Tune Tag #84 with Dan Pal of PalCinema, TV, & Music, Pt 2: Genesis, Police, Sonny & Cher, Prince, Starjets, Baltimora, Billie Joe Armstrong
👨🎓Professor Pal in the house, y'all! After 3 months wintering in Palm Springs, he teeters on the precipice of pedagogy retirement!🎉Plus, we have a birthday boy celebrating today!🎂😱
Tune Tag welcomes back , producer and director of PalCinema, Television, & Music, for his second Tune Tag! This was his first, exactly a year ago:
Last week, we had the pleasure of featuring of Radio Amor for our Tune Tag:
Next week, tune in as we welcome of Colin Poulton’s Newsletter for his very first Tune Tag!
Dan Pal has been a Film Professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Moraine Valley Community College, and College of DuPage. His work also includes film criticism, directing, screenwriting, producing, film festival programming, and memoir writing. His Substack page, the popular PalCinema, Television, and Music includes an archive of his film reviews, and can be accessed by clicking here!
Dan is also an avid music fan, and has hosted and administered annual Top Ten Parties for over 40 years!
Dan’s song #1 sent to Brad: The Police, “Synchronicity I,” 1983
Dan’s rationale: This is not only one of my favorite songs on my favorite Police album, but it is particularly relevant to me today. On my first Substack anniversary, I had 364 subscribers. That averages to about one a day. Brad referred to this as a form of synchronicity. I was already familiar with the concept thanks in part to the Police’s 1983 album.
While “Synchronicity II” was featured as a single from that album, I always loved Part I, which kicked off the album and set up some of the themes that would run throughout. Prior to this, I had been introduced to the band by my high school friend Mauro (about whom I wrote recently in my “Reflections on Teaching” series, as well as my “Top Ten Memoir: 1979”). We’d listen to The Police, Blondie, The Cars, and Devo in his parents’ basement after school trying to be “new wave.”
By the time Synchronicity came out, I was able to call myself a major fan of the band. I’d also been studying Psychology in college, and became fascinated by the various theories of Carl Jung, who wrote a lot about synchronicity. So, this song and album have a lot of significance to me!
For
’ recent Lipps Service audio/video interview with Police drummer, Stewart Copeland, click here!Brad’s song #1 sent to Dan: Genesis, “Home By the Sea,” 1983
Dan’s response: This is a deeper cut from Genesis’s big pop-chart heyday. I had a vague memory of it. My first inclination was to look for some kind of thematic connection between my first song and this one. Because I wasn’t as familiar with this one, I had to read into the lyrics. Not sure what Collins and his co-writers were thinking, but I wondered if the line “Help us someone, let us out of here. Living here so long undisturbed” referred to past inhabitants of this “home by the sea.”
Maybe those living there now were haunted by these past spirits, which might be viewed as synchronistic. But, then I found that “Home By the Sea” was the first of two songs on Genesis’s self-titled 1983 album about a “home by the sea.” Like The Police’s “Synchronicity I” and “Synchronicity II,” they are songs that are two parts of a suite.
It’s surprising that Genesis didn’t call the album Home By the Sea rather than the uninspiring Genesis title!
Brad’s rationale: Two links: 1983, plus the same producer (Hugh Padgham) on both Synchronicity and Genesis. For fans who know, Genesis is best enjoyed live:
Dan’s song #2: Sonny & Cher, “I Got You Babe,” 1965
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