The year is 1983, or somewhere around there.

I’m thirteen years old, in the eighth grade and soon to be finished with middle school, and I’m going through a broody phase. No doubt the onslaught of puberty has something to do with this, but as far as I’m concerned, I simply have a lot on my mind. Big, important things like, What will high school be like? Will I ever have a girlfriend? Will she be willing to “put out,” and what exactly does that mean, anyhow? Will I live long enough to find out what it means, or will there be a nuclear war? That’s a real possibility, you know, what with Ronnie Ray-Gun’s finger on the big red button and all. What would I do if I got the word the missiles were in the air? And most importantly… how will Han Solo get rescued from the living hell of carbon-freeze in the upcoming third Star Wars movie?!

Just lately, I’ve taken to spending much of my leisure time on the rope swing that hangs from my old treehouse in the backyard, caroming off the cinderblock wall of Dad’s shop with each pendulum-like motion. I’ve been spending so much on that thing that wear spots are developing on the front of my jeans, where the nylon rope is abrading the denim. (I’ll learn later on in life that Dad was worried about me during this phase, finding it weird that I would be out there for hours on end, just… swinging. Swinging and thinking.)

I like to listen to music as I swing and think, on my trusty Sony Walkman II cassette player. And among the music I’m most likely listening to around this moment in time is the band Asia.

Asia was what used to be called a supergroup, a band comprising musicians who are already known for being members of other successful bands. In the case of Asia’s original line-up, bassist and lead vocalist John Wetton came from King Crimson; guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Geoff Downes were both from Yes; and Carl Palmer, the drummer, was one-third of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, all of which were important prog-rock groups. Not that I knew about any of that when I was thirteen; I just liked Asia’s sound.

My favorite Asia album was the band’s second release, Alpha — which really should’ve been called called Beta, when you think about it — but as it happens, their first and biggest charting single came from their debut record, the self-titled Asia. Co-written by Wetton and Downes, “Heat of the Moment” was a huge and inescapable hit that climbed to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as spending six nonconsecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart throughout the spring and summer of 1982. Its opening guitar riff remains one of the most recognizable of the early ’80s, one of those things that insist you crank up the volume whenever you hear them.

John Wetton died a couple weeks ago at the age of 67, so tonight, in his honor, I thought I’d share “Heat of the Moment” and think about 1983 (or thereabouts), my old rope swing, and those teenage ambitions I remember so well…