I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of talented people on projects big and small. Today, the story of meeting a band I loved in high school and making an unofficial video for one of their songs.

Senior year of high school, the fall of 1984, must be when I first heard Los Lobos. “Will the Wolf Survive? didn’t hit big on radio, but it got constant MTV play. It’s about trying to preserve Mexican culture while living in mainstream America. It’s also a metaphor for musicians who want to be heard. A white high school kid in Iowa can’t relate directly, but I think everybody knows about feeling like an outsider.

Not long later, Los Lobos’ biggest commercial success was their 1987 cover of “La Bamba,” from the Ritchie Valens biopic starring Lou Diamond Phillips.

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You didn’t think this 1982 Top 20 hit from Steel Breeze was Rick Springfield, did ya?

It’s mostly the chorus that sounds Springfieldian, but I would swear I had a Limewire download that said it was Rick.

Remember Blessid Union of Souls and “I Believe?”

I’m linking out to the version of the “I Believe” video that uses the original album track. Until writing this, I didn’t realize until there was a radio edit. That version has the lyric “One day, daddy’s gonna find out she’s in love with a brother from the streets.” On the album, it’s not “brother.”

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I’m a lyrics guy, but the right melody can travel the globe.

In 1985, Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” went to #1 in the USA, even though most of the lyrics are in German. Four years earlier, Falco’s “Der Kommissar,” also in German, was a smash across Europe, but stalled at #72 in the states.
My high school Deutsch ist vergessen, but “Der Kommissar” tells the story of a woman who really likes cocaine, has friends who died from cocaine, and is getting hassled by a police “commissioner.”

Then, in 1982, British band After the Fire rewrote “Der Kommissar” with English lyrics that tell the same basic story. Cocaine is still “sugar” and “snow.” This time, the song went to #5 in America.

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You hear a song for years and think you know the band, but maybe you don’t. It’s no accident the band below sounds like The Beatles, but it’s actually New Jersey’s The Knickerbockers.

The Knickerbockers’ singer Buddy Randell really could play the saxophone, and in the video, you can see him put it to his lips just as the guitar solo kicks in, but if it’s there, it’s buried in the mix. Buddy’s around 24 in this clip, but he had a radio hit with another band before he was even 18.

 The Royal Teens went to #3 in 1958 with “Short Shorts.” On the single, Buddy plays the signature sax riff and says, “Man, dig that crazy chick.” In the clip below, someone else is faking to Buddy’s part. By 1958, the song was a hit, but Buddy left that band because he was still in high school and couldn’t tour. Bob Gaudio is definitely the guy on piano here. Gaudio co-wrote “Short Shorts” and, eventually, went on to perform with Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons for decades.