The Berlin wall fell on my 10th birthday November 9, 1989. Such a hopeful, wonderful time. It makes me sad to think how much we have regressed as a culture and society in the 35 years since.
Hello fellow Scorpio, l had just turned 20 at that time. It is truly sad to see how the world has gone backwards in general, especially in the last 20 years. Things weren't perfect then, but there was a greater sense of unity that is sadly lacking today. Here's hoping and praying for better times ahead.
I have that feeling too from my 10th birthday. It was the Moon Landing and l feel that's been the zenith of world's nexus between humanity and technology
I was in the army stationed in Berlin and worked for military intelligence from 86 to 89, got to see it unfold from a perspective most people didn’t know existed.
I was 26. Waking to a sunny crisp morning in my first apartment in Dallas TX when I heard the Berlin Wall fell. Could never have conceived of such a thing. Its like you could feel the excitement from half way around the world on your goose bumped skin. Human possibility bursting from shackles like a time lapse blossom. This song nailed it! I pray that history is not in an equally astounding devolutionary reverse in our country in this years election. Vote!
I could feel the '80s music slipping away back then, but "Right Here Right Now," "Hole Hearted" by Extreme, and "Disappear" by INXS gave me a glimmer of hope for the future...
@@ProfessorofRock The style of music was changing in a way that did not appeal to me, but I felt songs like these represented a transition into a new era while maintaining melodic elements of the decade before...
This song was the most optimistic song ever, about a hopeful future. Looking back over the 30+ years since that song was released, it almost seems anachronistic now, but I still hold hope for the world. Whenever I get down, I love to listen to it.
Of the 100 bands I saw between 85 and 95, Jesus Jones was the absolute most fun. Big dance beats, power chords, and keyboards literally spinning around. I recall big jester hats and somehow the crowd had the perfect bouncy/slammy/dancy vibe. Thank you!
Love, love, love this! As a Gen X, this seems to capture what so many of our generation felt. I remember we had a defiant hope even as we felt the weight of worry and fear of what the world was throwing at us. That attitude colored how I navigate today and how I can still pop on the headphones and take a break celebrate life and all the good things even in the face of the news of all the world's division. We've faced it before and the world kept turning. It still will if we don't give up.☺
Today, I feel like we are even in a worse situation vs the 1980s with the fear of nuclear annihilation, we as a country remained united for the most part despite any differences and disagreements. In some way, the world also had some sense of fear of crossing the line but today all that has gone away and the world is coming off as one acting in reckless abandon with it's anger, division and finger-pointing.
Such a great song. I liked it in 1990, but have come more recently to truly appreciate it. I am truly a child of the Cold War, 17 years old when the wall went down in 1989, and I remember growing up with the belief that nuclear war will (not might, will) happen. Reagan, Mutually Assured Destruction, 99 Red Balloons, The Day After--it dominated our culture. And then all of a sudden, things changed drastically. And that great chorus kept resonating through my mind--"Right Here, Right Now, there is no other place I'd rather be, Right Here, Right Now, watching the world wake up from history."
I was a roadie in the early-to-mid 90s for a lesser-known band out of Seattle. One of my favorite memories of that time was when a younger hotel employee came up to me at poolside in Denver and said, "excuse me, are you Jesus Jones?" I should have said yes.😂
I love this song so much. It became my own gratitude prompt. I have moments in life when I think, 'right here right now, there is no other place I want to be' - and those moments are so special. Typically when I've made a big decision, reached a turning point, or just felt the sheer joy of being alive. I'm forever grateful for that song. ❤
If a band could only have 1 huge hit, then this is the one. For those of us who lived during that time this song takes us back to right here right now and reminds us how significant a moment in time it was.
My girlfriend at the time, watched the wall come down. She was able to bring me a piece of the wall. Right Here Right Now was the perfect song for that time.
I disagree with Mike Edwards on the song title I believe it is absolutely perfect. Like wake up it is happening right here right now!I was caught off guard completely when the wall came down, it seemed like it all happened overnight! This is one of the best songs that had a statement right on the mark. Russia could use another leader like Gorbachev right here right now!!! Fantastic interview professor!!
