At the start of 1986, I was no longer living at home with my parents. I was holding down a job at the mall and making a new life back on Long Island, meeting new people and rekindling old friendships. The sound of that time, for me, was as much new wave as it was pop, but sometimes the two would intersect. Presenting Mad About You by Go-Go extraordinaire Belinda Carlisle. As you know by now, I remember every year from back then by the songs that provided the background soundtrack. Mad About You is the cover song for 1986. It envelops me with feelings of newness and excitement about my youthful freedom untethered to parents. It speaks to me of the freedom to express the true me, the one boxed up in a cedar chest at the back of a closet for so long. Recently Chris and I saw Head Over Heels, a new Broadway musical using the music of the Go-Gos. And though this song isn’t technically a Go-Gos song, it was used, pretty brilliantly, throughout the show. It made me feel young again. Just as I feel every time I hear this song on the radio.
From the historical writing archive. Original date: December 14, 2018. Recovered from local source material; editorial review is still in progress.