Every generation needs an anthem, a standard bearing song for their slice of the great passing tide of humanity. And that's what we're on about today, a song of a generation that has lept across other generations, mostly to sell shoes and stuff.

EMI/YOUTUBE
EMI/YOUTUBE
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Did my generation, the grad class of the mid-eighties, even have an anthem? Something that was emblematic of our mark on this planet, a song that wasn't immediately co-opted, and swallowed whole and spit back as an advertising slogan? I'm trying hard to think, but can't come up with anything. Those folks in the sixties and seventies, they had a lock on the generational-defining tune. What did we have? "What I Like About You?" "Sunglasses At Night?" Please don't say it's "We are The World." Eeeyah, I suppose this song will do, even though it's British, and was written by singer Kim Wilde's dad and brother, and wasn't something torn from her soul, agonized over, put out there and taken to our collective hearts and minds. Her dad, a British pop star in the fifties, wrote it. This guy.

martywilde.com
martywilde.com
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I wonder if Kim Wilde, or her dad, knew what it was like to be a kid in America, to get a Slurpee at the 7-11, to skin your knee stealing your older brother's skateboard and slamming it sideways against the curb, to almost kill yourself jumping off the high dive at the city park pool. This song, written by outsiders looking in, based on what? the media's image of what us kids in America were really like, most likely represented in sitcoms and...commercials?

EMI
EMI
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Sorry, I was rambling there. Anybody still reading? Though this song peaked at 29 in 1982, it's had great legs over the decades, has been covered many times, including twice by Kim Wilde herself. So please now to enjoy today's-

-K-101.7 SONG OF THE DAY!

P.S: Speaking of anthems in 1980's, none were more adept at it then Rush. Combine that with puppets and you've got THIS!

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