Day After Day #244: Eighties

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Eighties (1984)

When you hear a song with a similar riff as another one, is it plagiarism or homage? Nirvana was slammed in 1992 when "Come as You Are" bore a strong resemblance to Killing Joke's "Eighties," which came out seven years earlier. And indeed, Killing Joke considered filing a copyright infringement lawsuit, but it's unclear whether a suit was filed or if it was abandoned after Kurt Cobain's suicide.

And no doubt, the two songs have similar riffs. But then, one doesn't have to go back too far to find similar riffs to "Eighties": Garden of Delight's "22 Faces" (1984), the Damned's "Life Goes On" (1982) and Bauhaus' "Hollow Hills" (1981). And you could even say that 1968's "Baby Come Back" by the Equals (featuring a very young Eddy Grant) is also in the ballpark. I'd argue that while they're all similar, they all stand on their own as original and interesting songs. 

For now, let's focus on Killing Joke's song, which provided a stinging critique of a decade that wasn't even half over. Guitarist Geordie Walker shimmering guitar work drives the song along as singer Jaz Coleman spits out the repetitive but effective lyrics.

"Ah, Eighties/I'm living in the eighties/Eighties/I have to push, I have to struggle/Eighties/Get out of my way, I'm not for sale no more/Eighties/Let's kamikaze til we get there/And we sang/You do it this way."

The song's video features Coleman as a fascistic speaker at a podium while footage of world leaders like Reagan, Brezhnev, Thatcher, Anwar Sadat and Ayatollah Khomeini is intercut. 

"Eighties/By day we run, by night we dance, we do/Eighties/I'm in love with the coming race, oh/Eighties/I've got the best, I'll take all I can get/Eighties/I'm living for the eighties."

Coleman sings of the excess of the decade, but also the struggle of common people to keep up with everything going on in pop culture and global politics. 

"Eighties/I'm living, oh/Eighties/I'm living in the eighties, oh oh oh/Eighties/I'm living in the eighties, I push/Eighties/Push, push, struggle."

Killing Joke had been around since 1979 and quickly became one of the premier post-punk acts, balancing electronic and synth pop elements with heavier, guitar-oriented rock. In addition to Nirvana, the band was a big influence on other major acts to come including Nine Inch Nails, Metallica and Soundgarden. 

"Eighties" was released as a single in April 1984 (premiering it on The Tube in December 1983, see below), but later included on the 1985 album Night Time, which became the band's biggest album, getting to #11 on the U.K. Albums Chart. Killing Joke's next album was remixed by the label against the band's wishes to make it more commercial, but in the end it was a flop. In 1987, Coleman and Walker began working on a new album, but bassist Paul Raven and drummer Paul Ferguson ended up quitting the band after session players were brought in. The finished album, Outside the Gate, was controversial because of its extensive use of synths and diminished use of guitar. It was panned by critics, wasn't supported by any touring and was not released in the U.S.

Coleman and Walker put together a new lineup in 1988 with Martin Atkins (PiL) on drums and Dave Ball on bass (after trying out ex-Smiths bassist Andy Rourke and firing him after three days). After a tour, Ball left and Raven returned; a heavier album was released in 1990 and the band toured Europe and North America before splitting up again in 1991. The band has been on and off over the last three decades, releasing seven albums and touring. Raven died in 2007, and the original lineup of Coleman, Walker, Ferguson and Youth reunited. The band's most recent album was 2015's Pylon. Walker died last November at age 64 after suffering a stroke.

"Eighties" is one of Killing Joke's signature songs. It has been used by a number of TV shows and in a party scene in the 1985 movie Weird Science. Wherever the band came up with the riff, it has certainly served them well.

Terrible Lie

There's a lot of talk about lying these days. As the presidential election creeps ever closer, Obama and Romney take turns daily calling the other guy a liar and much worse. But you expect that from politicians. Unfortunately, the lying has increasingly popped up in the worlds of journalism and literature. The latest controversy is swirling around author Jonah Lehrer, who resigned from his staff writer position at The New Yorker after admitting he invented Bob Dylan quotes in his new, ironically-titled book Imagine: How Creativity Works.

Lehrer was found out by Michael Moynihan of Tablet Magazine, which published an article about Lehrer's made-up quotes, and indeed, Lehrer admitted lying when initially confronted by Moynihan. He's hardly alone in the literary sin bin: Just a few hours ago, Fareed Zakaria of CNN was suspended after an article he wrote for Time magazine on gun control plagiarized from an article in The New Yorker by Jill Lepore.

And of course, there are many authors and journalists who have been disgraced by their actions either plagiarizing others or straight out making up shit: James Frey, Mike Barnicle, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair. What I don't understand is why they do it. What makes a respected journalist or author risk their livelihood for a juicier story or a better quote? Especially when they know that what they're doing is wrong and if and when it gets out, they're screwed.

Recently, I listened to the episode of This American Life that featured monologist Mike Daisey talking about his trip to a Chinese factory that produced parts for Apple products. The episode featured excerpts of Daisey's one-man show "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" and was one of the most popular This American Life episodes...until the show later retracted the episode after it was discovered Daisey had fabricated entire characters and quotes. TAL ran an entire show dedicated to the retraction and digging into why Daisey did it and it was fascinating, if often painful, listening. Host Ira Glass apologized early and often for letting Daisey's journalistic miscues make the air, but to me, the most interesting part was hearing Daisey himself try to explain why he made up facts. Even as he admitted to fabricating huge chunks of the story, Daisey refused to concede that he had intentionally done anything wrong. Ultimately, it came down to what made for a more compelling story--and it was compelling, how he described underaged workers at the FoxConn plant and his tale of workers who had been poisoned by toxic chemicals in the plant (all of it untrue).

Sometimes the lure of a good story is too much, even if it's one you just made up. Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for her Washington Post article about an 8-year-old heroin addict. Only problem was, she invented the whole thing and the truth came out just two days after she won the Pulitzer.

Back in my days as a newspaper reporter, I never felt the need to make anything up. Although an intern at the paper was sent packing after she was found to have invented quotes for some silly feature she wrote. We were all shocked at the time. Another time, we realized a reporter for a rival paper was basically rewriting our articles a few days after our stories ran because he didn't attend the same meetings we did. He didn't put a byline on the articles. We were outraged, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it.

Twenty-two years later, I'm a hell of a lot more cynical about stuff like that. People have lied since the beginning of time. There's no reason to think they're going to stop any time soon.