The Excitement of a Song You May Only Hear Once
Dig if you will a 1988 bedroom: Ratt’s Out Of The Cellar album cover is taped to the closet door, a guinea pig rambles the shag red carpet, a phone cord snakes beneath closed door, a skinny teen hunches over a boombox that’s been customized with purple and silver fingernail polish, alternating along the buttons, two of which she’ll hold down simultaneously when the radio plays her song…
In 1988, popular music was controlled by FM radio and MTV. The only way to hear a song we loved multiple times was to buy the album or cassette tape from price-fixers like Musicland, Mainstream Records, or Sam Goody. Too square in the suburbs, we knew not of Radio Doctors or Atomic Records and couldn’t have afforded their good taste, anyway. No, the only way to hear a song to our satisfaction was to record the goddamn thing as it played live on the radio. Hence the hunching, with fingers hovering over the play and record buttons.
Brief Background Info: My Sister
Musically speaking (and otherwise), my sister Lara was my hero. Four insurmountable years older than me, she loaned me her Iron Maiden tee and studded bracelet in 1984, which I wore to school. (I changed on the walk to College Park Elementary, lest you think my Mom would’ve okay’d such apparel.) Later, she dealt me the two most important cassettes of my life, both on family road trips. As we wove westward to Yellowstone in 1984, she passed me Led Zeppelin IV. Imagine hearing the “Battle Of Evermore” at age 10, quickening sundown fields passing my window, the sky darkening to “Four Sticks,” cruise-controlling to “Misty Mountain Hop”…forever grateful.
Destined for Destin, Florida spring break of 1988, backseat of our Buick LeSabre: I’m racing through all seven volumes of The Chronicles Of Narnia as Lara slips me the next key to my life of rocking out. How dumb I was (and still am) to have fallen for the first lines I heard: “Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty…” Wait! I’m going to Paradise City! The grass will be green and the girls will be pretty! I’d be forever in bandana, with an Appetite For Destruction, thanks to my cool sister.
What’s on the Mixtape That We Haven’t Heard Since 1988?
**DISCLAIMER**
As we explore this mixtape from 1988, keep in mind that this tape will feature songs recorded live off Milwaukee radio in 1988, therefore the selection of songs will be limited to A.) whatever the station my sister was listening to at that moment played, and B.) whatever song she deemed worthy of recording at that rather specific moment 37 years ago. Again, lest we judge her taste, recall two things: 1.) in 1988 popular music on the radio (mostly) sucked, and 2.) my sister only had so much time to make a mixtape as she was busy running track, riding horses, painting, being on the edge of 17, etc.
We get together in June 2025, for Father’s Day. While my wife, our son, and my parents listen to some of their old favorites, my sister and I sneak into my “special room,” as my daughter mockingly calls the area where I write and listen to loud music. Here we press play on the mixtape we hadn’t heard since the late 1980s—”Good Songs on Lazer + QFM”— and are immediately sent back to the excitement we had when you had no idea what song was coming next. (I insist we press play where the tape was found, too afraid to cause damage by fast-forwarding or rewinding.)
“Shakin'” by Eddie Money – 1982
Welp. We’re underwhelmed with song one. The video has far too much actual shaking in it for my taste. The song, however, is stuck in my head to this day…snappin’ her fing-oos! Help.
“Gimme Some Water” by Eddie Money – 1979
Apparently Mr. Money slapped his horse in the ass with his last dying gasp. This song, while undeniably hooky and with perfectly cromulent electric guitar work, fails to move us in any profound way. We do, however, start to wonder: did we love Eddie Money in 1988? I recall making the first of a thousand best mixtapes ever, circa 1991, and my leadoff song was “Baby Hold On To Me” by Mr. Money himself. These were different times, apparently. Sadly, or perhaps appropriately, I can no longer stand most of Eddie Money’s songs.
