“Believe It Or Not” (theme song from Greatest American Hero) – Joey Scarbury
“The Boys Are Back In Town” – Thin Lizzy (thanks, Chris. I’d originally attributed that song to Bachmann Turner Overdrive, because I often confuse the song with “Takin’ Care of Business,” another BTO song. I’m glad it was corrected because I expect Thin Lizzy Googles itself a lot, and would have been hurt by the mistaken attribution. I really do mean that, too. )
“Glory Days” – Bruce Springsteen (played during a video montage featuring my cousin’s little league team)
“Old Time Rock’n’Roll” – Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
“Cotton Eyed Joe” – Rednex remix (black people can learn how to do the secret white person dance here)
“You Got Another Thing Coming” – Judas Priest
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” – Cyndi Lauper
“99 Luftballons” – Nena (in its original German!)
“Margaritaville” – Jimmy Buffett
During the entire party, there was only one song played that was written in the lifetime of my cousin and his friends. (most of whom spent the entire bar-mitzvah playing touch football on the dance floor with an oversized, inflatable football.) And that song was “Cupid’s Chokehold,” by MySpace favorites The Gym Class Heroes — a re-imagineering of Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America.”
As we were getting ready to leave, my 4 year-old nephew was dancing around the dance floor, strumming an inflatable guitar and wearing a plastic fedora, glow in the dark raver necklace, and a pair of knock-off Ray-Bans with neon orange stems. He looked like the prize table on the midway of the world’s lousiest county fair. The only thing he was missing was a framed “Jack Daniels” mirror, still crusted with cocaine, tucked underneath his tiny little arm.
