first round

(3) Philip Bailey & Phil Collins, “Easy Lover”
gagged
(14) Frank Zappa & Moon Unit Zappa, “Valley Girl”
with a spoon
221-204
and will play in the second round

Read the essays, listen to the songs, and vote. Winner is the aggregate of the poll below and the @marchxness twitter poll. Polls close @ 9am Arizona time on 3/9/23.

Alyson Shelton on “Easy Lover”

How is this song still even available? I am the #second to last pick. I cannot believe my luck. “Easy Lover”! Philip Bailey + Phil Collins—the kind of 80’s track that perfectly evokes a time in my life and floods my body with song related endorphins.
You know the feeling. The “Easy Lover” feeling™, it’s relief, the head bop, sure, but it’s also a giggle at your good fortune and the desire to tell everyone, maybe touch them gently, maybe shake them just the tiniest bit and say, “Listen to this song. It’s so good, right? I’ve always loved this song.” Then I force myself to stop talking and when they look at me like I’m making no sense, none at all, I almost don’t care. ‘Cause, right now I’m listening to “Easy Lover.” I’m like a duck in water, i.e. the water slides right off my back.
I have always adored “Easy Lover” from the moment I first heard it on Southern California's 102.7 KIIS FM until right now, when it’s jamming in my pilates class. (And in case you’re wondering, no one in my pilates class was particularly interested in how much I love “Easy Lover.”)
I’ve looked forward to listening to it over and over while I write this essay.
“Easy Lover” is an infectious, joyous track that peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of February 2, 1985. On the extensive list of “One Hit Wonders” the song is listed with only the name of Philip Bailey (makes sense it was a single from Philip Bailey’s third solo album, Chinese Wall). While scrolling through the list on my computer, it slowly sinks in that more people than I’d like to admit don’t know who he is, don’t remember him as one of the legendary voices of Earth, Wind and Fire (EWF), which is not unlike most of my childhood compatriots from Newport Beach, California. A yachty, tennis centric, white as default, not only for your tennis garb but also for your musical and more broadly, cultural touchstones, kind of place.
And yet, more than any other band, EWF is the soundtrack of my childhood. We were the weird ones in Newport Beach. Real weird. My parents pioneered “conscious uncoupling” as “living together as ‘friends’ but divorced and yes we date other people and have sex with them and no, no, yeah, it’s not ideal, but it’s what we can manage right now.” They really needed better branding.
So yes, my family was leaning hard into the chaotic part of the 70’s catalyzed by my mother’s search for her true self. EWF arrives on the scene at around the same time that her journey of discovery deposits her on the corporate park doorstep of the Lifespring training, a course much like the est trainings (Erhard Seminars Training). They branded themselves (excellently in my opinion) as “human potential” trainings.
est is now Landmark. And Lifespring is now defunct, after being plagued by lawsuits, though many of the trainers went on to lucrative careers in business management training.
But back in the 70’s and early 80’s before Geraldo Rivera cracked the whole thing open on 20/20, Lifespring, was filled with exercises and epiphanies that led to tears and intimacy, some false and some real. At every single graduation I attended, of which there were too many to count, the grads stood in a circle with their eyes closed, holding hands, most of them gently weeping with emotion, and we’d go stand in front of our grad, ready to embrace the new, improved and more actualized version.
I’d wait, flowers in hand for the strong, too hard hugs, from my mother or mother’s friends and passionate declarations of love, while George Benson’s “The Greatest Love of All”, followed by EWF’s “Fantasy.” Both songs, all these decades later, serve like bullet trains to those anonymous conference rooms filled with spiritual seekers awash with what felt like the experience of a lifetime.
“After the Love is Gone” works as time travel too. I witnessed my lovelorn mom and her friends bemoan the fickle realities of love in the 70’s embraced by the soothing strains of Maurice White’s voice.
Philip Bailey references “After the Love is Gone” in his book, Shining Star: Braving the Elements of Earth, Wind and Fire, and how it is the only EWF song that even comes close to the sheer hit power and ubiquity that is his single, “Easy Lover.”
“Easy Lover” sent Philip Bailey to the stratosphere, cemented his solo career. In both his and Phil Collins’s reminisces about the recording of the last song for Philip Bailey’s album, Chinese Wall, there is nothing but love.
“Chinese Wall did well for me. It gave me autonomy, confidence, and authority in my own life and career…I had become my own Shining Star.”
Clearly, I am not the only one who believes that “Easy Lover” lives up to its title, it is decidedly easy to love. Even Phil Collins agrees in his book, Not Dead Yet: The Memoir,
“In the end we can only manage to write one song together, and that comes right at the end of the sessions. We set about this mission, and start improvising. Philip starts directing us, I sing something about a “choosy lover,” which becomes the working title. We record a rough and energetic take last thing at night, just so we remember it the next day. The following morning we like what we hear and that, pretty much, is the finished version…it’s eventually retitled “Easy Lover,” and released as a duet between the two Philips.”
Does it get any easier than that?
And back then, when it was heavy in rotation, I felt grateful every time it was on the radio. I was just eleven in the early days of 1985, and my older brother died accidentally in the summer of ‘84. Every baseball game, dark joke and most hits on the radio scraped a place in my heart that still felt raw. Navigating popular culture was akin to sitting on a porch at dusk and trying not to get bit by a mosquito. I’d slap at every song or sitcom that made me think of my just deceased brother but, they still stung, still made my eyes prick with tears.
Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” to this day devastates me. I still can’t connect the strands of why that song remains such a potent emotional trigger for me, one I can’t seem to dampen with exposure or time.
Do I imagine that he would have loved The Woman in Red which “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is from? The movie came out right after his death and he loved Gene Wilder, so maybe.
Or is it that I remembered to say “I love you” the last time I talked to him on the phone? And that I would never get to say those words again, not to him?
Those questions were far too wrought for me to consider them for long. There wasn’t a safe space to unpack the weight and heft of my grief, so I quietly carried it.
It was clear by early 1985 that most people expected me to,
“Move on.”
And
“Focus on all the good things in your life.”
We have a phrase for that now, it’s aptly named toxic positivity, in the 1980’s, in my family, we said,
“I’m fine.”
Even though we weren’t and wouldn’t be for years.
It’s possible that my desire to gently shake someone when I hear “Easy Lover” is not only because I love the song but because it captures my journey, from 1985 to here. It joyfully celebrates my survival. So when I endeavor to capture your attention, to try to get you to understand what this song means to me, can we take a minute and listen? Please? It would mean a lot to me, more than I can say.

