Welcome to the last “Bottom of the Top” post. It was a fun run, but nostalgia mining can quickly become pathological, and I felt it was best to stop before that point was reached.

Here in the middle of December in each of these years I would have been anticipating or dreading the upcoming holidays, sometimes both in equal measure.

1977: Dan Hill, “Sometimes When We Touch”

Approaching Christmas at the end of the second marking period of third grade in Parma. Living in an apartment and probably anticipating spending some of the holidays with Dad, playing with the electric train set which would keep our attention for another couple of years, and looking forward to a new Micronaut or two. This song would have hit me right in the feels even back then, at eight years old. And possibly singing along with it when in a car going to a family event, which were usually fun as I was too young at the time to notice all of the toxicity.

1982: Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, “Shame on the Moon”

I do not believe I have heard this one before. It’s much more, er, quiet, than most of Seger’s more well-known songs, but good for all that.

1987: Men Without Hats, “Pop Goes the World”

I may have heard this one before. It’s fun and the video is most excellent, and is quite a different sound than “Safety Dance”, which is refreshing.

1992: Jon Secada, “Just Another Day”

I must have heard this song at least once a week throughout 1992 and 1993. Or maybe songs which sounded a lot like it. In any event this was what most of the second half of my college experience sounded like.

1997: Shawn Colvin, “Sunny Came Home”

Yeah, I heard this one a lot while I was working at the bookstore. Both in-store, and on the radio driving to and from work, practice, visiting the family, etc. It’s really good and wow, can Colvin sing!

The second-to-last of these posts. Nostalgia mining quickly becomes tedious, and though I have heard a great many song for the first time, and rediscovered many more that I haven’t heard in decades, it’s time to put this project to bed.

1977: Odyssey, “Native New Yorker”

This is some groovy disco. I don’t know if I have ever heard it before, but it does scratch that 1970s itch nicely.

1982: Fleetwood Mac, “Love In Store”

This song appearing in this post right now is another one of those unfortunate coincidences. Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac died six days ago, on November 30.

1987: Bruce Springsteen, “Brilliant Disguise”

This is a repeat from earlier in the year, so please enjoy this live version from 2005.

1992: TLC, “Baby-Baby-Baby”

This is a repeat from last week, so please enjoy the full album version.

1997: H-Town, “They Like It Slow”

This is a repeat from earlier in the year, so please enjoy this live version from Soul Train.

Hellooooo December! In the interregnum between the last two major holidays of the year, there is nothing to do but try to stay afloat and make it to the new year with sanity intact.

1977: Stevie Wonder, “As”

This is a repeat from last week, so please enjoy this live studio version of “As.”

1982: Kool and the Gang, “Let’s Go Dancin'”

1987: New Order, “True Faith”

1992: TLC, “Baby-Baby-Baby”

1997: Imani Coppola, “Legend of a Cowgirl”

Thanksgiving week. SO many other things to think/worry/stress about. Music helps. Not always, and not necessarily a lot, but it helps.

1977: Stevie Wonder, “As”

I wasn’t sure I had heard this song before, until the chorus of “Until the rainbow burns the stars out of the sky” and I had a sudden memory of…something. Me being quite young, certainly. This song was originally released in 1976, so I would have been seven years old, eight at the latest if I heard it when it when it was still new. A vague hint of Sesame Street or The Electric Company or some similar TV show, possibly a special or the Tonight Show if I had the opportunity to stay up late, which happened once in a while.

1982: Phil Collins, “You Can’t Hurry Love”

In my memory this song blends directly into the original by The Supremes, but given the realities of 1980s music I definitely heard this one a lot more than the original. It’s a fun little video.

1987: Laura Branigan, “Power of Love”

Back in the 1980s I had a HUGE crush on Laura Branigan, mostly due to  her huge hit “Self Control.” She had an amazing voice and she left us far too soon.

1992: Exposé, “I Wish The Phone Would Ring”

Exposé is one of those bands where I recognize their sound much more than any of their specific songs. They were all over the place back in the early 1990s, the heyday of my MTV-watching life.

1997: She Moves, “Breaking All the Rules”

I…have never heard this song before. It isn’t bad, but not particularly memorable. Good voices, though.

The middle of November feels like the briefly-held breath before something exciting or unpleasant but not unexpected. Such are the holidays.

1977: Shaun Cassidy, “Hey Deanie”

All I remember of Shaun Cassidy from the 1970s is “The Doo Ron Ron” and The Hardy Boys. “Hey Deanie” is fun but not terribly memorable.

1982: Jeffrey Osborne, “On the Wings of Love”

I heard “On the Wings of Love” when it first came out, though seldom since then, as I didn’t recognize the song until the chorus. Then it all came back. I heard it on the school bus, in the milking parlor, and probably while in houses where people actually listened to music. It has had a well-deserved long life, and still gets play on classic rock stations.

1987: Levert, “Casanova”

Oh, that ever-present drum machine beat. They only place I would have encountered this video would have been MTV, and that probably late at night, considering the realities of MTV racial politics in the 1980s. “Casanova” is a hip song, and I am glad to have encountered it again, 35 years later.