I always imagined reading a book about the 80s. Winds of Change playing as you turn the last page and close the book. Then grabbing a book about the 90s with Right Here Right Now playing as you open it up. I think the two songs compliment each other
Hi Prof! Been loving (and liking) your work. Re-examining and re-presenting all these musical gems so we re-hear and remember them re-enriches us all. And now nearly a million subscribers. Good on you and well deserved. I'm born in '54 so always enjoy the album cover shuffle of the day, always a nice historical touch. Cheers from Australia!
Great t-shirt, professor! I work at a college, and I'm sitting in on a class this semester on the movies of David Lynch. Last nigh we watched _Mulholland Drive_ , and in a scene nearly 2/3 of the way through the movie, the main characters enter _Club Silencio_ . Sitting halfway down are none other than Ronette Pulaski and Laura Palmer herself! The professor (of this class--not you) himself was unaware of this, and pointed it out to the students when I brought it to his attention.
I was scrolling through the tv channels when I came across the feed of the wall coming down. I was dumbfounded by what I was seeing. I woke my wife up and told her “you gotta see this”. The wall was such a constant in the news, people being shot trying to escape east Berlin, the Cold War threats , I was in my late 30s by then, never thought that the wall was coming down. Great episode. 😎🍺☮️
One of my favorite songs of all time. It was the perfect song for the time... You could feel the 80s disappearing as "Right Here, Right Now" put a ray of hope on the 90s...
Professor , you should do an episode on the 1991 hit You’re Unbelievable by EMF - the band came out the same time as Jesus Jones It was the time in 1991 when the movies Point Break and Reality Bites came out too - surfers 🏄, grunge rock , and skateboarding 🛹 were popular fads at the time
Ha! with all the broken cassettes I've picked up over the years, I remember many of the places in songs that were spliced together, unique wrinkled spot sounds, and stretched areas where the sound slows down on playback. And it still plays in my head years later. And the song Right Hear Right Now was on one of those found tapes that someone recorded off the radio. Gotta love those old analog memories.
@@RBS_ I didn't have the cassingle of it, but the tape I did find Jesus Jones on was a 90 minute cassette with lots of other then current songs at the time. Including part of a country music countdown and a Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 countdown that perfectly dates the tape.
Jesus Jones was a flash in the pan for me. When this song first came out, I thought it was an "okay" song. But then my wife fell in love with it and kept playing it over and over again until I finally broke down and started to love it too. LOL (guilty by association?). Now, it is a favorite from the time. Enjoyed the vid and interview! As always, you have such great content. Thank you. :)
Usually when a song gets "played to death" it makes it go from a good or great song to a song I never want to hear again.... for awhile, anyway. Cute how getting it over-played made it get better for you.
Thank you so much for this episode!! I truly enjoyed reliving the history of the music and the times. Remembering the wall came down was truly emotional even as a kid, it spoke to our generation. Being in the now. Great interview!!
I had a friend back then who never stopped singing this song. He sang it in my car so much one time I learned to hate it LOL. But it's a very lovely song. Great interview. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada 🍁
Americans were about to give a post grunge sayonara to the Brits. Jesus Jones and EMF were among the last to hit, although Radiohead sneaked in with Creep.
Interestingly enough, at about the same time America was giving the grunge sendoff to the Brits, the Brits in turn were giving their Britpop sendoff to America. Of course they had Oasis, but the other bands that blew up there were Blur, Pulp, Portishead, Elastica, Republica, and Spacehog, and I think they were mostly content to be themselves without worrying what Americans thought of them. That changed a bit when Coldplay came on the scene.
@@ProfessorofRock our change in the uk was with the stone roses, happy mondays, and the whole madchester scene. Late 80s going into the 90s. I'm glad we had our own indi/alternative rock scene. I never cared for grunge, although that did do ok for a while, once it worked it's way over to the uk.
There is another component of the song and of the video which I was surprised wasn't touched on. When the song says things like "watching the world wake up from history", what strikes me the most is the word "watching." Television news was still a fairly new development, and 24 hour news channels didn't even exist yet. The video really sells it with the band having the news video projected right on top of them, really hitting home the profound contribution to peoples perception of the world video was making up.
Great interview. Mike Edwards seems like a humble person. Since you mentioned it in the interview, you should cover “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and the singles off the “Waking Up the Neighbours” album.
...while I respect your decision, methinks Prof. should hit "Kids Wanna Rock" first! .....Bryan was a Party Boy Rocker FIRST, before he became King of the Soundtracks! ...ha-HAA!
Their bassist ended up being the wine buyer/expert for a local liquor chain here in Chicago of all things/places. Speaking of Chicago, saw these cats live at the Vic on their _Doubt_ tour. Solid show. First song I remember hearing was "Never Enough" when it got a touch of MTV airplay during their _120 Minutes_ segment. I was like, "whoah."
This is one of my favorites! It has a timeless sound to it and is just as modern now as it was over 30 years ago! It plays on XM fairly often and I crank it up each time. My kids love it too.
Right Here Right Now will never sound dated it's so fresh everytime I hear it. But now in 2024 this is the time I never want to be!!! The 80s 90s were so boss, but 2020s suck. I have to repeatedly replay songs like Right Here Right Now to remind me how life can be good when politics are used for good like individual freedom and people are of good will rather than self enrichment and divisivement. Back to my ipod. Thanks Jesus Jones.
I always wondered what happened to this band. Right here, right now was sooo huuuge when it came out, then just went away. Its been years since ive heard it, but it is definitely getting introduced to my regular play list. I love this channel for that! So many forgotten tunes have been reintroduced and brought back to the forefront. Thank you, Adam!!
Wow, this is another educational class with the Professor. I had not listened closely to the lyrics and had no idea of its themes. Just a catchy hook for a chorus. Thank you Adam!
I wish I could give this video 2 thumbs up! The song is so catchy and yet so relevant to that moment in time. As for the wall coming down, I was working on my masters in the early nineties and my supervisor was from Romania. He had left the country before the revolution in Romania meaning that he and his family left with only a couple of suitcases because the only way to escape the country was under the pretense of going on a vacation. I know I sound really old when I say this but I think most people don't appreciate how lucky we are in the west to live free. Our lives are not all roses and sunshine but our worst days are often what others can only dream of. The song is so full of hope. Seeing a nation like Hungary slip backward into something less than democratic is so strange to me.
❤🎉 Jesus Jones. Great band. Right Here Right Now............ great 90s earworm. Also a great history lesson.......... Just like Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire. Thanks Professor! Love this look back.
It was a real "feel good" song, loved it. But all I can remember is how cool he looked in the Real Real Real video, and how much I wanted hair like his!
very nice trip "down to memory lane", Bro! ! ! I was a teenager then and bought the Record, happy AF! ! ! "International BrightYoung Thing" is also one of my all-time favs! ! !
I was 14 when Nevermind came out. I experienced the next 4 years in real time, at probably the most impactful age that you could experience something like that. That was MY history. It changed my life, and the world. I also loved THIS song. My sisters were a bit older than me, and always had it on, and I constantly heard it on the radio and saw it on MTV. I really dug it. So much that I went out and bought the cassette single for it, which I STILL have.
This song came out right after I had graduated college. Majored in philosophy and political science and took several years of Russian. Cold war was in the front of our minds even though it was the awesome 80s. I was going to work on important things. But the Wall fell. I was deep in student debt. Working crappy jobs so I didn't have to move back in with Mom and Dad. The world was no longer my oyster. I had gotten the long coveted college degree and I was only able to get the same jobs I could have gotten if I went to work right out of high school...but with the added overwhelming debt. GenX and Millennials have a lot in common. But this song sent me. All that awareness I'd gained in my studies. It evoked the hope of a new world and, yet, pointed to my underachievement as I drove to my crappy factory job listening on the car radio. Trying to pay down my student debt. I don't really have a point except that this song is in the top 10 for giving me feels 34 years later.
I came home briefly from Desert Shield before redeploying for Dessert Storm. I played this song nearly non stop. It was somehow comforting and motivating. Still is.
This was a great choice! As usual you have brought out things about the song, that I didn't know. You must love what you do, because it does not seem to be a job to you.
Love this song, reminds me of being 16 and hanging with my friends in the 90s. This song fell between the end of hair metal and pre grunge, it was like a sign of things to come. Enjoy listening to it when it comes on Lithium on sirius radio. Thanks Professor 👓, really enjoyed this one. Just when I was getting off from the high from Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4 you hit me with this.
