Greg Kihn -- "Lucky"

(Debuted February 16, 1985, Peaked #30, 12 Weeks on the Chart)

Talk about being taken to a place in your life when you hear a song...

This song was a hit right when I had a girlfriend named Sherry. Since I was listening to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 show every Sunday at that time, I remember that whenever I hear the song. Ironically, its short lifetime within the Top 40 (four weeks) was about the length of time I went out with Sherry. As a result, this song and a few others from that month will be forever meshed in my mind with the memory of an old girlfriend. I'll be sure to mention this again in future entries.

Since Greg Kihn seemed to always use a pun on his last name for his albums, "Lucky" was from one called Citizen Kihn. It was Kihn's only Top 40 single after "Jeopardy" -- his biggest hit -- in 1983. After trying and failing with a few other singles, Kihn eventually went into the radio business, where he remains today. He still performs from time to time with his band, but his hitmaking career basically ended here.

That said, Greg and the band members seemed to have a lot of fun when they made the video below, even considering the bad graphic effects in it that definitely date it as a 1985 artifact. A Russian sub sinking a cruise ship, a studio alley scene, resless natives, comically bad superimposed extra elements, even a guy in a gorilla suit...it's almost like the record company said, "Here's $250, Greg...go make a video so we can get it on MTV in three days."

(Edited...YouTube pulled the video I had originally posted, so the previous paragraph makes little sense now. Instead, I put on a performance from the Solid Gold TV show to keep the music available.)