This Week's Forgotten Gem of the '80s - J. Geils Band's "Angel in Blue"

The lovely "Angel in Blue" has been one of my favorite songs of any genre for more than 20 years, even if I didn't discover it until a few years after its inclusion on the J. Geils Band's hit 1982 record, Freeze Frame. It's simply an incredibly moving piece of songwriting from keyboard player Seth Justman, a gritty portrait of urban loneliness, abandoned dreams, and the human animal as chronically damaged goods. Peter Wolf may supply his typically spot-on vocal touch, but the literary value of this tale of an exotic dancer and her casually disappointed nihilism stems from Justman's fine lyric, which really deserves to be studied in an English class.

Packed with existential imagery and a painfully resigned tone of giving up, this song takes pop music to a lofty point and truly becomes permanent, unlike so many forgettable singles. The combination of chiming acoustic guitar and melancholy organ is a perfect choice, but what I can't forget are chilling lines like "When I whispered I thought I could love her, she just said, 'Baby, don't even bother to try'" and "She never had dreams, so they never came true." The next time someone suggests to you that '80s music suffered from a dearth of depth and substance, simply play this track for them and listen to the sweet sound of he or she promptly shutting up.

• Sample or download "Angel in Blue" here.
• Top 10 Albums of 1982
• J. Geils Official Website