REO Speedwagon: "Can't Fight This Feeling" C/D?

Kevin Cronin sure is one ugly motherfucker, more so even than Lou Gramm

The whole band were on the homely side.

the "more"/"for"/"shore"/"OAR" rhyme is unforgivable.

Since this is an engagement/wedding ballad, it would have been germane to toss in a rhyme about "givin' up the whores". Unfortunately, we see the lack of imagination of mid-80s AOR reflected in this missed opportunity.

...although it was clever of them to allude to the AOR genre by using the anagram "OAR"!

longish story that's stuck with me for decades, content warning for teenagers doing hard drugs. it's 1982. me and a friend of mine in high school, I will call him Bob, we have both known since we were kids that we wanted to try heroin. some people are just like that. we are in a pod of friends, the rest of whom aren't as dope-seeking as us, but anyway all of us hang out in some formation daily, nightly, whatever, we work the same jobs, we're always hanging out, getting late night coffee, sitting around the stereo. we're big music snobs, we like Bowie and Lou Reed and Iggy and that's basically our entire lane, we're into some newer stuff which is like, Talking Heads. any brainier new stuff. so one weekend, I don't know where Bob's at, and instead of hanging out I just do whatever with other people from inside the same pod, but on Monday I see him -- "Where were you all weekend?" "Oh I couldn't wait to tell you, dude I hung out with these people who were friends of somebody from work and I got to try heroin." "Whoa holy fuck dude, what was it like?" "Well, it was great, but, like, after I did it, we were all hanging out at their apartment, you know, talking and listening to music, and talking about music, and it was late, and one of them said, you know, 'we can talk about all this music that's good or whatever, but when you really need something great, when you really need the music that's there for you, there's only one band.' And then the other ones jumped in, like they already knew who he meant, and they said, 'absolutely right, REO Speedwagon.' And I was just sitting there listening for a long time, you know, and I was on drugs, so I wondered if maybe they were joking and I wasn't getting the jok., but I just listened for a long time and that's what they were saying, and finally I couldn't take it, and I said -- hey -- I hear what you guys are saying, but don't you all realize that REO sucks?"

He told this story with incredulity in his voice, like holy shit Joan I spent Saturday with people who actually like REO.

I remember this story every time I hear REO Speedwagon, for forty years.

lol

that's what i call ridin' the storm out