But while the song is perfectly fitting in that context, and Dee's performance of it perfectly moving, it is, of course, the version from the album Stay Hungry that rocked this eleven-year-old's socks in the summer of '84.
To speak nothing of the video. My little snickering buddies and I would re-enact the opening sequence that showcases Mark Metcalf reprising his role (sort of) from Animal House. I seem to recall putting on an actual stage show one evening, gathering neighbor kids together to vote on who did the best impersonation. (I'm sure we all sucked.)
The funniest part of the video is when Metcalf scurries up the stairs and comes face to face with Dee in full hideous 'twisted' regalia...the look on his face cracked me up then, and still does. (Although, truth be told, this jerk-off - not Metcalf, but the character he portrays - is probably too prevalent a father figure in too many American families, that is, too many kids' actual experience, to really be funny.)
One thing I appreciate about this song now that I didn't when I was a kid was Dee Snider's killer voice. Listen closely, it's just a beast of a vocal, and Dee can still tear it up. That's partially what makes the 2016 childhood cancer version moving.
Interesting (er, maybe not...) side note about this song: one of the waypoints of my life in the last fifteen years that told me in no uncertain terms that I was getting older, was seeing this song in a diapers commercial. I can't remember if it was Pampers or Luvs, or whatnot, but there was a little army of future head-banger babies crawling along with this song playing. At the time I was annoyed, but that's mostly because I hadn't made peace with the passage of time just yet.
Now, what the hell...? I'm down...really, why should babies have to "take it" any more than adults?
"Your life is trite and jaded, boring and confiscated / If that's your best, your best won't do..."
#234) "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister - Same thing as above, really. Mostly funny, but still, you can't stop listening when the song plays. There's something compelling about it. Truly must be Dee Snider's voice...
"I've waited for so long so I could hear my favorite song, so let's go..."
#235) "1969" by Keith Stegall - This song was released in the mid-1990s, when I was a deejay at a "hot country" radio station. It didn't make a lot of headway on the charts, nor much of a dent in our station's listenership (not a lot of requests to hear it during Friday night's "Request Express with Dave Kline!" ;-), but twenty years on, I still really enjoy this thoughtful reminiscence, this reflection on troubled times.
In the course of my life, there's been no shortage of looking back on the Sixties, that's for sure. By the time "1969" was released, the decade had already been examined and interpreted six ways from Sunday, and between The Wonder Years and Family Ties, the Monkees revival and Led Zeppelin's command of "classic rock" radio, the (rightful) lionization of Jim, Jimi, and Janis, the Stones, the Beatles and Bob (er, Dylan), not to mention I don't know how many movies about Vietnam, there's definitely been some overkill. But the somber melody and what the lyrics are actually saying, I think, set "1969" apart. Rather than idealizing the times, or glorifying them, they are recalled here with a kind of tired resignation that befits how it all played out, and ended. How all eras play out and end, really.
Plus, make it 1989 instead of '69, and I can relate pretty well, because some things never change. America is a tough town, when you're eighteen with a child...
"It was the age of innocence, but our innocence was fading / We waited for the best of times, and just kept waiting..."