Alyson Shelton writes about women across mediums + genres. She’s written about a superpowered and multi-faceted heroine in her comic Reburn, and uncovering childhood secrets in Eve of Understanding, the award winning feature she wrote and directed. In her award winning screenplay, The Night We Met, she tackles a psychological thriller through fractured realities and self-invention. She is working on a memoir in essays and her writing has been published widely at outlets including The New York Times, Ms., The Rumpus and more. Her generalist knowledge and approach make her the perfect fit for her podcast, Fine Cut, in which she and a guest take a deep dive into one scene of the guest’s choosing. You can learn more about her through her website, www.alysonshelton.com and her Instagram @byalysonshelton where she hosts a weekly Instagram Live series inspired by George Ella Lyon’s poem, Where I’m From, where she’s hosted over 70 writers and creatives.

jaime danehey on “valley girl”

The first time I heard the 1982 hit “Valley Girl” was in the mid-90s at “morning jam”—a post-breakfast dance party that kicked off each day of state student council camp in Wayne, Nebraska. The DJ was some cool college-aged counselor, who packed that CD because he knew we would be there. The gaggle of Valley girls. 
The song itself was new to me, but its imprint wasn’t—everyone knew what a Valley girl sounded like. I spent the 90s attending middle school and high school in Valley, Nebraska. While we didn’t use that 80s slang, the echo of the Valley Girl character was part of my self-image. Like, totally.

*

“I’m comparing the magnitude of the impact you [Moon Zappa] made on America to Madonna.” —Justine Bateman, Friday Night Videos, December 1985.

The 1980s added two new American teenage archetypes to the culture. There were already Jocks, Preps, Greasers, Nerds, Burnouts. . .but not until the 1980s did we have Goths and Valley Girls.
In the shorthand of pop culture, the Valley Girl was a teenager who loved shopping and hanging out at the mall with her friends. While a Goth was distinguished by clothing, hair and makeup, a Valley Girl’s calling card was language. She and her friends spoke their own hilarious dialect.
Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl” is directly responsible for this. In the L.A. region people may have been familiar with mall-going teenage girls talking in a unique slang about boys and clothes. But it wasn’t something people in the rest of the country knew about. With this song, Valley Girls and their way of speaking swept the culture outside of the San Fernando Valley.
We have Frank’s oldest child, 14-year-old Moon Zappa, to thank. Her effervescent portrayal of a Valley Girl charmed the masses. Frank was making a statement about materialism—but like teenagers throughout time, the kids in 1982 ignored that lesson and latched onto the fun at the core of the song. Moon’s humorous, but not mocking, delivery is the key to the song’s success and the spread of her speaking style. 

