Welcome back to another installment of this week’s Top 40 countdown. If you missed the previous entries, you can check out songs 40-31 and 30-21. So far, it’s been a pretty good week. Let’s see if it continues. Let’s Return to the week ending August 27, 1983, and move on with the countdown.

20. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler

This smash hit by Bonnie Tyler is the second Jim Steinman song on this week’s countdown. This song still stands the test of time as I have heard it on several recent television commercials. And of course with the recent eclipse, the song has been getting even more airplay.

19. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King” by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)

In the ’80s, there was a lot of nostalgia for the ’50s and ’60s. This song has that old time sound.

18. “Take Me to Heart” by Quarterflash

It is so refreshing to hear a Quarterflash song that is not “Harden My Heart”. They have several great songs, and this is one of them.

17. “Hot Girls in Love” by Loverboy

A good rocker. Loverboy was on a roll throughout the ’80s. Then grunge happened.

16. “Don’t Cry” by Asia

Time for the Prog Rock supergroup Asia! I always loved this song and band. This song did get a ton of MTV airplay.

15. “Is There Something I Should Know” by Duran Duran

I still think this should be called “Please, Please Tell Me Now”. Duran Duran was the ultimate ’80s group. This song is classic, just like the rest of their early 80s music.

14. “Lawyers in Love” by Jackson Browne

This song got by me. I had never heard it before. It isn’t too bad. This title track from Browne’s seventh album was the highest charted song from this album, which also includes “Tender Is the Night” – which I have heard of.

13. “Human Nature” by Michael Jackson

This pretty song was the 5th single released from the legendary Thriller album. They must have broken the budget with all the previous singles, because there is no music video for this. This song was written by Steve Porcaro (the keyboardist from Toto) and John Bettis.

12. “Tell Her About It” by Billy Joel

This was the first single released off of Billy Joel’s album, An Innocent Man. I loved it when it came out. Then got sick of it as it played on MTV constantly. Then I missed it when the follow-up single “Uptown Girl” got overplayed even worse.

11. “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats

This is one of the more iconic songs of the ’80s. There is no mistaking which decade this song belongs to. And no, perverts, this isn’t about safe sex. This is an anti-establishment song. The following is from a very cool article from Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict. Sam Tweedle interviewed the writer/lead singer of Men Without Hats, Ivan Doroschuk. Sam asked Ivan about the origins of the song. Ivan explained that “The Safety Dance” is a protest against bouncers stopping dancers pogoing to 1980s new wave music:

The inspiration for the song was from back in the days when Punk and “New Wave” were starting off and the discotheques were still playing disco music. But every now and then they’d slip in Blondie’s Heart of Glass or Rock Lobster by The B-52’s. Well, obviously, anybody who was into that kind of music would rush on the dance floor and start jumping up and down and would bang into the guys trying to do their disco two steps. I got thrown out of a lot of clubs because of that. So that’s basically the origin. I was kind of mad that they wouldn’t let me dance if I wanted to, so I took matters in my own hands and wrote an anthem for it.

That’s it for today. There were some very familiar songs, and others that don’t get much airplay on ’80s radio these days. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring when we wrap up the countdown.