I just know Joe or perhaps my brother will be able to shed some light on this. I was walking from Penn Station to work this morning, at ease and minding my own business, when a song popped into my head, a jingle from my youth in Toledo, Ohio.
Whether this song was from a radio ad or TV commercial, I don’t remember, but at its core was this bombastic choral arrangement about Toledo being alive. I would have originally heard this in the mid-’80s and it may have been tied into the attempted rejuvenation of the city’s downtown, which at the time featured a new riverfront market/park/entertainment complex called Portside. As you know, my memory is poor, so for all I know the song was a jingle for a gentlemen’s club named Alive. But these subconscious, therefore highly suspect lyrics point to a civic promotion:
A city growing in its pride
A people taking it in stride
Yes, we’re becoming a new city...
[practically shouting] TO-LE-DO...A-LIVE!
or maybe those first two lines were:
A ciy growing with great strides
A people glowing in their pride
I recall that the verses, which alternated between groups of male and female singers, were inexpertly written because the singers rushed to cram all the words into the melody at its already brisk tempo. The song made sense to me at the time, as did the songs of Def Leppard, because it was catchy. Now I’m not sure. Wouldn’t one hope Toledo and its inhabitants are already “alive,” in both literal and metaphorical senses? It’s like the bomb dropped on the Midwest and the President’s on the red phone saying “Get me Toledo. Is anyone there still alive?” Hell yes, Mr. President, and they’re singing about it.
I didn’t think a song this obnoxious could be obscure, but a hasty search of the internet revealed nothing. I’m hoping more knowledge about this song will help me dilute it, but for the time being I will suppress its echo in my head with sleep and/or liquor.