I somehow discovered an 80’s video site yesterday and wasted far too much time! Caution: Click on the link at your own risk. I’m talking bands you haven’t thought about in 20 years: Fiction Factory, Icicle Works, Altered Images, Orange Juice, huh?

Anyway, since I wasted so much time on the site, I had to work it into a post. So, without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen, my favorite New York songs……1. No Sleep Til Brooklyn. Beastie Boys

It’s kind of been my theme song all these years, what with traveling back and forth upstate and all. Plus, I gotta love Brooklyn’s own Beastie Boys. One of those kids went to my high school (Yauch). I remember when they were a punk band, those little whipper snappers!

2. Stayin’ Alive. Bee Gees

Fact: I was a “Disco is dead” person by the time Saturday Night Fever came out and I didn’t see the movie until the mid 80’s. But I loves me some disco now! Ah, old school Brooklyn at it’s worst.

3. Fairytale of New York. The Pogues (Check out Matt Dillon in the video)

Ok, another one with some personal history. The song came out when my now husband was an illegal immigrant in NYC. The first year of our relationship was rocky, with some long distance thing going on when he returned home for awhile. I remember a Christmas in Dublin some 20 plus years ago, this song on the radio and the hubby promising me that next year, we’d both be in New York. And he kept his promise!

4. Native New Yorker. Odyssey

Yeah, baby, that’s right! Disco lives!

5. Two Billy Joel songs. New York State of Mind. Of course. Check out the video with that Jersey boy. Miami 2017. The evening of 9/11/2001, I remembered the lyrics to this song and it spooked the sh*t out of me. Then he played it at that Concert for NYC benefit. Oy. Powerful stuff.

6. New York, New York. Nina Hagen

Just because it’s so weird. Please refer to video above if you’re too young to remember Nina Hagen.

7. New York, New York. Frank Sinatra

Come on, I couldn’t leave out Sinatra! Hey, did they play this song at every Sweet 16 in the country or was it just a NY thing?

8. Rockaway Beach. Ramones

Hey, Queens needs some lovin’ too!

9. New York Fever. The Toasters

More high school alum band members. Fabulous ska band!

10. Avenue B. Gogol Bordello

Love, love, love Gogol Bordello. They’re so…..raw and alive!

Shout out for Hubby: Leonard Cohen’s First We Take Manhattan. I’m not a Leonard Cohen fan. You got a problem with that?