Heavy Metal Parking Lot

I forgot that I was planning on mentioning this over the weekend until I showed up at work again today…

On Friday with only an hour or so left in the day we were doing the lazy late-afternoon hangout thing—talking about music from our youth. With the addition of my large iTunes library it was very fun. “Oh! You mean this song?” Dana was mentioning that The Cars’ “Let’s Go” was her perfect driving song growing up. Of course she was an LA child so her experiences driving down Sunset Blvd. as a teenager were a bit different from me driving through the wooded lanes of small-town New England. For me “Cecilia Ann” by The Pixies holds that coveted spot of the perfect teenage driving song.

Talk eventually turned, for whatever reason, to karaoke and general amazement from people when I declared that “Ballroom Blitz” was my “signature” song. Of course I used to drink too. A lot. But that’s behind me now—though I haven’t yet had the courage to try karaoke sober. Anyway, I started pointing out other songs I liked to do in karaoke and we eventually got to Judas Priests’ “Living After Midnight”.

That led to talk about how silly so much of the metal scene in the 80’s. Of course at the time we thought it was dark and (at least on my part) a bit scary. It’s inevitable if you talk about silly heavy metal and Judas Priest that someone eventually brings up “Heavy Metal Parking Lot”. If you haven’t experienced it yet, I strongly suggest you click that link and relive the the glory of 1986.