Top Ten 1983 Songs: Radio Free Europe (#1)

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Tomorrow starts a new month and a new countdown. It’s an intriguing subject, and I hope you’ll like it (if not the songs). Meanwhile, let’s blow out the birthday candles on music turning 40 this year with my favorite on the list. Probably to nobody’s surprise, here’s the king of the birthday boys (and girls) from 1983. #1: Radio Free Europe - R.E.M. And it wasn’t the best song on the 45! The B-side was a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again.” It’s not just the song itself that’s great. You have to understand how this song, this album, and this band hit me in 1983. I had never conceived that a place could be as musically DEAD as Louisville. Honolulu proved me wrong. The entire time I was stationed there, I went to a whopping three concerts: Willie Nelson, the Pretenders (on successive nights…side note: Pretenders drummer Martin Chambers was at the Willie show), and R.E.M. on Halloween 1984. And, to prove how musically dead Honolulu was, the opening band was a local outfit called “And the Jets.” About 2/3 of the people packed into the Aloha Ballroom were there to see them, not R.E.M. After the opening act, the place got empty. That gave me a GREAT position in front of the stage as Michael Stipe morphed “We Walk” into “Behind Closed Doors.” I was hooked for life. With nothing but the records to rely on, R.E.M. was my “gateway drug” into the amazing, fascinating world of college rock. That’s where I’d spend most of the next decade. And it all started with this song. Thanks, guys. You saved my musical life in Honolulu. Thank y’all for reading. Radio Free Europe Written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe Recorded by R.E.M. From Murmur, 1983 It could polish up the gray: