Where the deer and the antelope “play”…
It’s Monday, and once again with fake letters to write to Santa, The Nest isn’t going to make this post as fancy as McDonald’s ketchup packets. It’s time to pull another great, lost retro song out of our musical smorgasbord we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive. Let’s see what DJ Scratchy and the Sponkies picked for us this week…
In a decade that featured hitmakers Bruce Springsteen and Bruce Willis, there was a third Bruce who fit somewhere between the two. Bruce Hornsby and his band The Range had a small era of glory in the late 80’s that produced three Top 5 hits on the US charts. My favorite of the trio would be the third song, which got up to exactly #5 in the summer of 1988. Let’s join Bruce and all of his dancing peeps in this video and go down “The Valley Road…”
Bruce’s fine piano work punctuates most of his best known songs, and I love the ivory tickling done here. “The Valley Road” was the most upbeat and perky of Bruce’s three big hits, though the fun nature of the song that apparently makes random people want to get up and dance hides the story inside the lyrics of a rich girl meeting up with a country boy and coming home with her tin roof rusted.
You put the condom on the wrong head, dude.
This is probably the only 1980’s music video where you can watch an old man playing the clarinet… conjuring up memories of Magic Dick and his dog harmonica in the video for “Come Back” because “The Valley Road” doesn’t have any clarinet music in it. At least in this case, the joke was intentional since Bruce just wanted to get his father, and avid clarinetist, Robert into a video…. and bringing new meaning to the phrase “Blow, daddy!”
Alright dad…. your air clarinet is getting a little embarrassing now.
I’ll have another lost hit for you next Monday, ’cause that’s just the way it is. Some things will never change…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I love them… and I bow my head that someone can tame a piano that way… honestly ;O)
I can peck at the notes and play Jingle Bells. And that’s the extent of my musical talent…
New one for me and I like the song. The video was fun to watch, too.
Happy Monday! 🙂
Yay! I’d never seen the video before (or at least just don’t remember it). But I’ve always liked the song…
Absolutely ALWAYS loved this song – it does make you want to dance…..and sing…..and watch this video about ten times in a row. Bruce and the piano were MADE for each other…..
Pam
Yes, and it’s obvious Bruce’s dad and that silent clarinet were made for each other as well!
Yes that was very cool……..
The Christmas deer image conjures up a slightly different notion about lighting things up. Bruce definitely knows how to tickle the ivory keys well. He has mad piano skills.
Lucky those deer didn’t short circuit each other…
Fun choice. The video reminds me of places I’d go when I was a kid, visiting relatives down South.
I’m just hanging out with my coffee this morning watching young squirrels playing on in my yard. I bet they’d like this song even though they’d have no idea what it means.
They don’t have to know what it means. Just start dancing like the people in the video…
Will do.
I am a HUGE Hornsby fan, and still buy his cd’s even though the hits dried up long ago. He’s very versatile and isn’t afraid to take chances. The musicianship is first rate, as is quite apparent if you’ve ever seen him and his most recent band, The Noisemakers, in concert. There is a song on his album Levitate from a few years back called Continents Drift that features an astounding guitar solo by his nephew, R.S. Hornsby…made all the more poignant by the fact that R.S. was killed in a car accident less than a week after recording it. It starts slowly then builds to, in my opinion, epic status.
Why am I always the only person who never particularly likes the song? I am very impressed with the guitarist’s hair, though.
I couldn’t say. But you do have nice taste in hair….