Anatomy of a Song: "Lawyers in Love" Quiz

Answer: slowing down

"Lawyers in Love" was a parody of the early 1980s, and to one who did not live in 1983, the song might not make sense.

Answer: designer jeans

Designer jeans were all the rage in the early 1980s. It didn't matter if they fit well or looked good (remember acid washed jeans?) so long as they had "Jordache" or "Calvin Klein" written on the butt.

Answer: the screams / the strangled cries

The chorus of "Lawyers in Love" did not have any words, unless you consider "Ooh, sha la la, ooh", "Ah Ah, sha la la la", and a high pitched whistle to be words.

Answer: spaceships

An interesting way for God to intervene in a world that was becoming increasingly technological. Video arcades were popular in 1983, and in 1983 one of the main stories was "Star Wars", not the movie, but President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. The Space Shuttle was up and running. So why wouldn't God send help via spaceship?

Answer: from TV trays / Happy Days

Also images of the early 1980s: the expanding popularity of cable television and the 1950's retro television series "Happy Days" in syndication.

Answer: World War III

1983 was fraught with Cold War paranoia. "The Day After" and "Testament" were nuclear holocaust films that aired in 1983 (with "The Day After" being especially controversial), and "99 Luftballons" was another 1983 song that addressed the possibility of nuclear war.

Though he would not say "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes," until 1984 (in a classic open-mike slipup), President Reagan referred to Russia as an evil empire and defense spending was greatly increased during the early 1980s.

Answer: Washington

In 1983, many of us watched the news from Washington, keen to the tension between the US and the USSR, and wondering if every little conflict (Grenada, the Falkland Islands, the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007 by Soviet fighters) would result in nuclear war.

Answer: Russians

Was there anything the Americans feared in 1983 more than the Russians? The rule of the day was "Mutually Assured Destruction", where we knew the Russians could destroy us at will, but so long as they knew we would destroy them in the process, nobody would fire first.

But Russia had a new Premier, Yuri Andropov, and as former head of the KGB, we feared him far more than we did Leonid Brezhnev.

Answer: the USSR will be open soon

How prophetic Jackson Browne was in this line. In 1980, the US boycotted the Olympics because they were held in Moscow. In 1984, the Russians boycotted the Olympics because they were held in Los Angeles. The tension was getting worse every day.

But then in 1986, the Goodwill Games started in Moscow and there seemed to be a glimmer of hope. We started noticing that new Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev seemed different, and started listening to this talk of Glasnost and Perestroika. Even if we didn't know specifics, we knew they meant things were changing.

Answer: As vacation land for

In 1991, the collapse of the USSR was complete, and was open as vacation land for lawyers in love, as well as for anyone else who wished to travel to Eastern Europe.