Ye Olde Hit Parade: See a Little Light

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

1989: Bob Mould - See a Little Light

Every so often, there are pivotal years in your life. 1989 was one such year for me. Setting aside the major world events--the beginning of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square protests, the Exxon Valdez--going on, there were some major events in my life as well.
 
The first half of the year was spent finishing up my last semester of college. I had things set up quite nicely: Three courses, all on Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning I was going out a LOT. I hadn't given a whole lot of thought to what I was going to do after graduation. One weekend I was home in April, I started to sketch out a resume to apply for newspaper jobs. I went back to school and got a call a few days later from my editor at the Peabody Times, offering me a full-time gig. Of course, I accepted. A huge weight was off my shoulders, which meant the last six weeks of my college career were spent playing wiffleball and drinking beer.

Another big event that spring was my becoming an American citizen. I had applied nearly two years earlier, but it's a long process. The ceremony took place at a courthouse in Exeter. I had been living in the U.S. for eight years by that point and had no intention of leaving, so it was time.

I graduated from UNH in May and still remember driving away from campus for the last time, with R.E.M.'s "I Remember California" playing on the stereo. I started working at the Times two weeks later and quickly got into the lifestyle. I commuted from New Hampshire for the first few weeks and worked on the weekends at Market Basket, but that was getting pretty tiring. Plus I wanted to get out of my parents' house, so I ended up renting a room at a boarding house in Magnolia, Mass. (basically part of what is now known as Manchester-by-the-Sea). A lot of former Times interns had stayed there and it was pretty affordable, as well as being right on the beach. I spent the summer there before moving in with another reporter who was house-sitting in Wenham for one of the Times editors who had taken his family to China for a year. By the end of the year, I was pretty established and enjoying my new job, even though I was spending a lot of time in the office.

Musically, it was also a pivotal year. The alt-rock revolution was in its early stages and I was totally on board. I was now listening to WFNX more than anything, and that station championed alternative rock from its inception several years earlier. There was so much great new music: Pixies, Beastie Boys, the Cure, the Smithereens, the Tragically Hip, PiL, Nine Inch Nails, Replacements, Elvis Costello, Fine Young Cannibals, XTC, The Cult, Tin Machine, Faith No More, Big Audio Dynamite, B-52s. On the pop side, it was a big year for acts like Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul, Roxette and the like. I saw R.E.M. for the first time, which was fun.


But my favorite song was by a guy I knew from his previous band, Husker Du: Bob Mould. His first solo album, Workbook, was released in April and garnered a fair amount of radio play because it had more folk influences than his previous work with Husker Du. "See a Little Light" was the first single and the "hit" on radio and MTV, with its optimistic outlook (a bit unusual for Mould, although I didn't know that at the time) and sunny acoustic guitars (also unusual for Mould). In a year full of wins, this song fit right in. The future was bright and a new decade was on the horizon.

Honorable mentions: Neil Young - "Rockin' in the Free World"; The Tragically Hip - "Blow at High Dough"; Faith No More - "Epic"; R.E.M. - "Pop Song '89"; Beastie Boys - "Hey Ladies"; Pixies - "Here Comes Your Man"; The Cult - "Fire Woman"; The Cure - "Fascination Street"; Nine Inch Nails - "Head Like a Hole"; Tin Machine - "Heaven's In Here"; Elvis Costello - "Veronica"; U2 - "Dancing Barefoot"; The Stone Roses - "Fool's Gold"; XTC - "The Mayor of Simpleton"; Tone Loc - "Wild Thing"; Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Higher Ground"; Love and Rockets - "So Alive"; Big Audio Dynamite - "James Brown"; B-52s - "Channel Z"