Musical Messages Through Time
The goal of this series is simple: go back through the years and figure out what popular music was actually saying at the time. For each year, I take a group of notable albums and “shuffle the deck,” letting a handful of songs reveal themselves. From there, I organize them into three acts and break down what they’re communicating…individually and as a whole.
As I begin my seventh installment of this series, I feel compelled, perhaps against my better judgment, to address a growing concern: the lyrical depth of the material I’ve encountered so far has been…inconsistent. Not absent, not nonexistent, but inconsistent enough to raise an eyebrow and occasionally both hands. I would love to report that things are trending upward.
I cannot.
In fact, there’s a very real possibility that at some point I may struggle to assemble even nine songs that meet the modest requirement of having something to say beyond the obvious. This is not a threat, just a projection based on available data. Now, I’m fully aware that much of the modern landscape – then and now – leans toward simplification. Streamline the message. Reduce friction. Keep things catchy, accessible, and preferably under four minutes. It’s efficient. It’s marketable. It’s also…not exactly fertile ground for deep introspection.
So when I notice a lack of nuance, I have a hard time viewing it as accidental. If these artists are as talented as we know they are, and they clearly are, then the absence of depth begins to feel less like oversight and more like design. Whether that design is cultural, commercial, or something more intentional is a question I’ll politely leave open.
In 1986, I was still adjusting to my new surroundings overseas. Being stationed in Italy, especially in a pre-internet, pre-social media world, created a strange sense of scale. On one hand, you were physically removed from the cultural center you grew up in. On the other, within the confines of the military environment, you could feel like a big fish in a very specific pond. It was an interesting combination of isolation and prominence.
During this time, I was probably at the peak of my physical condition and enjoying the most active social life I would ever have, two facts that I’m sure I fully appreciated in the moment…or at least would have, had I not been busy maintaining my long-standing commitment to a glass-half-empty worldview.
Objectively speaking, things were going well: I had a job I genuinely liked. I was surrounded by new experiences and cultures. And for once, life didn’t feel like it was actually working against me.
Looking back, I can see that this was a period I should have leaned into more fully. But hindsight, as always, benefits from information that wasn’t available at the time, namely, the realization that things can actually be good without immediately falling apart afterward. Still, I did enjoy 1986. I just suspect I could have done a better job of noticing it.
Musically, there were moments that cut through the noise. Certain songs didn’t just play in the background…they landed. The work of Steve Winwood in particular stood out, offering something that felt increasingly rare: an inward, almost spiritual perspective that didn’t rely on excess or distraction to make its point. It was a reminder that depth hadn’t disappeared, it had just become…selective.
I also had the opportunity to see Jackson Browne live in Naples, which was notable for a few reasons. The performance itself was strong, but his political leanings didn’t quite align with where I was at the time. That said, exposure to perspectives you don’t fully agree with tends to be more useful than the alternative, though I didn’t necessarily frame it that way in the moment. Taken together, 1986 feels like a year caught between recognition and response.
ACT I – Cracks in the Facade
1. “Big Time” – Peter Gabriel
2. “Land of Confusion” – Genesis
3. “Manic Monday” – The Bangles
Act I begins with “Big Time“, one of my favorite songs of the decade, and for once, the over-the-top 80s production doesn’t just fit the message, it is the message. Pompous. Bombastic. Slightly absurd. Perfect.
“I’m on my way, I’m making it…” Everything about the performance feels inflated, like ambition turned into theater. Success isn’t something quietly achieved here…it’s loudly declared, repeatedly, as if volume alone might make it real. And the more it’s declared, the less convincing it becomes.
If this character is serious, and there’s just enough sincerity in the delivery to suggest he might be, then we’re not witnessing confidence. We’re witnessing something closer to overcompensation with a soundtrack. The kind that looks impressive from a distance…
and a little unstable up close.
Appropriately, this inward distortion is followed by a broader, outward-facing diagnosis in “Land of Confusion“, delivered by Phil Collins, the man tasked with filling Peter Gabriel’s very large and very unconventional shoes.
The tone is urgent, almost alarmed, as if something fundamental has slipped out of alignment. Authority feels questionable, systems feel unreliable, and the general sense is that no one is entirely steering the ship. Which is a compelling idea…just not one that fully matched my lived experience at the time.
Because for all the talk of confusion, 1986 didn’t feel chaotic. It didn’t feel like everything was unraveling. Corrupt? Maybe. Manipulative? Often. But not exactly spiraling out of control. If anything, it felt…stable enough to function. Which, in hindsight, may have been part of the problem.
That’s where “Manic Monday” quietly steps in and grounds the entire Act. No global crisis. No existential panic. Just…Monday. “I wish it was Sunday, cause that’s my fun day…” Because the dominant mood wasn’t chaos, it was malaise. A low-grade, persistent sense that something wasn’t quite right, even if you couldn’t point to a single catastrophic event. Life moved forward, systems held together, but there was a growing disconnect between effort and reward.