“Make Me Lose Control” by Eric Carmen – 1988
My sister and I agree that this song has something. As kids, we had no idea Carmen was The Raspberries guy, who had implored a woman to please “Go All The Way” (that you could play on the radio?); in fact, I thought he was Eddie Money’s brother. They both looked like an uncle who won some middle-aged talent contest and the prize was an all-day hairdresser and music video. Anyway, the song is pure Phil Spector’s Ronettes (he even calls out “Be My Baby”) and Carmen does yeoman’s work on vocals. Bonus points for Roy Orbison style timpani and drama. The production is the most 1988 thing of all time, slick breakdown for stadium sing-along chorus, harmonized robotic barber shop effects, tasteless synths…but damn if it doesn’t take me back to 1988, running free to Jaycee Park for three-man baseball, getting emotional about soft serve ice cream, and never caring about whatever might ever happen to me if I get old. “Turn the radio up, for that sweet sound.” We did and still do. Only now, it’s almost exclusively WMSE 91.7 FM.
“Roxanne” by The Police – 1978
Eddie Murphy. That’s all that came to mind here. Perhaps this song was cool once, but Lara and I agree that the time had passed. Understand, you had to buy the goddamn $12 LP or tape if you wanted to hear Sting pretend he had relationships with sex workers. Coolest part: at the end of the song we hear the DJ say “Lazer 103!” just before he’s cut off by the ruthless 17-year old version of my sister. So put away your makeup…
“Oh Well” by Fleetwood Mac – 1969
This song stumps us for a moment, as it’s a live recording, all bluesy and testosterone-y. I know deep in my mind that I’ll conjure the artist. Lara and I spar over whether or not it’s Ted Nugent or some other hairy-chested ’70s monster. I finally recall that it’s Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, pre Buckingham and Nicks. And if you think this story’s a bit indulgent or my style too showy, let me point you to the best lyric of “Oh Well”: “Don’t ask me what I think of you / I might not give the answer that you want me to…”
“The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac – 1977
Neither of us really dig Rumours (Tusk rules), so we talk over this song, wishing it were “Silver Springs”—the version the Mac performed live in 1997. Stevie singing at Lindsey, trading harmonies caked in coke and regret. “The Chain” has an undeniably awesome lid-closing downbeat that creates the vacuum seal silence that, to me, is the best part. As the song winds down, I demonstrate for my Dad the one-nostril approach to running in the shadows. He suggests I do this the next time I DJ on WMSE. I might. Wait, how will they see me snort? Baby, they don’t want to know. Anyhow, the sibling’s verdict: “Silver Springs” > “The Chain.”
END SIDE 1
Side 2 “Oldies” Interlude
For this side of the cassette, my sister and I join my Mom and Dad in the main room, as we suspect Side 2 was curated by our Dad. My son and my partner are with us as we press play. Oldies of my Dad’s 1988 choice ensue, launched by the deliriously strange proto-Frank Zappa “Stranded In The Jungle” by The Cadets from 1957. My sister anticipates the sequence of a couple songs, verifying that this was a much-played mixtape in our childhood. Local band The Legends version of “Shout” impresses and jogs my Mom’s memory of wanting to see them at Muskego Beach. (Grandma Hartman, predictably, nixed the idea.)
“Oh Teddy” brings back memories of our Uncle Guy playing this song “for” our Dad (named Ted) when he was late-night DJ on WRIT 1340 AM in the early 1970s. There’s a brief dispute as to whether or not Uncle Guy meant the song to be taunting his little brother Ted, but we know Guy eventually moved to Boston where he was at the vanguard of sports talk radio, interviewing Muhammed Ali, Ted Williams, and others.
“Only You” by The Platters prompts my Mom to recall Milton Bullock as a contact of hers in Milwaukee who sang this song as his voicemail greeting. Always a sucker for sequence and closure, my Dad ended the Oldies side of the tape with “Goodnight, Sweetheart.” Goodnight and back to WQFM and the Lazer!
END SIDE 2
Back to Side 1
“Counting Every Minute” by Foreigner – 1987
Here we go. As I was afraid to rewind the tape, we reach the actual first song of my sister’s mixtape. This song vexes us as we can conjure no memory of this bland crap. Generic guitar backed by basic drum beat and typical stratosphere-straining vocals…finally I blurt “Foreigner?!” My sister admits this may have been part of her pump-up routine to running hurdles on her class of ’88 track team (state qualifiers!). I can’t make fun, since my pump-up song for high school football was “Free For All” by Ted Nugent (8-0 in ’90!). The highlight here is our DJ entering at the end of the song to report “Lazer 103, wrapping up three from…” We can only assume they played something more Foreigner-representative like “Long, Long Way from Home” from 1977. We’ll never know.
