MY FAVORITE SONGS OF 1981

The year was 1981. After graduating from high school, I had officially become an adult. I was a man-child of eighteen, excited yet apprehensive about of my future. Living in the suburbs and about to attend an art college in the big city of Detroit, I had always wanted to become a great commercial artist. Later in my third year of school, a teacher told me to seriously reconsider my dream of being an artist. Lacking the required self-confidence and being very practical, I eventually decided to drop out of school. This setback forced me to rethink my life plans and hastened my goal to move out of Michigan.

Throughout the disappointments that are inevitable in life, music has always helped me get through and comforted me while I was feeling insecure. The quirky and high-energy sounds of new wave was emerging during this time which I gravitated towards yet this music was not being played on my local radio station. I heard many of these songs on MTV and on a Canadian version called MuchMusic. Here are a few of my favorite songs of this year which covers a wide variety of music of the day:

NUMBER ONE FLASHBACK

The number one song in America during this week in 1976 was "Tonight's The Night (Gonna Be Alright)" by Rod Stewart. This tune from the raspy-voiced, English rocker spent a total of eight weeks at the top of the pop chart and ended up being the year-end number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

A high school drop-out, Stewart had wanted to be a footballer but fell in to music at first as a means to get free drinks and meet girls. He learned to play the harmonica and played with several rock bands touring around Europe. Then he discovered Sam Cooke and soul music and eagerly moved in that direction. He formed an r&b group called the Dimensions in 1963 and performed as a harmonica player and vocalist. He soon left, joining a few other soul bands before venturing out on his own without much success. Then he met Jeff Beck who invited him to join his new band, as a singer and songwriter, after leaving the Yardbirds.

A successful tour in America brought the Jeff Beck Group critical acclaim and attention to Stewart. Stewart was still trying to jump start his solo career but nothing would click. He met guitarist Ronnie Wood and they became fast friends which eventually lead to them forming the blues-rock outfit, Faces. During this time, Stewart's solo career finally took off when he had his first hit single, "Maggie May" in 1971.

Stewart wrote "Tonight" with the song basically about a man deciding it's time for him and his young lover to finally make love for the first time. Swedish actress, Britt Ekland, Stewart's then-girlfriend, provided the French cooing you hear near the end of the track.

Not surprisingly, some radio stations balked due to the suggestive nature of the song and would only play an edited version. That certainly didn't stop it's success with "Tonight's The Night" becoming Stewart's second number one in the U.S. and reaching the top-ten in several countries.

"Tonight's The Night" - Rod Stewart (1976) mp3