Retro Videos of the Week: "Take Me Home Tonight" by Eddie Money and "Drive" by The Cars

This has been about the busiest week of work I've had in the last ten years, so I don't have much time, but I would be remiss if I didn't have some tribute to the two rock legends that we lost last weekend, Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek.  Money was the down-to-earth, working-class New Yorker who always just seemed like a guy you wanted to have a beer with.  Ocasek was the rock and roll nerd who married a supermodel.  So I'm going with videos from both Money and The Cars this week.

For Money, it's gotta be "Take Me Home Tonight."  This is on pretty much any party playlist I make.  It's a great singalong song, with backing vocals from the legendary Ronnie Bennett Spector, who contributes the "be my little baby" from The Ronettes' classic "Be My Baby," which is maybe one of the greatest pop songs ever.  "Take Me Home Tonight" rejuvenated Money's career, being his first Top 40 hit in four years, his highest-charting song ever (hitting #4 on the Billboard Hot 100), and starting a nice string of hits over the next five years for the Money Man.  The official video isn't on YouTube, so here's a live version from Solid Gold.

For The Cars, I'm going with "Drive" because it's a sad and beautiful song.  Written by Ocasek and sung by bassist Benjamin Orr, it was The Cars' biggest hit (going to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100) and was one of five Top 40 songs off of the band's huge 1984 album Heartbeat City.  It's been in my head most of this week.  And the video features the aforementioned supermodel, Paulina Porizkova, who would later become Ocasek's wife.