The Knack’s “My Sharona” turns 30 & other Music Miracles

Nearly 30 years ago, The Knack performed their HUGE hit “My Sharona” in NYC. I was a HUGE fan–I absolutely LOVED that song, and so did my friends. Whenever it came on the radio, we burst into spontaneous dancing as only teenage girls can do.

I bought the album and listened to “My Sharona” over and over, driving my parents crazy I am sure. I hated hated hated disco and that’s what they played at the high school dances and on the radio. Of course there was other kinds of music–like country AND western. (Punk was stopped at the borders as contraband I imagine as no one I knew listened to it, could find it, or even knew much about it until after we got out of high school and our teens and went to college…plus you couldn’t really dance to it.)

We highly appreciated the vanguards of “New Wave Music:” the B-52s, the Talking Heads, the Pretenders, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, the Cars, and the Clash (ok the Clash isn’t New Wave). Soon I discovered and loved  (thanks to my brother who read Rolling Stone and worked at Pacific Stereo) the 2Tone ska bands like Madness, The English Beat, Selector, and my favorite, The Specials. I think I still have my “Dance Craze” t-shirt.

That summer before my senior year, everybody seemed to know and loved “My Sharona.” That song defined that summer during high school as surely as ska and new wave and the Clash defined my senior year and post high school  stuck in Ventuck existence, dressing in black and white, wearing mini skirts and white shirts and skinny ties, too young to go anywhere and too broke to do anything, dancing around someone’s living room, drinking beer someone bought for us, buying Boone’s Farm strawberry wine and Andre Cold Duck, learning how to flip bottle caps, and how to use condoms.

Where were you in 1979 and 1980 when “My Sharona” rode high on the charts? What did you listen to in those strange post high school years of your youth? How did you survive?

To finish the trip down musical memory lane, here’s vintage Specials “Message to Rudy:”

Did you know Elvis Costello produced their first album? Here’s 3 minutes of background: