During the 1983-84 school year, I lived in a two-bedroom townhouse on Highland Drive with two other guys — rent, btw, was $250 — and we made something of a habit out of playing basketball late into the night, picking up a half-case of Heidelberg on the way home and then watching MTV until either we got tired or the beer was gone, whatever came first.

MTV was a relatively new deal back then, and it was sort of fun to actually see the bands you liked doing these videos as opposed to just hearing them on KGON or KZEL.

We had a handful of videos we particularly enjoyed — “Photograph,” by Def Leppard; “Hold on Loosely,” by .38 Special; and “Harden my Heart,” by Quarterflash (the band’s Rindy Ross had been one of our friend’s elementary school teachers in Bend) — but probably our all-time favorite was “Monkey on Your Back,” by Aldo Nova. The video itself was amusing and entertaining, and the song, unlike the others I mentioned, basically never showed up on the radio for reasons I’ve never fully understood.

(One of my roommates, Chris, and I ended up buying the Aldo Nova album that contained the song, just so we could hear it without being at the mercy of MTV; hope it’s still in his collection, because it’s not among my records).

As during my college days, “Monkey” continued to be kept off the airwaves, meaning I didn’t hear it from 1985 until 2007, when I finally joined the iPod generation, found the song online, downloaded it and stored it (when I say “I,” I actually mean my son Bob, who has been kind enough to handle my iPod music retrieval and storage needs).

While running in the woods the other day, with the iPod in its “shuffle songs” mode, “Monkey” came blasting through the earbuds, and I was instantly taken back, as I always am, to that townhouse on Highland Drive.

And I was also inspired for this week’s list, the Top 7 songs you never (or at least rarely) hear on the radio (one song per artist limit):

1) “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” Bob Dylan.

2) “Straight Into Darkness,” Tom Petty.

3) “Sea and Sand,” The Who.

4) “Catch the Wind,” Donovan.

5) “The Damage is Done,” Foreigner.

6) “Sign of the Gypsy Queen,” April Wine.

7) “Working Class Hero,” John Lennon.