what about prom?

I was browsing my collection of Billboard Top 100 single sets for post ideas when I ran across this track, number twenty-four from 1988:

Richard Marx – Hold on to the Nights (from Richard Marx, 1987)

Another sappy pop song from an era lousy with them, right? Except this sappy pop song happened to be Woburn High's Class of 1990 senior prom theme, and coming across it triggered a crippling bout of mnemonic nausea. Willful suppression only goes so far where memories of adolescent angst are concerned.

The track’s surface qualities aren’t noticeably different than other works in the same vein – Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” or REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” It’s a bit of bog-standard MOR pop nonsense, ideal prom theme material and the soundtrack to countless teenage ass gropes masquerading as “slow dances.”

Musically speaking, I don’t think it’s possible to come up with a worse year to hold a prom than 1990. The DJ’s playlist was etched in blood on parchment made from the skin of a murdered infant. Sure, John Cusack was able to showcase his hipster cred during the Class of ’87 reunion scenes in Grosse Pointe Blank, but anyone who has been on the front lines knows the truth. Instead of Tones On Tail and Siouxsie and the Banshees, the reality would be Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”. It’s the same story throughout history; loads of Baby Boomers claim they were at Woodstock, no one owns up to buying the 45 of “Sugar Shack”.

Here’s what we were treated to on that May evening at the Danversport Yacht Club:

Milli Vanilli – Blame It on the Rain (from Girl You Know It’s True, 1989) – I know it’s an old, old joke, but that album title still brings a smile to my face.

The Bangles – Eternal Flame (from Everything, 1988) – A girl I dated in college dragged me across metro Boston from record shop to record shop in search of this song/LP. A full account of those events will be detailed in my forthcoming self-help tome, Obvious Relationship Warning Signs: How To Spot Them and Act Before It’s Too Late, You Dense Idiot.

I hardly needs to be said, but these are not the sort of tracks likely to impress a alt-rock girl into snowboarding and Jane’s Addiction, i.e. my prom date. As the night wore on, my mulletheaded and big-haired classmates bopped to the gluten-enriched whitebread soul of Rick Astley and the well-intentioned nightmarish teen pop of Debbie Gibson, and I watched my romantic schemes wither and rot on the vine.

“What do you think of the prom?”

“It’s nice.”

What do you think of the food?”

“It’s nice.”

The long, quiet ride back to her house and the quick peck on the cheek as she exited the car was merely a sad epilogue to the evening’s events.

Shit, that was depressing. How about I make it up with some “reel” life prom themes?

Josie Cotton – He Could Be the One (from Convertible Music, 1982) – The not-quite-PC “Johnny, Are You Queer?” (originally written for the Go-Go’s) is the Josie Cotton track most folks remember from the movie Valley Girl, but this is the song that plays as Nicholas Cage and Deborah Foreman flee the prom. It’s a great piece of new wave pop with retro sixties touches.

OMD – If You Leave (from the Pretty In Pink soundtrack, 1986) – This track really needs no explanation. If you’re among the scores of folks who thought Ducky got a raw deal at the end of the film, there’s a new version of Pretty In Pink out on DVD that includes the original ending where he hooks up with Molly Ringwald’s character. John Hughes changed the ending partly because he thought it sent a wrong message that rich kids and poor kids don’t belong together. Fuck John Hughes.