Favorite Songs of 1981

For 1981, I generally just listened to the average top-40 radio stations around for my music. This is because music had not yet been split up and over-specialized on different stations according to genre. There was a good mix of all types of popular music to listen to without changing the dial! The Moody Blues had two good songs I liked from 1981 in The Voice and Gemini Dream. Rising star Sheena Easton beat that with three: For Your Eyes Only, Morning Train (9 to 5), and Modern Girl. British bands Queen and ELO each came out with different-sounding tunes in Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Hang On Tight, respectively. Time got the "treatment" by the Alan Parsons Project with Time and by Styx with their classic Too Much Time On My Hands. Rush's phenomenal album Moving Pictures came out this year (it would be eleven more years before I discovered it) and with it, the unique, weird hit Tom Sawyer. Neil Diamond showed his patriotic side with America. Hank Williams Jr.'s A Country Boy Will Survive is one of my all-time country favorites. The Theme from Hill Street Blues, by Mike Post, was my favorite instrumental from 1981. Juice Newton hit the big time this year with her Queen of Hearts, a song that may have entered into Tom Petty's subconscious when he dreamed up his Running Down a Dream a few years later. Rod Stewart told a poignant story of a young couple in love in Young Turks. REO Speedwagon came out with a "Bo Diddley-beat" song: Don't Let Him Go. Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Lang Syne was a great seasonal song about a tender but bittersweet reunion. Blondie's tribute to rap music, Rapture, wasn't such a big hit with me in 1981, but it grew over the years and is now by far my favorite of that group. Swing Town, by the Steve Miller Band, and Sausalito Summernight, by Diesel, were two similar-sounding early autumn "happy" songs. Hall and Oates came out with three great tunes in '81: Kiss on My List, Private Eyes (my #3 favorite from that year, and I Can't Go For That (my #2 favorite). My top record from 1981 had to be Kim Carnes, scratchy voice and all, belting out her memorable Bette Davis Eyes, a song that, in spite of hearing it played so often, I never tired of listening to.