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That's not it either. I got sorta motivated today and listened to a bunch of 80s songs we have, but no dice so far on that front.
"Let's hear it for Nine Inch Nails! Woo, they're good!"That's not it either, but if it helps I just added some more details that might make it easier to find/recognize.
"Let's hear it for Nine Inch Nails! Woo, they're good!"Bumping this thread to add an approximate imitation
of the percussion beat (which I probably should have done in the first place).
Update on this query from 5 years ago (to anyone who still remembers it): I'm 99% certain I managed to find out what this mystery song was. As it turns out, it wasn't from the 1980s, or even a full song at all; I was thinking of the bridge to Limp Bizkit's cover of "Behind Blue Eyes
" (2:31 to 3:03). Memories can get so twisted with age.
For that 1% of uncertainty you have I say that the song So Serious by Electric Light Orchestra also fits the description. An 80's romantic rock song with multiple I's.
Edited by KisujjOnly because I read an article about this recently, could it possibly be "Groove is in the Heart" by Deeee-lite?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4TC2D7uGqs
The "I" is actually Eva Gabor as Lisa Douglas from Green Acres.
It's definitely not "So Serious", and I'm already familiar with "Groove is in the Heart" so it's not that either. Locking to stop more necroposts because I've long accepted it's "Behind Blue Eyes".
"Let's hear it for Nine Inch Nails! Woo, they're good!"

My mom used to play this song when I was a child, and I've never heard it since. All I can remember was one (recurring?) part of the song: a male singer sounding vaguely like Pat Sajak saying "I" and percussion between his vocals (the best way I can describe it in text is "I- (dun da dun) I- (dun da dun)"). I believe it was a slow romantic song, and there may have been a female singer for the verses. It sounded very 80s, though it could be from anywhere up to the mid-late 2000s (when I heard it). I thought it was by The B-52s for a while, but none of the songs on the one album we have match.
Edit: Memory's still fuzzy, but here's some more details that might help: genre's most likely pop (maybe softer/mellow rock), the "I-"s were spoken with something like a voice crack partway (electronically altered?), the percussion (most likely drums) definitely stood out from the rest of the melody, and I wanna say the instrumentation/overall tone sounded something like "Electrolite"
by R.E.M. (not a complete similarity of course).
Edited by CosmicCat