Pat Benatar “Shadows of the Night” charted

Shadows of the Night Pat Benatar

Writer(s): David Leigh Byron, Rachel Sweet (see lyrics here) Released: September 18, 1982 First Charted: September 30, 1982 Peak: 13 US, 13 CB, 18 GR, 8 RR, 3 AR, 50 UK, 12 CN, 19 AU, 10 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 15.4 video, 29.04 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Rock singer/songwriter Pat Benatar was born in New York City, New York in 1953. She released her first single, “Day Gig,” in 1974 but it failed to chart. Five years later, she had her breakthrough with a cover of John Mellencamp’s “I Need a Lover,” a chart hit in Belgium and the Netherlands. The song was the lead single from her debut album, In the Heat of the Night, which also produced “Heartbreaker.” That was her first Billboard Hot 100 hit, reaching #23. Her second album, Crimes of Passion, gave Benatar her first top-10 hit with “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” The album reached #2 and sold 4 million copies, the biggest seller of her career. She followed it up with the #1 album Precious Time. At this point, each of her three albums had produced three top-40 hits. Her fourth album, Get Nervous, broke the streak – by landing three songs in the top 40. The album’s first single, “Shadows of the Night,” reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it her second most successful chart entry at that point (she would go on to rack up three more top-10 hits). Benatar was not the first to record the song. David Leigh Byron wrote the song for the 1980 movie Times Square about two New York City runaways. The song failed to make it into the movie WK so Byron intended to record it for his second album. His record label, Arista, rejected it as lacking commercial appeal and Byron left the label. SF It was then recorded and released in 1981 by Helen Schneider, an American singer who worked primarily in Germany. Bryon claims the song went five times platinum there. WK Ohio-born singer Rachel Sweet also recorded the song in 1981 with slightly different lyrics. The song had yet to experience any chart success in the United States. Then Benatar recorded it, also making some minor lyrical changes. Sweet was angry when she didn’t receive any writing credit. It turns out Byron submitted it to Benatar without mentioning Sweet’s lyrical changes. SF The video stars Benatar as a flying ace during World War II fighting against the Nazis. In the end, it turns out it was a dream and she is really a riveter. The video features Judge Reinhold as a pilot and Bill Paxton as a Nazi radio operator. Benatar’s husband, Neil Giraldo, wasn’t a fan of videos, saying that “as videos got more popular, they became little stories or vignettes, and…didn’t represent the song anymore.” SF Still, he acknowledged how much impact the video had on making the song a hit. SF The song earned Benatar her third consecutive Grammy win for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/23/2022; last updated 12/27/2022.

Dave’s Faves: The Columbia House Record Club

First posted 8/12/2020.

Dave’s Faves: Columbia House

September 25, 1982. I was 15 years old and had just started my sophomore year in high school. Arguably, there is no more significant time for musical discovery. I was very much a slave to whatever was popular at the time, but my tastes were starting to shift from more middle-of-the-road artists like John Denver, Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow to more rock-oriented fare like Journey, Queen, and Styx. A week before, I’d put together my very first personal song chart. I’d listened to a local radio station’s countdown of the hits of the summer and decided to create my own list of all-time favorites. However, within the week I revamped it and I was on my way to more than a decade’s worth of creating weekly personal song charts. By that second week, I was hit by an influx of “new” music. Actually, it would be more appropriate to call it “newly acquired music” as the six new albums in my collection were all at least nine months old: Air Supply The One That You Love (1981) Foreigner 4 (1981) Journey Escape (1981) The Police Ghost in the Machine (1981) Queen Greatest Hits (compilation: 1973-81, released 1981) Styx Paradise Theater (1981) To what did I owe this new treasure trove? Columbia House’s Record and Tape Club. Anyone from my generation should remember the omnipresent ads in magazines to buy 13 albums for a dollar, sometimes a penny, under the agreement that you bought X number more albums over the next few years. The catch was they would automatically send an album each month if you didn’t specifically refuse it, sticking some people with albums they didn’t want. My friend Nic and I decided to jump into the venture together, each getting half the albums and therefore only spending half as much money. I believe Nic took on the responsibility of mailing in the cards and I think he only got stuck once with the automatically mailed album. I’d started my music collection three years earlier with the K-Tel compilation High Energy (1979) on eight track. Now I was beginning my transition from eight track to cassette. I’d already bought Styx Cornerstone (1979) and the Xanadu soundtrack (1980) on tape and now, with six new titles in my collection, I was well on my way toward this newer medium surpassing the old. Before year’s end, I would also have John Cougar’s American Fool (1982), J. Geils Band Freeze Frame (1981), and Olivia Newton-John’s Olivia’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1982). In December of that year, I also hit the jackpot when my local rock station played a Beatles’ album every day at midnight for a week. I recorded the Beatles’ 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 collections as well as Magical Mystery Tour (1967), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and Hey Jude (1968). The impact on my personal chart was immediately apparent. Songs from the above tapes which showed up on my charts in the next few weeks included: Air Supply “The One That You Love,” “Here I Am,” “Sweet Dreams” Foreigner “Urgent,” “Juke Box Hero,” “Waiting for a Girl Like You” Journey “Who’s Crying Now,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Open Arms” The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” Queen “You’re My Best Friend,” “Flash,” “Another One Bites the Dust” Styx “The Best of Times,” “Too Much Time on My Hands,” “Rockin’ the Paradise,” “Nothing Ever Goes As Planned” Some of the songs from those tapes still rank on my top 100 songs of all-time list (Foreigner “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” Journey “Open Arms,” Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions,” and Styx’s “The Best of Times”). Styx Paradise Theater and Journey Escape rank amongst my top 100 albums of all time. Perhaps no other week in my life has had more impact on me musically. Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database (9/18/1982). “My First Personal Song Chart” Dave’s Music Database (1/3/2020). “Dave’s Faves: My Top 100 Albums” Dave’s Music Database (3/2/2020). “Dave’s Faves: My Top 100 Songs”

