This ‘Kalamazoo’ Song Will Totally Take You Back to the 80s

Ah, the 80s in Kalamazoo. You've never heard this club song, but it will take you right back to the day. Warning: "it's the saddest story ever told."

Hanging out at Maple Hill and West Main Mall, saving up quarters to play Dragon's Lair at the Fun Factory. You remember when Meijer still had the words "Thrifty Acres' on the sign, the cafe inside the store and maybe even a Sagebrush store in the parking lot. Bob Hate's song "Kalamazoo" probably never got played at Club Soda, but it is a dance song with a sound, like, totally 1980-something. Listen for the dated drum-machine beats and Casio-sounding keyboard behind Bob's guitar playing and storytelling.

Cribbing Glenn Miller, Hate sings "I got a girl in Kalamazoo, maybe you do too." He seems to be lamenting the fact that, "I'm never gonna see my baby again" but it looks like things didn't work out.

Left that girl in Kalamazoo

Pawned that ring made of shiny gold

Things 'round here gettin' mighty cold

Dream maker, take me back to Michigan

I'm never going to see my baby again

Never goin' back to Kalamazoo

Not even for a day or two

Saddest story ever told,

Just keep diggin' a deeper hole

Unfortunately, we can't ask Bob Hate if the song is autobiographical or completely fiction as he passed away in 2014. The Louisiana native has (presumably his own) lyrics on his epitaph: "On every highway that I ever wandered are the burned out shells of miles gone by. Weeds growing up through metal just to remind us that we all run out of gas sometime."

Saddest story, indeed.