Monday April 5, 2021 “Walking On a Thin Line” Huey Lewis and the News

Sixty years ago in March of 1961 the US paperback version of Nineteen Eighty-Four-A Novel written by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was published.  OK I am stretching for some relevance for this week’s theme.

 The truth is, the local radio station that I frequent has a regular feature called the Ten at Ten comprising ten songs from a particular year for the month that the feature airs and I happened to catch March 1984 the other day and was impressed by the variety of interesting songs that the show contained.  So this week we are going back to 1984...all week...and I don’t think you will be disappointed.

 Let’s start with a guilty pleasure, Huey Lewis & the News,  the band that backed Elvis Costello on his first album My Aim Is True (except for “Watching the Detectives”) where the Attractions were really Lewis’ band Clover. Rock can be such a small and incestuous world. 

Before that Huey Lewis had also built a solid reputation as a harmonica player and can be found on Thin Lizzy’s 1978 Live & Dangerous album/CD as well as Bruce Hornsby’s Grammy winning, multi-platinum album/CD, The Way It Is, which Lewis also produced..

 There are stories about what an intelligent guy Huey Lewis is with claims that he got an 800 on the math SAT when he took that test while he was a young high school student at Lawrenceville School in NJ.  He was also an All-State pitcher on the Lawrenceville baseball team.

 "Walking On a Thin Line" was released in 1984 as the fifth and final single from the Huey Lewis & the News album, Sports, and is considered one of the band's more "serious" songs, about the thoughts of Vietnam War soldiers and veterans in the midst of the war.  It was a top twenty song and helped push the album/CD to number one and go Platinum (400K sales) seven times over.

 Sadly, Huey Lewis, reportedly one of the nicest people in the music business, is suffering from Meniere's disease and has lost most of his hearing and therefore his ability to sing or perform.

 Stay safe and well...and remember those who have made the sacrifice for all of us to enjoy the freedoms that we have.

Sometimes in my bed at night

I curse the dark and a pray for light

And sometimes, the light's no consolation

Blinded by a memory

Afraid of what it might do to me

And the tears and the sweat only mock my desperation

Don't you know me I'm the boy next door

The one you find so easy to ignore

Is that what I was fighting for?

Walking on a thin line

Straight off the front line

Labeled as freaks loose on the streets of the city

Walking on a thin line

Straight off the front line

Take a look at my face, see what it's doing to me

Taught me how to shoot to kill

A specialist with a deadly skill

A skill I needed to have to be a survivor

It's over now or so they say

Well, sometimes, it don't turn out that way

Cause your never the same when you've been under fire

Don't you know me I'm the boy next door

The one you find so easy to ignore

Is that what I was fighting for?

Walking on a thin line

Straight off the front line

Labeled as freaks loose on the streets of the city

Walking on a thin line

Straight off the front line

Take a look at my face, see what it's doing to me