Prince released “1999”

1999 Prince

This post has been moved here.

Billy Joel’s The Nylon Curtain released

First posted 5/9/2011; updated 9/22/2020.

The Nylon Curtain Billy Joel

Released: September 23, 1982 Peak: 7 US, 27 UK, 12 CN, 4 AU Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, -- UK, 5.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop/rock singer-songwriter

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Allentown (11/27/82, 17 US, 19 AC, 28 AR, 21 CN, 49 AU) Laura Pressure (9/25/82, 20 US, 8 AR, 9 CN, 16 AU) Goodnight Saigon (3/19/83, 56 US, 29 UK) She’s Right on Time A Room of Our Own (11/13/82, 27 AR) Surprises Scandinavian Skies (10/9/82, 38 AR) Where’s the Orchestra? Total Running Time: 41:57

Rating: 3.608 out of 5.00 (average of 11 ratings)

About the Album: With previous album Glass Houses, Billy Joel set out “to prove that he could rock as hard as any of those new wave punks.” AMG “For all of his claims of being a hard rocker, his work inevitably is pop because of his fondness for melody – but he proved to himself that he could still rock, even if the critics didn’t give him any credit for it.” AMG “His faux-New Wave period behind him, Joel decided it was time to be taken seriously as an artist” DB and that “it was now time to mature, to move pop/rock into the middle age.” AMG Joel “consciously crafting a song cycle about Baby Boomers in the Reagan era,” AMG making for “a fascinating cross between ear candy and social commentary.” AMG “His desire to record a grand concept album is admirable, but his ever-present lyrical shortcomings mean that the songs paint a picture without arriving at any insights.” AMG “He scored with brooding, well-intentioned odes to Vietnam and Rust Belt unemployment” DB with Goodnight Saigon and Allentown respectively. The first half of the album – including those songs as well as Laura, Pressure, and She’s Right on Time –“ is layered, successful, mature pop that brings Joel tantalizingly close to his ultimate goal of sophisticated pop/rock for mature audiences.” AMG However, “he occasionally gets lost in his own ambition, as on the waterlogged second side.” AMG In addition, “the Beatlesque art-pop that lords over the album was strained and overly stylized.” DB “Joel is naturally inclined to write big melodies like McCartney, but he idolizes Lennon.” AMG In the end, though, “Lennon and McCartney should never sound this labored.” DB “And be wary of any Billy Joel album with a song called Scandinavian Skies.” DB

Resources and Related Links: Billy Joel’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine DB David Browne (6/07). Blender magazine. Pages 114-5.

Bruce Springsteen Nebraska released

Nebraska Bruce Springsteen

Released: September 20, 1982 Peak: 3 US, 3 UK, 3 CN, 8 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK, 4.5 world (includes US + UK) Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Nebraska [4:27] Atlantic City [3:54] Mansion on the Hill [4:03] Johnny 99 [3:38] Highway Patrolman [5:39] State Trooper [3:15] Used Cars [3:05] Open All Night [2:55] My Father’s House [5:43] Reason to Believe [4:09] Total Running Time: 41:02 Nebraska ‘82: Expanded Edition On October 24, 2025, a four-disc version of Nebraska was released. The fourth disc contained the original album. The other discs were as follows: Tracks, Disc 1: Nebraska Demos & Outtakes Born in the U.S.A. (demo) Losin’ Kind Downbound Train Child Bride (early version of Working on the Highway) Pink Cadillac The Big Payback Working on the Highway On the Prowl Gun in Every Home Tracks, Disc 2: Electric Nebraska Nebraska Atlantic City Mansion on the Hill Johnny 99 Downbound Train Open All Night Born in the U.S.A. Reason to Believe Tracks, Disc 3: Nebraska Live On April 22, 2025, Bruce Springsteen performed the entire Nebraska album live at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. Nebraska Atlantic City Mansion on the Hill Johnny 99 Highway Patrolman State Trooper Used Cars Open All Night My Father’s House Reason to Believe Other songs from the era: Lion’s Den My Love Will Not Let You Down A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh) Wages of Sin This Hard Land Frankie

Rating: 4.110 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

How Not to Follow a #1 Album “Nebraska was one of the most challenging albums ever released by a major star on a major record label.” AM Bruce Springsteen’s previous album, 1980’s The River, took him to the top of the Billboard album charts for the first time, gave him a top-five single with “Hungry Heart,” and was a multi-million seller. It established him “as an arena rocker, born to mesmerize huge crowds with songs about the romance of the road.” EW’93 Demo Recordings When it came time to record a follow-up, Springsteen “asked Mike Batlan, his guitar tech from the last tour, to set up a basic tape deck…so the singer could tape all the new songs he was writing.” 33-26 Springsteen recorded 4-track demos “with a Tascam Portastudio and a couple mics in a modest Colts Neck, New Jersey house.” PM Instead of embracing the “grand ambitions, big stages and larger-than-life, arena-packing choruses” PM he’d become known for, he “discarded the histrionics entirely for sparse, heart-wrenching lamentations” PM “recorded with only acoustic or electric guitar, harmonica, and vocals.” AM Springsteen and Batlan mixed fifteen of the songs that were recorded on January 3, 1982. The big question, however, was, “Coud this music – which was recorded onto a cheap, jerry-rigged four-track tape machine and mixed onto a two-track cassette that Springsteen carried around in his back pocket without a case – be turned into a vinyl album that could be manufactured in the hundreds of thousands and be played on the radio?” 33-87 The answer was yes. Nine of those fifteen songs ended up on the eventual Nebraska album. 33-27 Springsteen took a stab at recreating the songs with the full E Street Band treatment, but opted instead to release the original, acoustic demos, thinking they sounded better. “These intimate confidences were the exact opposite of the over-the-top, declamatory singing he had favored on his first four albums, and they put the emphasis where it belongs in these songs – on the words.” 33-84 It was a bold move for a man who had come to be embraced for his stadium-rocker anthems. Instead, Nebraska was a model of “unconventionality…[for] its refusal so succumb to rock conventions.” JG “Springsteen would have to sell his fourteen-million-dollar house and get a real job if he kept putting out desolate records with no hit singles.” JG The Songwriting “It was really the content that dictated the approach, however. Nebraska’s ten songs marked a departure for Springsteen, even as they took him farther down a road he had been traveling previously.” AM The songs didn’t always “seem quite finished; sometimes the same line turned up in two songs. But that only served to unify the album.” AM “Most of these songs take place on some unknown highway at some ungodly hour, a lonely narrator begging for some connection to something, be it a woman, a job, a radio disc jockey, ora half-forgotten family.” SG This collection also found Bruce “branching out into better developed stories.” AM The songs are “haunting,” SG “brooding and intimate” EW’93 – “gifts to be treasured, rife with vulnerability, sincerity and, above all, humanity.” PM Nebraska “functions as a pivotal turning point in how Springsteen thought of writing and recording,” SG demonstrating “the extra depth that makes him great.” EW’93 It is an album that has “the guts to admit that for some people the world may never be a friendly place.” JG It “is a record about being alone, about being desperate, about being brave enough to admit that there’s no easy cure for desperation.” JG In addition, “Nebraska’s indie cred and lo-fi influence are long since established.” SG The Album Cover The cover of the Nebraska album was a “grainy, black-and-white photograph” taken by David Kennedy of “an empty Midwestern highway stretching to a cloudy horizon, seen through the windshield of a car with snow on its hood.” 33-87 The Songs “Many songs on Nebraska seem to essentially be flip-sides of each other, with shared themes and sometimes even lyrics. ‘Mansion on the Hill’ features a grown man reminiscing about childhood nights spent staring at the titular mansion, while ‘My Father’s House’ features a grown man dreaming of visiting his father’s house. ‘State Trooper’ is about trying to outrun a cop, while ‘Highway Patrolman’ is told from the viewpoint of one, and both ‘Atlantic City’ and ‘Johnny 99’ are about broken-down men who commit crimes for economic reasons. ‘Open All Night’ and ‘State Trooper’ share many lyrics, but the former is a fun rocker about driving to visit a girlfriend, while the latter seems to portray its singer as suffering a psychotic breakdown.” MM Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Nebraska Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Live 1975/1985 (live box set, 1986), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Chrissie Hynde & Adam Seymour (2000), Bob Walkenhorst (2010) About the Song: Nebraska is based on the real-life tale of Charlie Starkweather, a 19-year-old who went on a ten-person killing spree in January 1958 with his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. Bruce saw Terrence Malick’s 1974 movie Badlands (after which he’d named another song back in 1978) about the events and then read the book Caril, upon which the movie was based. “The song offers nothing traditional in the way of a serial killer narrative.” MM “Springsteen slips into the role of a cold-blooded killer” UP who experiences no guilt or remorse and seems to have no motivation for his crimes. “It’s a shockingly bleak narrative, even for one involving a serial killer.” MM “Fans and critics went into contortions trying to explain why that fatalistic tune was in fact some sort of affirmation.” JG However, like the other songs on the album, it actually displays “remarkable pessimism and…refusal to romanticize that pessimism.” JG It “set the tone for a series of portraits of small-time criminals, desperate people, and those who loved them.” AM “The numbness of his vocal, and the stomach-churning harmonica wails that punctuate the verses, ultimately connect to a greater spiritual desolation that was pervasive in Reagan’s America, and each version of America that’s come after.” UP

Atlantic City Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 10/9/1982 as a single, Nebraska (1982), In Concert/MTV Plugged (1993), Live in New York City (2000), The Essential (2003), The Collection (2012), The Essential (2015), Best of (2024), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) B-Side: “Mansion on the Hill” Peak: 10 AR, 49 CN, 3 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 5.5 video, 58.09 streaming Covered by: The Band (1993), Hank Williams III & Michael Penn (2000), The Hold Steady (2009), Bob Walkenhorst (2010), Natalie Maines with Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite (2013) About the Song: This was the closest the Nebraska album came to a hit. It reached the top 10 on the album-rock chart has become the signature song from the album. The album’s “themes of hopelessness and despair” MM is never “more palpable than on Atlantic City. You can feel the desperation in the voice of a protagonist who is at his wit’s end.” MM “Bruce plunges you into the action like the greatest film noir directors, instantly hooking you into this sordid tale.” UP “Of all the cinematic songs about two-bit criminals that Bruce has written, none is as gripping or evocative as ‘Atlantic City.’” UP The narrator has “learned that there is no comfortable, normal life in Atlantic City.” MM He has “’debts no honest man can pay,’ so he meets a mobster…and agrees to do a job for him.” 33-67 It “was inspired by Louis Malle’s 1980 film of the same name, but it could just as easily come from Mario Puzo’s The Godfather or Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films.” 33-71 “Appropriately, there is a haunting, dirge-like feel to the song, with hints of Celtic sounds coming through on the mandolin. It may just be Bruce playing into a tape deck, but it’s a complete, fully realized sound.” MM

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Mansion on the Hill Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 10/9/1982 as the B-side of “Atlantic City,” Nebraska (1982), Live in New York City (2000), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Crooked Fingers (2000), David Gray (2007), The National (2008) About the Song: Hank Williams’ “A Mansion on the Hill” inspired this song. It “basically boils down to ‘You’re up there having fun, and I’m down here heartbroken.’ Bruce keeps this contrast and changes the subject from happy/heartbroken to wealthy/poor.” MM The song “describes a young boy and his sister hiding out in a cornfield, watching the rich people, who are laughing at a party in a mansion that sits above the town’s factories and fields. For the youngsters, it looks like Disneyland, but to us, the locked iron gates represent the kind of class divisions that have spoiled the American Dream.” 33-62 It is “a metaphor for the insatiable hunger that capitalism instills in the souls of Americans.” UP There’s a “wonderful nostalgic feel to the song” MM and it has “a gorgeous folk melody.” MM Bruce also “offers up some really nice harmonica work.” MM

Johnny 99 Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Live 1975/1985 (live box set, 1986), The Essential (2015), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Charted: 10/9/1982 as an album cut Peak: 50 AR Click for codes to charts. Charted by: Johnny Cash (1983), John Hiatt (1997), Los Lobos (2000) About the Song: This is “a murder ballad in the country-rock tradition, but it subverts our usual expectations. Not only is it upbeat, but the murder happens in the first verse.” MM “The title character of Johnny 99 gets laid off from the auto plant in Mahwah, New Jersey, and soon accumulates ‘debts no honest man could pay.’ He gets drunk one night and shoots the night clerk in a botched hold-up.” 33-67 He’s sentenced to 99 years in prison, but instead of pleading for clemency the title character asks the “judge to be executed because he has even worse thoughts circulating in his head.” UP Author Brian Hiatt links the song to Jimmie Rodgers’ “Ninety-Nine Years Blues,” a 1932 folk song about a man serving a life sentence. “Springsteen nods to Rodgers with his mad-hatter yodeling throughout ‘Johnny 99,’ banging away on his guitar while dispensing the harrowing story.” UP

Highway Patrolman Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Johnny Cash (1983), Dar Williams (2000) About the Song: This is “one of the best folk songs Bruce has ever written.” MM “The classic story of the responsible brother and the irresponsible brother has been told a million times. It’s biblical and older than that, but it’s one that Bruce has only tackled once.” MM The narrator is Joe, a cop whose brother, Frankie, is drafted and comes back a heavy drinker. “We just know something bad is going to happen.” MM Joe is called to a roadhouse because of a man wounded in a fight over a woman. It turns out Frank is responsible. Joe “speeds after him and catches up, but eventually lets him go,” MM “caught between his duty to his badge and his soft spot for his brother.” 33-15 Joe insists, “’Man turns his back on his family / He just ain’t no good’ right until the end, but does he really believe it or is he just repeating it to justify his actions.” MM “The insoluable dilemma of that choice is echoed in the fatalistic sadness of the Woody Guthrie-like folk music.” 33-15 In 1991, Sean Penn adapted the song into The Indian Runner, his directoral debut. “It’s not hard to see why. The story…unfolds as a clear narrative with a neatly defined beginning, middle, and end.” UP The problem with the movie is that the image Springsteen crafts “is far better than anything Hollywood could ever create.” UP

