1985 Top Ten Songs: Renaissance Eyes (#9)

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Hey, how about someone ELSE you’ve never heard of for 1985 to go with the head-shaker from 1955? I’m full of them, y’know! (Full of it, too, but that’s besides the point. ) This guy is actually easy to explain, even if you’ve never heard of him. We go back 40 years and the next song on the list. #9: Renaissance Eyes - Don Dixon Bad news: Hootie and the Blowfish covered this. And their version is awful. Good news: Don Dixon’s original is simply superb. To explain Dixon is rather simple: he produced R.E.M.’s first two albums. He also produced albums by the Smithereens, Marshall Crenshaw, and Tommy Keene. In fact, he was actually going to be the producer of the Nirvana Nevermind album, but, as Dixon put it, “me and my people” asked for too much money to do the project. As a performer, most of his music is buried deep in the college rock annals of the 80s (where I loved to dig around back then). This is from his debut album, which had a funny title and an MTV hit (“Praying Mantis”) to help sell it. These days, Dixon and wife, singer/songwriter Marti Jones, live in Canton, Ohio (you’d think a man born in South Carolina and educated in North Carolina could do better than the Rust Belt! ) and still occasionally perform locally. Dixon is still loved and cherished as one of the great singer/songwriter/producers of the 80s, as this song with its beauty and underlying humor (“I would steal a Cadillac to touch you”) shows. Hope he sued Hootie for what they did to this masterpiece. Renaissance Eyes Written by Don Dixon Recorded by Don Dixon From Most of the Girls Like to Dance But Only Some of the Boys Do, 1985 Dress you in fashion: