MusicMonday—A Violent Femmes Song

Ross and Karen were here on Saturday (yay!) and Ross kept randomly singing out a little riff of a tune.  I knew it right away as from Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes, a huge song from my favorite 80’s.  I’ve kept that song around all these years and listen to it every so often.  This is the cd I have. I know it doesn’t even sound like that great of a song, but it is that great of a song.  It brings back lots of fun memories for me.  Plus, very catchy, that tune. 

It was played every night that I was at the top of Page One tavern as a college student in Charleston, even though that would have been 1987ish, a few years past this song coming out on their first album, called Violent Femmes, released in 1983. 

The second story of the uptown building would open as a dance bar called Roc’s on certain nights, and I hung out and danced there practically every night it was open.  I may or may not (may not if you are Gill children or Harrell parents reading this) have consumed my share of warm quarter-beers (yes, they really cost a quarter!) in the world’s most flimsy plastic cups, so flimsy that they caved in on the sides as you held the cup.  

Combine the crappiness of the cups, the craziness of the crowd, and the all the dancing going on, and there was always inches of beer literally covering the dance floor by the early morning hours.  Now I wonder how I made it to my morning classes, but I always did.  

I had a designated pair of lace-up black leather boots, sorta like these, that were the only footwear I would wear to that place, knowing that whatever touched the floor was going to be beer-soaked, stinky, and ruined.  I even had my designated party jeans, a certain pair of acid washed ones with holes in the knees.   My friend had some Jordache ones with the bows at the top of the back zipper and those were her regulars.  Gosh, I think I had forgotten how tall waisted jeans used to be.I guess I would change up my tops for some variety, but basically we had our uniform for going out.  And I remember, I always sprayed myself with White Shoulders perfume which really doesn’t seem to match my style at that time, but I guess I liked it.  I don’t think any pictures of me even exist from this era, but I would kinda like to see them now.  Big time fun!  One of the main reasons why I love this song…

Click here to read more about the Violent Femmes.  You’ll find they do have a sense of humor.