Don’s Top 10 From January 19, 1982

(#6 last week) "Captain Kangaroo" once did a puppet vignette of this song. I tried to find it online but failed. :-( The handclap chorus here has made the song a favorite audience-participation tune at H&O concerts.

(#12 last week) In the TMI department, co-writer Jay Graydon revealed he came up with the melody for this hit while in the bathroom. This was one of the first pop hits to feature a Linn LM-1 drum machine, programmed by Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro.

(#7 last week) This wasn't one of Kenny's all-time biggest singles in its original chart run, but it's arguably one of his two or three most enduring ones, because of it's natural connection to life themes, like birthdays & anniverseries.

(#10 last week) The single may have peaked at #2 (for 10 weeks nationally!), but Foreigner's current album is #1 for a 7th big week. The distinctive synthesizer on the single was performed by the then-unknown Thomas Dolby (1983's "She Blinded Me With Science")..

(#5 last week) Yes, this is the same song as the hit by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers in 1956. This was Diana's debut on RCA Records after 20 years with Motown.

(#3 last week) I'd say this was the most unlikely hit record artist ever, but the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, The Royal Scot Dragoon Guards & Sen. Everett Dirksen would make that incorrect. The RFO take up the "medley" craze started by Stars On 45 months earlier in 1981.

(#8 last week) Kind of surprising smash hit from a band that had been around for a decade, but undeniably catchy. Men are nuts: the song is about a man who is shocked to discover that his high school crush appeared in a centerfold spread for a men's magazine. He can't decide between his anger & his desire.

(#4 last week) We didn't know it then, but this was EWF's swan song on the charts, ending a great run of almost 7 years as one of pop & soul's most consistent hitmakers. Lead singer Philip Bailey did have one gigantic hit apart from the band, "Easy Lover", in 1985.

(#2 last week) #1 pop, #1 R&B, #1 Dance/Disco. Nice trifecta for the duo from Philadelphia. When Hall was told he had the #1 soul hit in the U.S., he wrote in his diary, "I'm the head soul brother in the U.S. Where to now?" Well......how about nine more top 10 hits?

(#1 last week; 8th week at #1) *****WARNING****** R-RATED VIDEO. Honestly, I'd forgotten about this utterly bizarre video, which was banned in many places. I mean, the song itself is an obvious double-entendre (which Olivia mildly denied), but the video makes it perfectly clear what this is all about. Some will laugh, others will cringe. Maybe both. Newton-John's career on the charts arguably never recovered (she did have three more top 10 singles), after this, her all-time biggest hit. Irony.