My Gen X Playlist: Eighties – Killing Joke

I was excited that I made the cut to purchase Olympic tickets. I was studying the website, trying to get up to speed so I wasn’t fumbling around on my day to buy.

Where was track and field? Oh, they refer that as athletics. Weird. What’s the difference between artistic gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics. I just knew I wanted to watch regular gymnastics, not the kind with balls and flags.

Team sports. That was a tricky one. There was no way to tell what country you’d be watching. I’m a big fan of basketball and volleyball, but no offense to Albania or Kiribati, but I have no desire to drop money on tickets to watch you guys play. Team sports were out.

When my time arrived, I was a little disappointed at the selection and prices. The sports I wanted to watch were slim pickens. The only tickets that were available were over $250 for preliminary completion. Finals, forget about it. Some were easily over a thousand bucks.

There were other random sports where tickets were more reasonable, but not reasonable enough to drop a hundred bucks (minimum) to watch. Actually, make that two hundred for an additional ticket for my wife. Do I really want to watch water polo or judo for $200 – $300? Not really. But I did want to see something. I decided to pick up a few tickets to handball and field hockey for 30 bucks a ticket. It’s random, I know. But why the hell not. It’s the Olympics. And who knows, it just might be fun.

The last time the summer Olympics was in Los Angeles was 1984. I looked up the top 100 songs for that year. Turns out this was from a limited informal survey with no credible data or science to back up the results. I did find many of the songs already made my playlist and found one song I hadn’t heard in ages. Here is Eighties by Killing Joke.

Nirvana copied the guitar riff on their 1991 hit “Come As You Are.” It’s a pretty blatant rip-off and Killing Joke considered legal action, but after Kurt Cobain died, they dispensed with any thoughts of a lawsuit. Dave Grohl and Jaz Coleman later became good friends, and Grohl played drums on the 2003 self-titled Killing Joke album.

Songfacts

Yeah, I hear the similarities between the two. Before we cry foul, it turns out Killing Joke may have ripped off the riff from the Damned’s Life Goes On. I’m sure the Damned also stole it from someone else. But to us non-musician normal folk, we really don’t care. A good song is a good song.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

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

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

Eighties - I'm living in the eighties - I push
Eighties - I'm living
Eighties - I'm living in the eighties - I struggle
Eighties - I'm living

Eighties - I'm living
Eighties - I'm living in the eighties
Eighties - I'm living in the eighties - I push
Eighties - push, push, struggle

Eighties - I'm living

Eighties - eighties - I'm living
Eighties - I'm living in the eighties - I push