Song of the Week: I Got You

Top 40 in Southwestern Ontario—basically, the area reached by Toronto AM radio—was really. . . eclectic. There was no other way I would have been exposed to Split Enz and “I Got You” any other way. The singles chart I remember was CHUM AM—“I Got You” was #1 on the week of 22 Nov 1980, and that list of #1s is pretty wild.

I didn’t know any other Split Enz song, I didn’t pick up the album—in 1980 I was pretty much just a singles kid—or any other singles by the group. That was my standard operating procedure until the next year when I actually started investing in albums. Looking at the charts, I honestly think this was my first single purchased for myself, by myself. I had listened to my sister’s singles—she’s two years and a bit older than me—but I think this might have been the first one I bought.

Without the diverse chart singles that the early 80s brought a very young Fraser, I wonder how my musical tastes would have evolved. A lot of what I listen to up to this day follows the pattern of generally pop-ish, guitar-centric alternative. Now, not all the singles I got back in the day were exactly that, but there’s a discernable pattern that leads to my latest purchase—my pre-order of Fazerdaze’s new album, “Soft Power”—and I have top 40 radio in the early 1980s to thank for that.

Who would have thought?