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1985: The Year In Top 40 Hits (Week 18: May 4, 1985)
Murray Head talks chess, Springsteen burns, Henley sneaks a protest into the club, and Teena Marie does her own thing
This is an actual conversation that my brother and I had more than once when we were teenagers, and we both played both parts.
“I’m going to the 7-Eleven, you want anything?”
“Yeah, get me a Coke.”
“What kind?”
“Dr Pepper.”
Or a Mountain Dew, or a Sprite, or a root beer. We’re Texans, is what I’m saying, and so as far as we’re concerned, any flavored fizzy water is a Coke. Quite often, I even specifically wanted a Coke, especially if I was getting a chopped brisket sandwich from the barbecue counter at Pinkies — the acidic bite of an ice-cold can of Coke mixed with the hot peppers in Pinkies’ barbecue sauce just incinerated your mouth in the most pleasant manner possible.
Which meant that like just about everybody else in America in the first week of May 1985, I was royally pissed at the Coca-Cola company, because they had just announced that they were changing the formula and introducing something called New Coke. Who did they think they were?
