Life Is Like A Star (1983) – Sandie Shaw (Ilona Kish/Phil Sawyer/Sandie Shaw)

“Life Is Like A Star” is the one song that would have been more appropriate than “Magic” playing in the background while Olivia Newton-John glided across the floor of what would eventually become Xanadu. Like an errant vestige of the bygone era of rollerskating pinball wizards, it skirts along the cusp of memories that are actually figments, perforating apertures of familiarity in that which is foreign. Sprightly echoes of staccato Rhodes piano radiate into psychotropic chord transitions that probably violate some theory of juxtaposition, frolicking to a nifty 15/8 time signature before settling into an easy disco sashay. In lyrically conjuring images of streaking celestial bodies sparking the colors of the universe and meshing to create “a richly woven symmetry of illusion,” the song betrays its likely genesis in the heavy use of hallucinogens, a de facto endorsement of under-the-influence creativity.

Not available from iTunes Music Store.