Today I heard Huey Lewis and The News on the radio twice on my way to work. Once I got to my desk, I immediately looked online to see if Huey had died. Just seemed strange to hear him twice in a 45 minute period when I almost never hear him on the radio. Good news – Huey is still alive. Just a coincidence.

The other song I’ve heard a number of times recently is Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.”  With all her hits, seems strange that that’s the song they would resurrect. Maybe it is in some movie soundtrack this summer.

One summer when I was in college, my dad helped me get a job at a radio station, now Mix 107.3, calling people and running through a list of songs and asking, on a scale of one to ten, if they liked the song. They used that data to then determine which songs were rotated in the playlist more often. That was the summer the Eurythmics were becoming popular and “Sweet Dreams” was big. I, of course, would stumble over the pronunciation of their name, which seems ridiculous now, but it was strange back then.

The job was pretty good although I only worked about 4 hours a day and had to drive from Falls Church to Bethesda to get there. Isn’t that far but I think I started at 5pm which put me right in the middle of rush hour trying to get there. One night, there was an accident on the American Legion Bridge (at that time it was the Cabin John Bridge) and I never made it to work. In fact, it took me 5 hours to loop back home via the George Washington Parkway through Rosslyn and then up Route 50 to get home. As it was summer, it was a sweltering day and we were literally parked on the beltway. What an evening. With the limited hours, I didn’t earn a lot that summer but I did earn enough to buy a decent camera that I needed for my photojournalism class. I still have that camera.

1983 was a good year for music. One of the other songs that was big that summer was “Jeopardy” by The Greg Kihn Band. When I hear it or play it now, I still turn the volume way up. Only way that song should be played.