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

State Trooper Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Deana Carter (2000) About the Song: Ths is the song “that best fits the stark landscapes” MM depicted on the Nebraska album cover. “Bruce has written his share of eerie, even scary songs…but no song in Bruce’s catalogue is as terrifying as ‘State Trooper.’” MM This is what it might sound like “if you could set a psychotic breakdown to music.” MM “The monotonous, maddening acoustic guitar riff just re-enforces the narrator’s own insanity, and Bruce sings the song as a man who is losing it, with the heavy echo and reverb just adding to the ghost-like feel of the song.” MM “We don’t know what the narrator has done, but…he’s not sorry about it.” MM “The narrative details are sparse – we know there’s a guy behind the wheel, and he seems a little crazy, and he’s teetering on the brink of violence. But what stands out more than the words is the intensity of Springsteen’s delivery. He’s in full-on Travis Bickle mode, staring at himself in the rearview mirror, and daring an unseen adversary to challenge him. It’s a wholly convincing and deeply unsettling act of evil transfiguration.” UP His “repeated cry of ‘please don’t stop me’ to the state trooper who is following him is less ‘I don’t want to get caught’ and more ‘Don’t make me kill you when you pull me over.’” MM

Used Cars Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Ani DiFranco (2000) About the Song: Musically this has a very similar melody to the title track. MM It also shares a narrator from “Mansion on the Hill.” He and his sister “resent their father for buying a boring used car instead of an exciting new convertible. They youngsters think it’s a failure of imagination, but we know the financial realities that dicate the choice.” 33-62 It captures that “critical moment in any young person’s life is when you first realize that your parents are flawed human beings.” UP In his book Songs, Bruce calls this “the exciting story of my own personal life.” UP “Bruce has written better working class songs than anyone” MM but this one is “pretty underwhelming.” MM It’s a “generic ‘We’re poor but we’re gonna get rich’ tale without anything really unique to distinguish it.” MM

Open All Night Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 11/22/1982 as a single, Nebraska (1982), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) B-Side: “The Big Payback” Charted: 10/9/1982 as an album cut Peak: 22 AR Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.82 video, 5.49 streaming Covered by: Son Volt (2000) About the Song: This is “a Chuck Berry-style rocker” AM “car song about trying to get home to a girlfriend after the late shift at work.” 33-45 This is the only song on Nebraska to prominently feature electric guitar and “that is all fun.” MM “You can just hear the rock song waiting to break out.” MM However, it still “fits perfectly on the Nebraska album. There is still desolation on these open roads at night, no matter how much fun they are for this particular narrator.” MM The song “shares lyrics with ‘State Trooper,’ and while both are about a narrator driving on the turnpike alone late at night, they are incredibly different songs. The narrator in ‘Open All Night’ just wants to get his girlfriend Wanda who works at the Bob’s Big Boy.” MM Its interesting how the two songs “show how two people in very similar situations can have wildly different stories.” MM

My Father’s House Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/25/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Chapter and Verse (2016), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Ben Harper (2000) About the Song: Nine of the songs on Nebraska were recorded in January 1982. Months later, though, Bruce returned to his home studio to record this and “The Big Payback.” This one is “a haunting folk ballad that touches on one of Bruce’s favorite topics.” MM It is “right up there with ‘Mansion on the Hill’ as one of the most autobiographical songs on Nebraska.” MM “The narrator dreams that he’s a child again, running through the trees and brambles till he collapses in his father’s sheltering arms.” 33-62 “The singer seems to think the house itself holds some mystical quality.” MM “But when he awakes and visits the house in real life, the woman who answers says, ‘I’m sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore.’” 33-62

Reason to Believe Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Live 1975/1985 (live box set, 1986), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Aimee Mann & Michael Penn (2000) About the Song: “The album closed with Reason to Believe, a song whose hard-luck verses were belied by the chorus – even if the singer couldn’t understand what it was, ‘people find some reason to believe.’” AM “Instead of just being one story like the other songs on the album, ‘Reason to Believe’ tells little snippets of stories and brings them all together with the narrator being struck ‘kind of funny’ that ‘at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.’” MM It is not, however, a judgment on the characters, just an observation that “there are more questions than answers.” MM The song “leans more towards blues than the other songs on the album, which are more from the folk and country traditions.” MM

Other Songs from the Era Here are other songs recorded during the Nebraska sessions which were released on various collections, primarily the 1998 Tracks box set.

