Favorite early 80s ballads.

I liked girls from a very early age: nine.  I still remember how it all started in the third grade: I had my first crush on a swimming instructor (her name was Susan), and dreamt at night about saving girls in my class from the perils of space travel...one in particular: Marlys.  Unfortunately, most girls and my guy friends were fairly clueless for quite a few more years.  Once 7th grade came around, just about everyone was clued in, and oh the drama I got myself into, in just a matter of two years!  I had two girlfriends and two other girls who cried their eyes out in front of me, that I didn't pick them.

:O  Yikes!

So it turns out (and it's probably true for nearly everyone) that ballads (and other types of songs) can hold a lot of emotional memories (some might call it baggage) that come pouring back when you play those particular tunes.

Being that most of my love drama came about in the early 80s, I thought I'd go through my music collection and post a list of my favorite early 80s ballads (a point in time when it was all good, even when it was bad):

• Sailing, Christopher Cross - 1980
• Longer, Dan Fogelberg - 1980
• How 'Bout Us?, Champaign - 1981
• Just the Two of Us, Grover Washington - 1981
• Hearts, Marty Balin - 1981
• Waiting for a Girl Like You, Foreigner - 1981
• Up Where We Belong, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes - 1982
• Hard to Say I'm Sorry, Chicago - 1982
• My Love, Lionel Ritchie - 1983
• True, Spandau Ballet - 1983
• It Might Be You, Stephen Bishop - 1983
• Tonight, I Celebrate My Love, Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack - 1983
• We've Got Tonight, Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton - 1983
• I Won't Hold You Back, Toto - 1983
• Almost Paradise, Mike Reno and Ann Wilson - 1984
• Against All Odds, Phil Collins - 1984
• I Want to Know What Love Is, Foreigner - 1984

So maybe you're wondering - ahem, Beth - why Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" is off the list (I actually owned this on a 45 vinyl record).  It comes down to how I ended up associating that song with a breakup, and a weird sense of ambivalence.

Postscript: The list was actually 50% bigger before I sliced it down to the most memorable songs.