3 One-Hit Wonder Lyrics From 1980 That Every 80s Kid Remembers

You might have forgotten about these one-hit wonders, but I know you remember their lyrics, especially if you’re an 80s kid. Here are a few lyrics from the year 1980 that are difficult to get out of our heads, even today.

“Whip It” by Devo

“When a problem comes along, you must whip it / Before the cream sets out too long, you must whip it.”

Next time you’re feeling down and out, all you have to do is whip it… whatever that means. Jerry Casale of Devo wrote this song after being inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s book Gravity’s Rainbow. The book had a lot of clever poetry, and he tried to imitate that style with “Whip It”, a song that doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but at the same time, does.

“Turning Japanese” by The Vapors

“You got me turning up and turning down / I’m turning in, I’m turning ’round / I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese.”

Yeah, the title of this one is definitely…questionable. According to David Fenton of The Vapors, this song actually wasn’t meant to be some kind of Japanese slander.

“I had the melody for [‘Turning Japanese’], but I couldn’t find the lyrics,” he told Songwriting Magazine. “Then I woke up in the middle of the night with that ‘turning Japanese’ line, so I wrote it down and fell asleep again. It could have been anything! It could have ended up as ‘Turning Portuguese’. The song was basically there, but it took me a few days to get the chorus how I wanted it.”

“Steal Away” by Robbie Dupree

Why don’t we steal away
Why don’t we steal away
Into the night
I know it ain’t right.

The late 70s were all about yacht rock, and Robbie Dupree was clinging to that trend with his 1980 hit “Steal Away”, which sings about taking on the night and making it your own with someone special. Or at least, that’s what it sounds like it’s about. Additionally, even if you’re not thinking about the lyrics, this one is a vibe.

“It was a very simple rhyme song that was not anything meant to be heavy,” Dupree explained of this song to The Yacht Rock Book: The Oral History of the Soft, Smooth Sounds of the ’70s and ’80s. “It was a song where the words and the melody fit together, and they were cool. I thought it was nice.”

Photo by: Gerrit Alan Fokkema/Fairfax Media via Getty Images

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