Each day in November, I’m revisiting a song from the 90’s — a decade that was a sorta coming of age for me. In that span, I experienced high school, college and my time as a young single guy in New York City. It was a decade of ups and downs, and the music never stopped playing during that span. It was always there with me. #30DaysOf90sSongs
1990 was an interesting year in music. Synth pop seemed to be having a late resurgence with acts like Electronic and Anything Box. Grunge was laying down its roots with Nirvana, Alice in Chains and others. And a new genre called shoegaze was taking shape off the heels of Cocteau Twins and new artists like Ride and Slowdive. But that same year, a simple, straight ahead rock song called “Joey” made its way onto the radio and I couldn’t get myself to stop listening to it.
I never got into Concrete Blonde as a band, but “Joey” might be my favorite song of 1990. It lived in this vanilla, mid-tempo world, but the lyrics were so personal and sincere. It’s a song about being in love with an alcoholic, but it turns out lead singer Johnette Napolitano was writing about her boyfriend Marc Moreland, guitarist for Wall of Voodoo. Like some of the best songs in history, “Joey” was able to go from a deeply personal song from Napolitano to a song that every listener could make its own. You didn’t have to be in love with an alcoholic to have that song mean something to you. That’s the power of the song.
“I know you've heard it all before, so I don't say it anymore. I just stand by and let you fight your secret war.”