1992: Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”

This song was so ubiquitous that I don’t remember a time when I had not heard this song. “I Will Always Love You” is so much a part of the pop landscape that it is inextricable, and therefore not associated with any specific memory, because it is associated with every memory.

1997: Timbaland & Magoo, “Up Jumps Da Boogie”

Heard this one for the first time when I put this post together. I like it.

The second week of November is a fugue of the end of fall and the beginning of winter, and all we really want to do is sleep.

1977: The Bay City Rollers, “The Way I Feel Tonight”

I don’t think I have heard “The Way I Feel Tonight” before today; at least, I have no memory or associated memories. It’s…okay.

1982: Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle, “You and I”

This is another of the many songs in this project where I have no specific memory of “You and I,” but it sounds kind of like so many other songs of its type and era that I may have, and the song has since become lost in the crowd. It is certainly not something I, as a disaffected 13-year-old, would have sought out.

1987: John Cougar Mellencamp, “Cherry Bomb”

Oh yeah, I have heard “Cherry Bomb” a lot. It was odd to hear nostalgic songs like this one while starting a new life, because despite my overall unhappiness living on the farm and attending school in that toxic little village, there were parts I couldn’t let go of, and songs like this one probably didn’t help. Of course the song, like all songs, is of its time, and the video of kids having fun before they (I gather, from the imagery in the video) head off to war, is a nice touch, as is the interracial couple slow-dancing, which was definitely controversial back in the 1980s.

1992: Guns ‘N’ Roses, “November Rain”

This is a repeat from earlier in the year, so please enjoy this live video from 1992, featuring Elton John.

1997: Mack 10, “Backyard Boogie”

Another repeat from earlier in the year.

The end of September and the beginning of October bring an odd combination of the routine of being in the middle of a semester and a sense of rapid change, as the light hours are noticeably shorter every day, the shadows just a little longer when leaving and returning to the house.

1977: Judy Collins, “Send In the Clowns”

I don’t know if I heard this song when it was released or at any time thereafter. What I DO remember is playing this song in marching band, though I don’t remember if it was in high school or college. Some of those details, thirty years in the past, are somewhat blurry. Then again I could have played it when I was in the Albion Community Band, the first couple of summers out of high school. All I know is that I could probably, over three decades on, still pick out the trombone part.

1982: Rick Springfield, “I Get Excited”

I don’t have any particular memory of “I Get Excited,” probably because the guitar sounds so much like the guitar for “Jessie’s Girl” and the one is completely drowning out the other in my memory. Of the two, “Jessie’s Girl” is better.

1987: Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven is a Place On Earth”

Yeah, I heard Belinda Carlisle a lot back in my first year of college. Heavy rotation on MTV and the local pop music stations, though likely not so much from stereos and boom boxes, as the people I hung out with weren’t into pop quite this, well, pop-ey. So if this song being back any memories, those memories are of the smell of the lounge room of third-floor Copeland (men’s side) at GVSC.

1992: k.d. lang, “Constant Craving”

I heard this song a lot in the early nineties, both in the odd hours on MTV and in my car listening to WYCE, the alternative music station here in Grand Rapids. I certainly didn’t hear it while working at the restaurant, though I probably also heard it a lot when I started working at the bookstore the year after “Constant Craving” was released. When listening to it again I feel emotional echoes of the uncertainty of being done with college without any definite or defined plans for what my life would look like, going forward.

1997: Monica, “For You I Will”

I like “For You I Will,” but I have no specific memory of having heard it before putting this post together. It does have that particular mid-1990s vibe which means it sounds similar to numerous other songs in its loosely-defined genre, so it may have simply gotten lost in my memory of a quarter-century past. Also, I never saw Space Jam.

Happy Independence Day, to those of you to whom such applies, even if only ironically (I’m lookin’ at you, US of A).

1977: James Taylor, “Handy Man”

Ah, James Taylor. This is the James Taylor song, probably the most ubiquitous of his oeuvre, at least in the mid- to late- 1970s. I certainly heard it when it first came out, though likely didn’t pay much attention, as I really don’t think eight-year-olds are his primary audience.

1982: J. Geils Band, “Angel in Blue”

A repeat from last week, proving that inertia can affect the Top 40 list, no matter where a song appears on the chart. Interesting experiment idea: graph all of the top-40 songs by week, from the beginning to present, and see which songs lingered in which position the longest.

1987: Billy Idol, “Sweet Sixteen”

I have heard Sweet Sixteen before, though I don’t remember when and where. Maybe on MTV, though that seems unlikely. Despite the potential creep factor hinted at by the title, this is not adult Idol lusting after a teenager, but a song inspired by Edward Leedskalnin, who created the Coral Castle in Florida, channeling Leedskalnin’s nostalgia about a lost love from his youth. It’s a beautiful song but apparently never received much air play.

1992: Ugly Kid Joe, “Everything About You”

I listened to this song a lot while working as a prep cook and expediter at the restaurant during and after college. I imagine everyone at that place felt this way about everyone else at that place at one time or another.

1997: Blessid Union of Souls, “I Wanna Be There”

I have no memory of this, though late 1990s power ballads all tended to converge around a specific sound, and my memory of “I Wanna Be There” could be jumbled up with memories of a score of other songs.