“Armageddon It” by Def Leppard – 1987
Whoo, 1987 was quite a year. A song like this took over the airwaves—and judging from my recoil, it was a hostile takeover. This song blows. Not even nostalgia of riding my bicycle to tennis practice (suburbanite!) with this tune echoing through my mullet-covered brain can rescue this multi-layered vocal homage to “getting it.” The guitar solo prefaced by “C’mon Steve” is somehow charming, however, and I imagine that if the song was set to a cartoon of my 1987 self making stupid mistakes but somehow “getting it”…no, forget it. You can’t stop it, so don’t rock it.
“Foolin'” by Def Leppard – 1983
Now we’re talking. This song continues to crush. Is anybody out there? Anybody there? MTV made these guys real to me. Flying V guitar, Union Jack sleeveless tees, back to back singing…listen, I was too young for Spinal Tap and I loved these guys at age 10, for real. I open the window and sing the chorus to 55th Street. I suddenly recall scrawling “Def Leppard” on my buddy Mike’s wall in the R section of Greendale circa 1984. My Mom’s aghast at my admission. Oh, I just gotta go…
“Animal” by Def Leppard – 1987
My sister recorded the lovely preface “This is Phil Collen of Def Leppard and you’re listening to Lazer 103.” And it’s this song that I consider a transitional song for the band; the bridge from being good to sucking, in my opinion, was laid down on the tracks of “Animal.” It’s a solid rock tune but the sheen is too bright, too structured, too mailed-in, and I suggest it’s merely “cocaine strip club music.” Sure, the Hysteria LP sold 25 million copies (!!!) but Def Leppard never sounded as freshly gnarly as they did in the next song, which gets sadly hijacked by the Delaware Destroyers…
“Photograph” by Def Leppard – 1983
The snarling guitar intro and back-masking drum starts and I’m thrilled for proper Def Leppard, but just as the “Uh” vocal kicks in with the beat, George Thorogood interrupts with the head nurse speaking up…b-b-b-b-b-b-bad indeed. Again, my memory of Def Leppard circa Pyromania is unblemished by time and taste, and for that I am thankful. Gunter gleiben glauchen globen forever!
“Bad To The Bone” by George Thorogood & The Destroyers – 1982
Okay, back to the idea that when you heard a song on the radio in 1988, it was rarely ubiquitous. The only options for rock in Milwaukee in 1988 were WQFM, Lazer, WKLH, and maybe WKTI, along with MTV. You could call and request a song, but that was no certainty. Sure, every chop, hook, and sound is stolen from Bo Diddley, but Thorogood’s guitar tore the roof off, whether you liked it or not. Tell you what, George didn’t steal that haircut of his from Bo Diddley.
“Two Tickets To Paradise” by Eddie Money – 1977
Just as George wraps it up, we hear, “Oh yeah, it’s a Labor Day four-play…” and then it’s back to Edward Joseph Mahoney, who would like us to pack our bags, tonight…This song is so serviceable, it’s like Steve Miller and the Eagles got bored and sort of willed together a reasonably catchy song. It needs more urgency to me; I just don’t believe that Eddie has waited so long. Honestly, I don’t believe a thing Eddie says, freaking nark. (Just joshing. Eddie quickly gave up a brief tenure of police work to make a career of FM Rock radio hits that will likely live forever.)
Bonus Tracks
If you can find a mixtape at a thrift store or in your collection, I highly recommend listening to the whole thing, uninterrupted. If you made it, perhaps a song that reignites something interesting could change your life, or at least your weekend. Commune with your younger self, or the person who made a mixtape you found at Goodwill or a rummage sale…you never know where it could lead you.
I am thankful for finding this mixtape and for my sister’s willingness to listen to it together. Our bond for a great song remains unbroken, and the love of radio continues. Sure, I almost exclusively tune to WMSE (with occasional oldies detours) and have very little tolerance for what’s left of 102.9 FM, but whenever I hear “Mr. Brownstone” or anything by Joe Walsh, I think fondly of my sister and thank my stars that she taught me how to Rock.
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