Right Before Your Eyes

Back about 25 years ago (!), I had a Radio Shack crystal radio under my bed, and I would listen to CKOC from Hamilton well into the night hours with the radio’s little earphone strung up under my pillow. One of the songs I remember ever so clearly from those days is Right Before Your Eyes by Ian Thomas. If you hear the song, you’ll remember it: it starts Every day I sit beside on the bus to Madison Avenue; You work in the Big Grey Store with the Revolving Doors.
Ever since, I’ve been trying to find a copy of the song. And trying. And trying. It turns out that the reason I couldn’t find it was that there are actually two versions of the song, one in 1976 by Ian Thomas, who wrote it, and one by the band America, which had a big hit with it in the U.S. in 1982. I was always looking for an album by America with Ian Thomas… which doesn’t exist. The Ian Thomas version is more interesting; the America version is better produced.

Ian Thomas is brother of actor Dave Thomas, of SCTV fame. Ian actually starred in a 1981 episode of SCTV, and he wrote music for Dave’s 1993 film Ghost Mom