Especially when compared to the generations that came before, where the equation seemed a little more straightforward: Work hard – get ahead. By 1986, that formula hadn’t disappeared, but it had started to feel…less reliable. Like a promise that still existed, but required a few unspoken conditions buried in the fine print.
Act I doesn’t present collapse…it presents unease. Not broken. Not chaotic. Just slightly out of alignment.
ACT II – Responsibility & Moral Friction
4. “The Way It Is” – Bruce Hornsby
5. “For America” – Jackson Browne
6. “Papa Don’t Preach” – Madonna
I joined the military in 1984 for a fairly straightforward reason: I couldn’t find gainful employment. So when “The Way It Is” comes into play, the message doesn’t feel abstract, it feels familiar. “That’s just the way it is…” It’s not comforting. It’s not inspiring. But it is…recognizable.
If Act I leaned toward exaggeration and unease – perhaps even a bit of paranoia – Act II brings things back to ground level. This is what reality felt like for a lot of people in 1986: The old guarantees were fading. The safety nets were thinning. And the idea that things would simply “work out” began to feel less like a promise and more like a suggestion. The unions and pension structures that supported previous generations weren’t as reliable anymore. The path forward hadn’t disappeared…but it had become less defined, more individualized.
That broader social lens continues with “For America”, and while I’ve never fully connected with Jackson Browne’s delivery, it’s hard to ignore what he represents during this period. In a decade often dominated by surface-level messaging, Browne was one of the few artists willing to step back and question the larger picture…challenging assumptions, pointing out inconsistencies, and asking listeners to reconsider what they were being told.
That said…this is where things get complicated. Because while the message itself has weight, the framing leans heavily outward, placing emphasis on systemic issues without always fully addressing individual participation within those systems. That ambiguity makes it harder – at least for me – to fully invest in the rhetoric. Not because the concerns are invalid, but because the responsibility feels…unevenly distributed.
A similar tension appears in “Papa Don’t Preach”. On the surface, the message lands clearly…personal responsibility, difficult choices, and a refusal to be directed by external pressure. But much like Browne’s work, there’s a slight disconnect between message and delivery that makes it harder to fully accept at face value. Not necessarily insincere…just…not entirely grounded in a way that feels consistent with the broader narrative.
Which raises a familiar question: Is this conviction…or positioning?
ACT III – Faith & What Truly Matters
7. “Dear God” – XTC
8. “Don’t Dream It’s Over” – Crowded House
9. “Higher Love” – Steve Winwood
Act III may be the most powerful sequence I’ve assembled to this point…not because it escalates the noise, but because it cuts through it entirely. The materialistic framework established in the first two acts doesn’t collapse gradually, it gets swept aside.
It begins with “Dear God“, which opens almost disarmingly as a child’s prayer before evolving into something far more direct: A confrontation. Not casual skepticism. Not detached criticism. A deeply personal, almost urgent questioning of the relationship between us and our apparent maker.
To some, the tone may register as atheistic, but that reading feels incomplete. Indifference doesn’t ask questions like this. Indifference doesn’t press this hard. What’s on display here is something closer to intense engagement, a level of concern that suggests belief hasn’t disappeared…only been challenged. “And if you’re up there, you’ll perceive…that my heart’s here upon my sleeve…” There’s vulnerability in that line, but also conviction. The kind that doesn’t walk away quietly, but insists on being heard.
From there, “Don’t Dream It’s Over“ shifts the tone, but not the subject. Where “Dear God” is direct, this is more subtle and open to interpretation, often framed as a relationship between two people. But there’s another reading available, one that aligns closely with what came before: A relationship strained not by emotion, but by interference. “They come to build a wall between us…”
Who “they” are is never fully defined, and that ambiguity is part of the strength. Systems, distractions, expectations, material concerns…all of it becomes potential obstruction. The connection itself isn’t the problem. Maintaining it is. “you know they won’t win…”
It’s not defiance for the sake of rebellion, it’s quiet persistence. A refusal to let external forces dictate the terms of something internal.
Finally, “Higher Love” brings the Act to a close, and for once, the message is delivered without complication. No layered metaphor. No ambiguity. Just a statement: “Without it…life is wasted time.”
After everything that’s been examined…success, systems, relationships, identity, this is where the lens ultimately settles. Not on what we achieve. Not on what we accumulate. But on what elevates the experience beyond those things.
If Act I questioned the surface, and Act II confronted the system, Act III moves beyond both. Material success is reframed as insufficient. Systems are revealed as secondary. And the focus shifts to something less tangible – but far more essential.
Which leads to the simplest – and perhaps most difficult – realization of the entire year: If that connection is missing…everything else starts to feel like a distraction.
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