VOL. 2, TRACK 1: TONI BASIL, “MICKEY”

There is much to love about Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” even if you’ve already seen the music video 1,739 times, like I have, going back several decades. There’s the cheerleading, the choreography, and the set design/costumes, which are perfect, absolutely perfect, for the song. I know It’s one of those tracks that just screams “one-hit wonder,” but since when did that stop a song or a video from being New Wave at heart?

But one thing I keep thinking about when I hear this song today has nothing to do with any New Wave criteria. Instead, I just get to thinking about how Toni Basil and I would get along really well. Apparently she’s still around, in her early eighties now, still in great shape. And still dancing, I’m sure. But I think we would really vibe on the conversational topic of men.

See, “Mickey” is what everybody thinks of as a high school song, since it’s got cheerleaders in the video and all that. Plus, its lyrics tell the story of a girl who’s tired of her boyfriend only being about sex without giving her love.

And I’m here to tell you that this problem Toni Basil sings about is something along the lines of a universal struggle — and not, by any means, confined to the problems of mere teenagers. I would love to get the chance to tell Toni about how, until quite recently, being inundated by sex without romance was my struggle, too. Because it’s not just high school boys who are the innocent culprits, when it comes to brutish, emotionless sex! Two of my more recent would-be paramours — men in their FORTIES — revealed themselves, over a period of years, to be not-much-progressed past their teenage days of sexual smash-and-grabs.

To be treated like a piece of meat — like what you have to say or to offer in other respects beyond the sexual doesn’t matter, isn’t important, and is frankly just a waste of time to the person who’s only thinking about how he can wrest physical pleasure from you — is NOT New Wave at all. Which is why I told one of those former paramours (just yesterday, in fact) that I don’t want anything to do with him anymore, because he still just keeps hanging around.

I’m going to give myself a 10/10 for standing up for myself, and “Mickey” an 8/10, with just two points off for being nauseatingly overplayed (which is like diminishing returns on the New Wave quotient scale, which favors the obscure or overlooked — within reason, of course).

Toni herself, of course, gets a 10/10 for being impressive in every respect.

💘