Track 37: "Hungry like the Wolf" by Duran Duran

Dark in the city, night is a wire
Steam in subway, Earth is afire

I grew up in the 80s--back when MTV actually played music, when New Coke was all the rage, when Rocky IV showed us all that American hard-work can triumph over Communism, and when Michael Jackson was still sort of black.

As a kid, Duran Duran was easily my favorite band. I loved "The Reflex," "Wild Boys," and "View to a Kill" still ranks (in my opinion) as the best song to a James Bond film ever.

During one summer (I was maybe around 8 or so) my brother and his friend Brett Wicker (Brett was over at our house just about all the time) got into playing Dungeons and Dragons. Of course I had to get in on the action and named my knight Duran in honor of my favorite band at the time.

Unfortunately, Duran met his demise and was killed in battle (epically and heroically, I surely imagine) by some sort of hob-goblin. I was crushed. I cried. And never played Dungeons and Dragons again.

For my 23rd birthday I was doing some bar hopping in Columbia's Five Points (during the 3-4 months I spent back in Columbia after graduating college, before moving to Charleston) and just happened to walk in on an acoustic show of Josh Roberts and Ryan Monroe. At the time the two were in the Columbia-based Captain Easy. Monroe now plays keys for Band of Horses and Roberts fronts his own band Josh Roberts and the Hinges. And they did a really cool and hilarious cover of "Hungry like the Wolf."

A few months ago I was at a bar playing trivia with some friends (I tend to pride myself on my grasp of trivial knowledge, especially the music questions). The question was name the song that contains the lyrics "steam in the subway, Earth is afire."

And guess whose team got the question right?

I tried to find the original video for the song on You Tube, but none of them would allow embedding (dang). But I did happen to find a video of this tart doing some sort of sexy (fully clothed) interpretive dance. Which is silly as hell but kind of awesome.