5. According to Patti, it was Fred who started her on the road to the song when he marched into the kitchen and said, “People have the power. Write it.” Armed with only that title, Patti embarked on a … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 160 – 158