Lion’s Den Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1/25/1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998)

The Big Payback Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: between March and April 1982 at Thrill Hill East, Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 11/22/1982 as the B-side to “Open All Night,” The Essential (2003), Nebraska: Demos & Outtakes (1982/2025) About the Song: 9 of the 10 songs on Nebraska were recorded in January 1982. Months later, Bruce recorded two more songs. “My Father’s House” became part of the album while this rockabilly-tinged number, “essentially a lesser ‘Open All Night,’” MM missed the cut.

My Love Will Not Let You Down Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: May 5-7, 1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998), 18 Tracks (1999) About the Song: “This earnest pledge ranks among the very best to somehow not make [it on] record.” UP It is “a driving, glowing rock anthem…that could easily work as a single.” MM “Bruce’s raspy vocals are the perfect match to the guitar-heavy track, and the glistening keyboards add even more hope to the song.” MM After its release on Tracks it became “a central song of the reunion tours that Bruce played with The E Street Band for the next few years.” UP The narrator “is so dedicated to keeping the titular promise to his love that it’s keeping him up nights.” MM “He is committed 100%. Whether or not the girl will believe him is up in the air, but the song is so energetic and forthright that it would be hard to think she’d have second thoughts.” MM

A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh) Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/5/1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998) About the Song: This song “describes the widow of a Vietnam soldier…The gently rolling country-pop music reinforces the lyrics’ evocation of domesticity, but that only makes the key lines bite harder.” 33-15

Wages of Sin Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/10/1982 Released: Tracks (box set, 1998) Covered by: Damien Jurardo & Rose Thomas (2000) About the Song: This is “another great moody ballad stuck between albums.” UP It “feels like it belongs in the Nebraska camp, though Springsteen gave it an arrangement that put it in the same ballpark as ‘My Hometown.’” UP

This Hard Land Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/11/1982; January 1995 at the Hit Factory in New York Released: 1982 version: Tracks (box set, 1998), 1995 version: Greatest Hits (1995), Live in New York City (2000) About the Song: “Bruce is known as a rocker first, but he’s written some incredible folk songs.” MM “With This Hard Land…Bruce makes his definitive entry into the American folk music canon.” MM This “galloping adventure tale” UP “should have been the signature track on the long lost country rock album that Springsteen hinted at making around the margins of Born in the U.S.A.” UP “The sound of ‘This Hard Land’ is so beautiful and clear, from the harmonica and guitar that start the song off to the full band arrangement that kicks in after the first verse.” MM This tale of “displaced farmers…from Houston to the Rio Grande” 33-63 is inspired by “John Ford’s 1940 film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath.” 33-70 It is “a story about two friends who head out into the west and pledge undying loyalty to one another.” UP “Living on and farming the land is near impossible for these characters, but the narrator and Frank are prepared to fight as hard as they can.” MM “The Woody Guthrie influence is obviously here in the lyrics about hard work and western landscapes.” MM “Danny Federici’s organ plants this one firmly in the Jersey Shore. Meanwhile, Roy Bittan’s piano part sounds like something from a Gershwin piece, and its plinking sounds play perfectly against Little Steven’s mandolin. Max Weinberg counts this among his favorite songs the band has ever recorded, and his performance here is quite underrated.” MM

Frankie Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/14/1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998) About the Song: The song turns “incidents from the Old Testament into comic sketches.” 33-71 This is “an old-school soul-music tune about a man telling his ex-lover that he’s been healing his broken heart as if he were Daniel testing his faith in the lion’s den, and now he’s coming back, stronger than ever.” 33-45

Reviews/Resources: AM AllMusic.com review by William Ruhlmann EW’93 Entertainment Weekly (10/29/1993). “100 Greatest CDs: A Love-It-Or-Loathe It Guide to the Essential Disc Library” JG Jimmy Guterman (1992). The Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Records of All Time. Citadel Press Book: New York, NY. Pages 30-1. 33 Geoffrey Himes (2005). 33 1/3: Born in the U.S.A.. Bloomsbury Academic: New York, NY. MG Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon (2020). Bruce Springsteen – All The Songs: The Story Behind Every Track. Cassel (an imprint of Octopus Publishing Group Ltd.): Great Britain. MM Movie Match-Up (5/4/2019). “The 250 Greatest Bruce Springsteen Songs” PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” SG Stereogum.com (6/17/2025). “Premature Evaluation: Bruce Springsteen Tracks II: The Lost Albums” by Ryan Leas UP Uproxx.com (8/6/2020). The Best Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked” by Steven Hyden Related DMDB Links: Last updated 10/26/2025.

