Favorite Songs: #12 to #11

#12 Destination Unknown by the Missing Persons (from Spring Session M, 1982)

More than any other song, Destination Unknown captures for me the spirit of the New Wave movement in popular music, something that, in light of the disco “dark ages” of preceding years, I’ll be forever grateful for. Missing Persons was a west-coast band that dressed outlandishly in their performances, especially lead singer Dale Bozzio. While this group’s appearance was, in my opinion, tacky and comical, the production they used in their studio recordings was very refined and professional. In late 1982, they came out with two successive single hits, Words and Destination Unknown. Words, which I also liked a lot, featured Bozzio showing off her tremendous vocal range, with an occasional wink of an eye to classic cartoon character Betty Boop’s singing style. The longer of the two songs, it was about the frustration of someone who felt she could get no one to listen to her or care. I preferred the latter tune, Destination Unknown. Shorter and more repetitious, it nevertheless connected with me on a deeper level, conveying a mood of mystery and excitement about life’s courses. Missing Persons, despite these two wonderful songs, never really took off as a major international band the way that its contemporary, Blondie, did. And its videos were so shallow and silly that they were embarrassing to watch. But during its peak popularity in late 1982, Missing Persons, in my opinion, was the best New Wave band around.

#11 Number Nine Dream by John Lennon (from Walls and Bridges, 1974)

John Lennon and I go back to 1964, when I used to love hearing him scream out songs like Twist and Shout, Slow Down, Money, and Rock and Roll Music. Later on, songs like A Day in the Life, Doctor Robert, Tomorrow Never Knows, I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever, Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey (my favorite long-title song), and Across the Universe were all basically John Lennon contributions to the Beatles that are favorites of mine. I think that, looking back on their careers, John Lennon was the Beatle who had the most profoundly significant solo career, this in spite of the fact that he was in self-imposed retirement from 1976-79 and then murdered in late 1980. If I were to make up a “Top Ten” of my favorite solo Beatle works, George Harrison would have a couple on it and John Lennon would have the rest. Songs like Instant Karma, Working Class Hero, Gimme Some Truth, Oh Yoko, Mind Games, Watching the Wheels, and Nobody Told Me (released three years after his death) were all classics that only grew in stature through time. But Number Nine Dream was his best. Although this song had a Phil Spector feel to it, it was Lennon who produced it as well as the other tracks on his acclaimed Walls and Bridges album, pouring out his sensitive, mystical side in this beautiful, slow, dreamy piece. Ah! böwakawa, poussé, poussé…

Next Favorite Songs: #10 to #9