Huey Lewis (and the News) wanted to know if he was getting the big kiss-off with If This is It (please let me know). Pat Benatar thought Love was a Battlefield.
In 1984, Madonna was on the Borderline of losing her mind. Laura Branigan pondered the age old puzzle, How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?, while Culture Club had a hit with Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? The media had a field day with that title two decades later when Boy George went to jail for chaining a guy to a wall and whipping him.
He probably couldn’t even move to a new town because they’d still have Starbucks, McDonalds, bars, movies and more bars and, well - always something there to remind him. In 1983, Naked Eyes contributed Always Something There to Remind Me to the sad song catalog. REO Speedwagon came along with Keep on Loving You, “I don’t want to eat, I just wanna keep on lovin’ you.” Yes, he says they are still together in the song, but it’s probably all in his mind. You’re supposed to say “Wow, K.D.!” And that defeats the purpose of wallowing now, doesn’t it? But you can wallow away with the others. Lang also did the song in 1987 with Roy Orbison, but the vocal gymnastics she performs aren’t there to help release the agony. Rebekah del Rio does an awesome Spanish version, Llorando. If we covered every Crying cover, we’d never get to the end of the 80s, so let’s cut to the chase and say Vonda Shepard and Deana Carter sang the best female versions. In 1981, Don McLean did Roy Orbison’s much covered Crying, without coming close to the original. This really gave the song of the penitent cheater a whole new lease and it was a bigger hit in 1980 than the original. At the end of 1979, The Spinners did a terrific cover of The Four Seasons’ 1966 hit, Opus 17 (Working My Way Back to You), to which they added a new twist - Forgive Me, Girl.