My First Personal Chart: 9/18/1982

I was 15 in the summer of 1982 and was pretty enthralled with the popular music of the day. When my local top 40 radio station did a countdown of their all-time songs, I decided to emulate the list and make my own. It was a mix of classics alongside current hits. It turned into my own weekly countdown list which I maintained through high school, college, and into young adulthood. I consider it ground zero for my fascination with charts. Click here to see other Dave’s Faves song lists. Spotify Podcast: Check out the Dave’s Music Database podcast My First Chart: 40 Years Ago (premiere: September 13, 2022) based on this list. New episodes based on Dave’s Music Database lists are posted every Tuesday at 7pm CST. So here is the very first chart I did: 1. Styx “Babe” (1979) 2. Climax Blues Band “I Love You” (1980) 3. Olivia Newton-John “Magic” (1980) 4. Journey “Open Arms” (1981) 5. Kenny Rogers “Coward of the County” (1979) 6. The Beatles “Fixing a Hole” (1967) 7. Queen “Body Language” (1982) 8. Air Supply “American Hearts” (1980) 9. Barry Manilow “Copacabana (At the Copa)” (1978) 10. Styx “Renegade” (1978) 11. Olivia Newton-John “Suspended in Time” (1980) 12. Olivia Newton-John “Heart Attack” (1982) 13. Kenny Rogers “The Gambler” (1978) 14. Chicago “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” (1982) 15. The Alan Parsons Project “Eye in the Sky” (1982) 16. Asia “Only Time Will Tell” (1982) 17. Paul McCartney “Take It Away” (1982) 18. Olivia Newton-John “Make a Move on Me” (1981) 19. Electric Light Orchestra “The Fall” (1980) 20. Journey “Don’t Stop Believin’” (1981) 21. Styx “The Best of Times” (1981) 22. Neil Diamond “Love on the Rocks” (1980) 23. Kermit “The Rainbow Connection” (1979) 24. Queen “You’re My Best Friend” (1976) 25. Blondie “Shayla” (1979) 26. Kenny Rogers “Lady” (1980) 27. Dan Fogelberg “Leader of the Band” (1981) 28. Soft Cell “Tainted Love” (1981) 29. The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (1981) 30. Olivia Newton-John “Physical” (1981) 31. Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard “Suddenly” (1980) 32. America “You Can Do Magic” (1982) 33. Electric Light Orchestra “I’m Alive” (1980) 34. Survivor “Eye of the Tiger” (1982) 35. Olivia Newton-John “Carried Away” (1981) 36. Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder “Ebony and Ivory” (1982) 37. Neil Diamond “Be Mine Tonight” (1982) 38. Olivia Newton-John & Electric Light Orchestra “Xanadu” (1980) 39. The Human League “Don’t You Want Me?” (1981) 40. John Cougar Mellencamp “Jack and Diane” (1982) 41. Chicago “If You Leave Me Now” (1976) 42. REO Speedwagon “Keep on Loving You” (1980) 43. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts “I Love Rock and Roll” (1981) 44. Steve Miller Band “Abracadabra” (1982) 45. Fleetwood Mac “Hold Me” (1982) 46. Charlene “I’ve Never Been to Me” (1977) 47. Toto “Rosanna” (1982) 48. Styx “Come Sail Away” (1977) 49. Kansas “Play the Game Tonight” (1982) 50. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts “Crimson and Clover” (1982) 51. Blondie “Heart of Glass” (1978) 52. George Harrison “All Those Years Ago” (1981) 53. Elton John “Blue Eyes” (1982) 54. Billy Joel “Just the Way You Are” (1977) 55. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts “Do You Wanna Touch” (1981) 56. Air Supply “I Can’t Get Excited” (1980) 57. Sheena Easton “When He Shines” (1981) 58. Elton John “Empty Garden” (1982) 59. J. Geils Band “Freeze Frame” (1981) 60. Billy Squier “The Stroke” (1981) 61. Neil Diamond “America” (1981) 62. The Cars “Shake It Up” (1981) 63. Greg Kihn Band “The Breakup Song” (1981) 64. Air Supply “Lost in Love” (1980) 65. Blondie “Dreaming” (1979) 66. Air Supply “Sweet Dreams” (1980) 67. KC & the Sunshine Band “Please Don’t Go” (1979) 68. Dan Fogelberg “Run for the Roses” (1981) 69. Pure Prairie League “Let Me Love You Tonight” (1980) 70. Dirt Band with Linda Ronstadt “An American Dream” (1979) Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “Dave’s Faves: Song Lists” Dave’s Music Database: “Dave’s Faves: Albums/Works” Dave’s Music Database: “Dave’s Faves: Top 100 Acts” Dave’s Music Database: Other Best-of Song Lists First posted 12/1/2018; last updated 9/14/2022.

