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My Favorite Song from Every Year I’ve Been Alive (Part Two: 1980–1989)

The madness continues

Paul Combs
5 min readDec 12, 2023
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When I started the insanity that is picking my favorite song from every year that I’ve been alive, I knew that the glorious 1980s would be the toughest decade by far. As a proud member of Generation X, the music of this decade formed me (even if I was listening to music from the ’60s and ’70s just as much). Picking only one song for each year proved more challenging than picking just one song from a Springsteen album (something I encountered in this list as well).

I have no one to blame but myself for wading into this situation and I’m committed to seeing it through. If nothing else, I’ve surprised myself along the way with some of my choices. There is a surprising lack of New Wave hits among the ten songs here; maybe, like many of us Gen Xers, they just couldn’t stand the test of time.

I will say again, as I did in the first installment, this is a list of my personal favorite songs from each year of the ’80s. The question of “greatest” is better left up to those critics more knowledgeable than I am (except in the case of “Born to Run,” of course). And if you haven’t read Part One, you can find it here.

Now on to the songs.

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Paul Combs
Paul Combs

Written by Paul Combs

Writer, bookseller, would-be roadie for the E Street Band. My ultimate goal is to make books as popular in Texas as high school football...it may take a while.

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