Saturday, January 31, 2009

The Best Songs Ever: Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It

When I was in the fourth grade in 1984 I had my first exposure to one of the great loves of my life - cable television. We had 12, count 'em, 12 channels that filled the dial. While the Cartoon Express and WWF wrestling were great, they were far from being the best thing on cable. That honor went to music videos. This was before MTV had even been granted a spot on the local dial, but shows like Night Tracks and Night Flight filled the void when they weren't showing B-movies.

The holy grail of a viewing of one of these shows was an airing of Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It. I thought Dee Snider was the shit. I remember a dream where Dee hung out with my buddy Jamie, his ever-present unemployed mom Carol,and myself. Of course, in this dream he was in his linebacker-meets-drag queen geer, and we we were engaging in my favorite hobby - watching television.

Twisted Sister never did anything else that grabbed my childhood attention like We're Not Gonna Take It. Heck, I never even owned the album Stay Hungry. It was all about that song. And that video.