*

ABC could have produced a bitchin’ Afterschool Special on the origin story of “Valley Girl.” Moon was the oldest of four kids, with a musician father who toured the majority of the year. When he was home he worked in the home studio at night and slept in the day.  Frank had his own record label, and his wife Gail spent her time on managing the business side of everything. Musicians and friends came and went from the house regularly. 
Moon later described herself as “enchanted” by the Valley girls she met in school and at parties. She was fascinated by their confidence, freedom and lightness. When you spend a lot of time around adults and their hang ups, it can be amazing to meet girls intent on the pursuit of their own teenage interests, heedless of how they are judged by the larger world.
Frustrated by her father’s absence in her daily life, she left him a note. It proposed that since it was the only way she could spend time with him, she’d like to work with him in the studio.
One school night, Frank took her up on the offer. He woke her up around 2 a.m. and invited her into the studio to improvise some Val speak for a song he was working on. It was a playful session—Moon making her father laugh, responding to prompts, daughter and father making up ridiculous slang together.
She didn’t think anyone she knew would ever hear the track. Frank Zappa had been active since the ‘60s and had a devoted fan base, but he didn’t get played on the radio. Recording “Valley Girl” with her dad was unfiltered, private goofiness, with no thought about other people’s reactions.
The promo copy of the “Valley Girl” has a jacket dense with Frank’s own brand of marketing copy, puckish about the lack of interest that the industry has in his music. One example of many: “In the tradition of Aerosmith and Van Halen, which this album is not, excitement does not exist, nor will it mysteriously appear, since who cares if there’s another Zappa album anyway.” Frank and his band headed out for a May-August European tour; the single was released in June.
I cringed with recognition learning Moon’s reaction when she first heard the song on the radio. She felt bad. Her delivery on that song was partly imitating real people, would they feel hurt? The monologue about a teacher was based on a real person, would this bring him negative attention? It’s a special, shame-inducing dread when someone you make fun of finds out what you said. How much worse to have it coming over the car radio?
The success of “Valley Girl”—a Frank Zappa song that actually got played on the radio!—came as a surprise to everyone. With Frank overseas touring, Moon was expected to do promotion in his stead. Think of yourself at 14: can you imagine being thrust onto television alone to chat with old man talk show hosts and lip sync on Solid Gold? For your friends to see you? What a nightmare! Unlike her character in the song, Moon was well-spoken and used to conversing with adults. But she did not aspire to be a musician and it had to be a major drag to explain Valley Girls to adults over and over.
The song peaked at #32 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in September 1982. But pop culture was just getting started with Valley Girls.  

*

Let us give credit where credit is due: Moon Zappa’s performance on “Valley Girl” changed spoken American English. She spread “Val speak” nationwide, and added some key new phrases to the lexicon. Silly things she made up on the fly, like “gag me with a spoon” entered the teenage language canon. Justine Bateman was serious, in that Friday Night Videos clip linked earlier. Moon, who in 1982 was not old enough to drive a Chevette or buy a pack of Pall Malls, had a huge impact on our language.
Looking back, it makes perfect sense to me that girls embraced this new argot. Everything about it is fun: sharing a special dialect with your friends; saying “barf” a lot; and for sure annoying your parents and teachers.
The fad took hold quickly in the wake of “Valley Girl.” Before 1982 was over, the cartoonist Mimi Pond wrote and illustrated The Valley Girl’s Guide to Life, “prominent Beverly Hills speech pathologist” Dr. Lillian published How to Deprogram Your Valley Girl, a half-serious book with tips on fixing your daughter’s speech pattern, and the hit sitcom Family Ties premiered, featuring a teenage daughter who had the word “mall” in her name. In spring 1983, Martha Coolidge’s film Valley Girl was released, a rarity for its sympathetic curiosity about Valley Girls, and what it’s like to grow up with that group identity.   
That movie stands out, since—duh!—the larger pop culture was content to mock Valley Girls (teenage girls) for being annoying, shallow and stupid. Instead of hanging out with friends at the mall, what were they supposed to be doing? I think the answer is “focus on pleasing others.” A “good” teenage girl would be babysitting, doing homework, speaking respectfully, or cheering on their boyfriend at the big game.

*

I didn’t move to Valley, Nebraska, population ~1,600, until the very end of the ‘80s. This was a world away from Moon Zappa in Laurel Canyon, but I was also an oldest child with a busy mother and a far-away dad, who envied the seeming ease of other girls.
It took me a while to click at this new school but once I did, I loved the idea of being one of the Valley girls. The phrase still carried a feeling of being light, amusing, and (maybe most attractive) the security of traveling in packs.
Malls were nothing new by the time I became a Valley girl, but we still delighted in teenage talk. I can remember getting caught up in the flow of it—at school, on the bus, on the phone—full of our own made-up slang and in-jokes. I jotted a glossary in the front of one of my own journals, apparently worried that my future self would not remember what half of these words and nicknames referred to. (It’s too embarrassing to excerpt.)
Mentioning a teenage journal brings to mind all the painful moments and intense emotions of those years—the fodder for so many books, movies, and songs. “Valley Girl” gives us the flip side, which is more easily forgotten. What I love most about this song is the kernel of joy Moon delivers. The spirit of her performance reminds me of uninhibited goofing around with middle school friends, pure fun that only a 14-year-old girl could deliver.
That Valley Girl spirit was alive and well in us—getting wired by eating Tang out of the jar, using fake British accents at the mall, filming nonsensical comedy skits at sleepovers, and making up our own words to the classic rock songs on the radio. (Guess what we changed “American Girl” to?)

Jaime Danehey graduated from Valley High School in 1996. Her favorite store at the new Oakview Mall was Express.