George Thorogood “Bad to the Bone” charted

Bad to the Bone George Thorogood & the Destroyers

Writer(s): George Thorogood (see lyrics here) First Charted: September 18, 1982 Peak: 27 AR, 2 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 82.1 video, 157.34 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “George Thorogood and the Destroyers have a penchant for rockin’ covers of all kinds of blues songs, but the band is probably best known for a song George wrote himself: ‘Bad to the Bone.’ It didn’t get much attention when it was released on the 1982 album of the same name, but MTV liked it and put the video for the track into heavy rotation. The clip features a live performance by the Destroyers along with scenes of a cigar-chomping Thorogood shooting pool with Bo Diddley,” UCR one of Thorogood’s heroes. Thorogood had covered Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” and “the guitar riff and vocal rhythms in ‘Bad to the Bone’ sound like they were inspired by the iconic bluesman's classic song, ‘I’m a Man.’” UCR “Both songs are full of swagger, with the singers exuding lots of testerone.” SF Thorogood’s song “has a much heavier guitar sound, which replaces the harmonica in Diddley’s recording.” SF The song is used in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day for the scene when Arnold Schwarzengger exits a bar in biker gear. It has also been used in The Parent Trap, Major Payne, Christine, and Problem Child. The song has also been used by TV series including Married…With Children, Miami Vice, Top Gear, South Park, Nurse Jackie, My Name Is Earl, and 3rd Rock from the Sun. “It’s also played at sporting events all over the country, and several professional wrestlers have adopted it as their theme song. While this isn’t exactly as bad-ass, the song was also introduced to a much younger generation when Alvin and the Chipmunks covered it for an episode of their television series.” UCR Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for George Thorogood & the Destroyers SF Songfacts UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (6/20/2013). “Top 100 Classic Rock Songs” First posted 7/22/2022.

Don Henley charted with “Dirty Laundry”

Dirty Laundry Don Henley

Writer(s): Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar (see lyrics here) First Charted: September 11, 1982 Peak: 3 US, 5 CB, 5 RR, 13 AR, 59 UK, 11 CN, 51 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 28.99 video, 41.48 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: While “Dirty Laundry” was not Don Henley’s first solo outing, it is probably the one most people associate with the beginning of his post-Eagles career. After a decade with the Eagles and fronting #1 hits like “Hotel California,” “One of the These Nights,” and “Best of My Love,” Henley had first ventured out of the Eagles’ spotlight as Stevie Nicks’ duet partner on the top-10 hit “Leather and Lace.” He then had a minor solo hit (#42 on the Billboard Hot 100) with the new-wavish “Johnny Can’t Read,” the first single from his 1982 I Can’t Stand Still solo album. The second single, however, crawled its way up to #3 on the pop charts and reached the pinnacle on the album rock chart. “Dirty Laundry” removed any doubt that Henley could survive without his Eagles’ bandmates. He also made it clear he could craft a song with something to say that was also as catchy as hell. The song lambasted mass media sensationalism from the point of view of a jaded TV news anchor. It was inspired by the tabloid coverage of celebrity deaths such as John Belushi and Natalie Wood as well as Henley’s 1980 arrest for drug possession and delinquency of a minor. WK Interestingly, many local news stations have acknowledged the “superficial and vapid product they create” SF by using the song for blooper reels “tucked away in the dark corners of newsrooms.” SF Henley hadn’t completely severed ties with the Eagles as Joe Waslh performed the first guitar solo and Timothy B. Schmit also appeared on the record playing bass and performing backing vocals. The song also featured three members of the band Toto – Steve Lukather playing the second guitar solo, Steve Porcaro on keyboards, and Jeff Porcaro on drums. Danny Kortchmar, who co-wrote the song and had previously played on albums by James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne, also contributes guitar. On a personal note, the song was an early favorite of mine when I started doing my own weekly chart, beginning on September 18, 1982. By year’s end, the song hit #1 for me, dethroning Toto’s “Africa,” which had debuted in the pole position six weeks earlier. Resources: AMG All Music Guide SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 6/30/2022; last updated 10/28/2022.

Olivia Newton-John charted with “Heart Attack”

Heart Attack Olivia Newton-John

Writer(s): Paul Bliss, Steve Kipner (see lyrics here) First Charted: September 4, 1982 Peak: 3 US, 2 CB, 5 RR, 46 UK, 2 CN, 22 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.36 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Olivia Newton-John had her first hit in 1971 with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “If Not for You.” The song was a top-10 in the UK (where she was born) and Australia (where she was raised). It also reached #25 in the United States, where she would experience crossover success on the pop, country, and adult contemporary charts throughout the decade. Her career leapt into the stratosphere in 1978 when she starred opposite John Travolta in the blockbuster-movie version of Grease. After that, she moved farther away from country and fully embraced pop with #1 hits like “Magic” and “Physical.” The latter spent 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the biggest #1 hit of the decade. So what does one do after reaching the pinnacle of her career? Olivia released a greatest-hits album – her second actually. The first celebrated her country/adult contemporary era up to the Grease soundtrack while the follow-up, Olivia’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, gathered her eight top-40 hits from 1978 to 1982 alongside a couple of new tracks. One of the newbies was “Heart Attack.” It wouldn’t match the heights of “Physical,” but it did reach a respectable #3 on the pop charts and made it clear Olivia’s career wasn’t quite over yet. She logged four more top-40 hits through the mid-80s, including the top-5 hit “Twist of Fate.” “Heart Attack” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. On a personal note, the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same month as it appeared on my first personal chart (September 18, 1982). That first week, Olivia Newton-John ranked as my favorite artist and Olivia’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2 would be my #1 album by month’s end. When I tallied the biggest hits of the year just a few months later, “Heart Attack” came in at #3. Resources: WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 6/29/2022; last updated 8/6/2022.