I never realised this song was about the collapse of the Berlin Wall. I remember in 1986 standing on a railway platform in Bishopshofen, Austria, seeing an arrow pointing east which said Budapest and thinking I won't be going there in my lifetime. Five years later, the Wall came down and it was freedom for so many people! And yes, I have now been to Budapest, Poland, Slovakia, and other places in Eastern Europe.
I only wish that the world really DID wake up from history... but at the time, that was brilliant! These guys were among the last of the greats, in my ever so humble opinion.
I'm a end of the line Gen Xer (born in early 1980), and I distinctly remember this being one of if not the first "alternative" song that I really got into. Great song then, great song now.
Fall of the Berlin wall songs: 1. Wind of change (scorpions) 2. Right here Right now (Jesus Jones) 3. Only a heartbeat *(T'Pau)* 4. Looking for Freedom (The Hoff) 5. We didn't start the fire (billy joel)
What about Heroes by David Bowie? The people who knocked down the Berlin Wall were singing that as they did it. David Bowie had lived in Berlin and recorded there.
Fantastic interview! Unfortunately, when the wall fell I was a naive 7th grader who didn’t fully appreciate the significance of it all at first. However, the song helped me appreciate that the wall’s fall must be important since the message was playing on radio every hour
Thank you! Always loved this song, it really did define the early 90s! So many great and individual songs back then. Didn't hurt that he was quite "cute" looking back in the day too LOL
I worked at a video store back then and we had to listen to that song over and over and over again. To the point that I still remember all of the lyrics.
i still listen to many tracks from this album to this day! I'm unapologetically nostalgic for 80s and 90s music, but I always thought Jesus Jones were really interesting soundwise. I also wonder how many times Mike got or still gets called "Jesus Jones" himself.
I had completely forgotten about this song. Thank you so much for reminding me because even listening to it now it gives me such a weird, butterflies and goosebumps feeling, just like it did back then. I graduated high school in 1990. And this song so wonderfully captures the feeling of that time, that anything was possible.
I remember listening to the radio whenever this song came on, and when the DJ said it was by Jesus Jones, he would say, “So that’s His last name!” I always thought that was funny. 😂
The 90s had so many bands/singers that hit virtually every single genre and there was something for everyone. They were all there and it seemed the next day they were all gone. It was a decade that for some reason felt like it went quicker then even the last 20 years. Semi Sonic Closing Time, Run Away Train and Misery from Soul Asylum and like another post said, Hole Hearted by Extreme and also Go West, King of Wishful Thinking. All great songs and all had hints of the 80s still but a new vibe to the songs. I was born in 77 and still love my 80s metal/glam and everything in between, but those 90s had everything.
Jesus Jones are never someone I expected to be on here, they EM F and Carter USM were the core of my youth. Never knew Right Here Right Now was so big in America, they had maybe 4 bigger singles in UK.
I never thought the wall would come down so I was blown away and I cheered on the people Knocking it down. It was quite cathartic. It felt like the world was going to change for the better. Maybe it did change for the better for a moment at any rate. Thinking about this makes me think of the T'Pau song “Only A Heartbeat” from their album “The Promise” and that song really captured the feeling of the wall coming down as well. I'd say there were plenty of groups with similar songs approaching the feeling in different ways.
Thanks Professor, such a great interview! It really shows how much you prepare for these interviews by bringing up things they didn't know or forgot haha! Love all the little facts about Hendrix, Iggy Pop, Prince, Dylan, so cool! Did the Scorpion's Winds of Change come out about the same time? I believe that was about the wall coming down too. Another great song! If you haven't done an episode on that one would love to hear it. Thanks again, you're Da'Man!
Nice t-shirt. Coincidentally, I just started watching Twin Peaks again. I hadn’t seen it in >30 years. Definitely one of the most unusual shows with some of the oddest characters ever e.g. the Log Lady. Then again, I would expect nothing less from David Lynch.
Don McCleans "American Pie" still hear the skip til this day on my 45. Right before you had to flip it over to hear the rest of the song. It's a long playing song that didn't fit on one side of the 45. Love the content. Keep on keeping on.
.....INSTANTLY was hooked from the first time I heard it; waiting for something FAR more soulful, optimistic tone DID resonate powerfully - has a distinctly Genesis-Gabriel vibe somehow - and even Chicago.....
