No. 793 – Round and Round

Performer: Ratt

Songwriters: Robbin Crosby, Warren DeMartini, Stephen Pearcy

Original Release: Out of the Cellar

Year: 1984

Definitive Version: None

So how do you top yesterday’s post? You don’t. You just shift gears.

As I said at the outset of this autobiographical music review half a year ago: This is my list; I don’t apologize for any of it. I suppose that’s not entirely true. Every now and then a guilty pleasure will sneak its way on here.

I suppose some wags would argue that all of my songs are guilty pleasures. Whatever. We can’t all be Lester Bangs, can we? And I heartily would defend most of the more substantial charges: America? Fugedaboudit. They were good. They were no Dan Fogelberg King of Wuss Pop. The Monkees? They toured with freakin’ Hendrix, all right? Nuff said there.

This song on the other hand? Well … OK, you got me there. This song, which came out during my infamous sophomore year at Wabash, is the very definition of a guilty pleasure. That doesn’t mean I apologize for it. It’s one of those songs that for whatever reason just stuck with me.

Why, I couldn’t tell you, because as a general rule, I hate ’80s cheesy hair band metal (redundant, I know) like I hate getting my teeth drilled. But every rule has exceptions, and this song is a definite exception. I dig it, and I don’t (really) apologize for it. I mean, this is no Final Countdown, after all.

I would suspect that my point of view respective of this song has something to do with another truism I touched on at the outset of this here list: Oldies statio … er, Classic Rock stations exist because people tend to gravitate to the music they listened to when they first got laid. And considering that this song came out in the springtime of my loving, it makes perfect sense.

After Christmas 1983, EVERYTHING was delightful to me. That includes gray Indiana corn fields, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and, yes, even some cheesy hair-band metal.