100 HITS OF THE REPUBLIC 1984 - 67th Segment: “Buttons of Love”
A significant amount of radio and television output in 1984 was stagnant to say the least. That year Czech pop also lost Milan Chladil, who died at the age of just 53. An extremely popular singer, he had performed in a duo with Yvetta Simonová.
On January 31st, the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) in Prague performed the first successful heart transplant in the region.
On May 12th, the Czechoslovak Olympic Committee unanimously decided not to send the Czechoslovak athletes to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
On October 11th, the 1984 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded in Stockholm to poet Jaroslav Seifert.
Composer Pavel Vaculík and lyricist Jan Krůta decided that the duo’s love songs would be greatly missed by the public. To fill that gap they wrote a series of naïve, melodic duets for the 18-year-old Iveta Bartošová and her partner Petr Sepéši. Their plan was a success, and “Buttons of Love” (“Knoflíky lásky”) became their most famous song.
