Sometimes you run into a force of nature.

There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s a force of nature.

Say hello to the bridesmaid, Greg Kihn, and the band so nice they named it after him, The Greg Kihn Band.

Growing up in Baltimore, Greg showed early musical promise as a teen, winning a local radio talent contest with one of his original songs. This later prompted a move to San Francisco in 1972, a city past it’s psychedelic boom years, but still the center of a thriving music scene.

Kihn began busking on the streets and eventually signed with Beserkely Records, a label who became known for their roster of off kilter, punky, power pop acts. Greg fit right in, helping to establish Beserkely’s identity of rock & roll for cool people with a sense of humor.

He put together his own band and in 1981 scored a Top 20 hit with “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em).” The following year, his songwriting partner, Steve Wright, brought over his newly purchased portable Casio keyboard and started messing around with it to see what the little electronic box could do. He played an improvised riff and Kihn immediately sang out, “Our love’s in jeopardy……baby.” Fifteen minutes later they had an entire song completed. Grabbing the band, they went into the recording studio and knocked out the final version in only a couple of takes.

Released as a single in January of 1983, “Jeopardy” began its precarious journey up the Hot 100. 1983 was filled with huge, classic hits by a number of huge, classic artists, but “Jeopardy” kept gaining momentum and managed to climb into the Top 10 by spring. In May, the song reached #2 and looked like it had the potential to reach the coveted top spot and achieve a little piece of music history, when it slammed right up against the global phenomenon known as Michael Jackson.

Jackson was an unstoppable force and an immovable object in 1982 and 1983, the biggest musical superstar in the world, sweeping away all competition with the release of his Thriller album. The record contained seven Top 10 hits, including two #1s, one of which, “Beat It,” prevented “Jeopardy” from topping the pop chart (although “Jeopardy” did, somewhat unexpectedly, reach #1 on the Dance chart).

If you’re going to get beaten, take some solace that you were beaten by a phenomenon.

So take it as a warning, or take it any way you like… with The Greg Kihn Band.

“Jeopardy” was an outlier for Kihn and the band. They usually worked in more of a rock & roll and power pop vein, evident in their 1981 hit “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em),” which was recorded in one take. Kihn hadn’t finished the lyrics but his producer said to wing it, so Kihn filled in the gaps with nonsense syllables. And that’s how they released it.