The Story Behind "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Rock, Video  No Responses »
May 172013
 

The Wait­resses released “I Know What Boys Like” in 1980; how­ever, it didn’t chart until 1982, when it peaked at #62 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. The song was a cult sen­sa­tion and fea­tured on their debut album, Wasn’t Tomor­row Wonderful?

The Wait­resses got their start on the Akron/Cleveland music scene.

Chris But­ler was the leader of The Wait­resses and wrote most of their songs from a female per­spec­tive, because he found it funny and stu­pid and cool and dif­fer­ent. In 2005, he unknow­ingly bought the child­hood home of Jef­frey Dah­mer. He had orig­i­nally writ­ten “I Know What Boys Like” and recorded all the instru­ments for the track, before ask­ing his friend Patty Don­ahue to record the vocals as Patty Dar­ling. He bor­rowed the name The Wait­resses from a favorite t-shirt of a friend. After set­tling into New York, But­ler scored a record deal with “I Know What Boys Like” and scram­bled to find mem­bers for his imag­i­nary band.

Patty Don­ahue was the lead singer for The Wait­resses. She quite the band in 1984, then returned until the band broke up at the end of that year. After­wards, she worked for ABC in the Polit­i­cal Unit and the A&R depart­ment at MCA Records. She died of lung can­cer in 1996.

Drum­mer Billy Ficca also played drums for leg­endary punk band Tele­vi­sion, Nona Hendryx & Zero Cool, among many other bands.

Sax­o­phon­ist Mars Williams went on to play with The Psy­che­delic Furs, Billy Idol, Robert Palmer, Billy Squier, Power Sta­tion, Min­istry, and many others.

Bass gui­tarist Tracy Worm­worth went on to tour with The B-52s for 20 years. She was also a mem­ber of the house band on the Rosie O’Donnell Show.

Ver­sions
I Know What Boys Like 3’11
I Know What Boys Like 3’20

Music Video
The music video show­cases The Wait­resses per­form­ing “I Know What Boys Like” in a stu­dio, with some ani­mated seg­ments. Lead singer Patty Don­ahue flirts play­fully with the cam­era, while the rest of the band pro­vides addi­tional comic relief. The video seems ama­teur by today’s stan­dards; how­ever, it has a cer­tain charm rem­i­nis­cent of the early days of MTV that I miss so much.

Mem­o­ries
“I Know What Boys Like” by The Wait­resses reminds me of my older sis­ter, Vicki. She played the radio as she put her makeup on in the morn­ing before school and when she got ready to go out for the week­end, as well as giv­ing me a lift to school. I always enjoyed the catchy gui­tar riff and the monot­o­nous melody of this song, not men­tion the wicked sense of humor. I was still fairly naive, so I’m not sure I really under­stood what boys liked yet.

What are your mem­o­ries of “I Know What Boys Like” by The Waitresses?

The Story Behind "Dance Hall Days" by Wang Chung

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  1 Response »
May 102013
 

Wang Chung released “Dance Hall Days” on Jan­u­ary 14, 1984. The sin­gle only charted at #21 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, but peaked at #16 on the U.S. Hot Bill­board 100, becom­ing one of five U.S. Top 40 hits the band would have over the next three years.

Wang Chung is Chi­nese for “yel­low bell.” It’s also the first note in the Chi­nese clas­si­cal music scale. The band orig­i­nally spelled it Huang Chung, but changed the spelling at Gef­fen Records’ sug­ges­tion, as English-speaking peo­ple were pro­nounc­ing the band’s name as “Hung Chung.”

Lead singer Jack Hues stated in an inter­view that “Dance Hall Days” was par­tially inspired by Adam Ant, which led to Wang Chung record­ing the song with Chris Hughes, who also pro­duced Adam and the Ants’ “Kings of the Wild Frontier.”

Ver­sions
Dance Hall Days 3’58
Dance Hall Days [Remix] 8’02
Dance Hall Days [Remix] 7’22

Music Video #1

Music Video #2

Music Video
Two music videos were filmed for “Dance Hall Days.” The first was directed by Derek Jar­man and included his father’s home movies from the World War II era inter­spersed with footage of the band play­ing vio­lins and dressed as char­ac­ters from The Wiz­ard of Oz. (The tod­dler in the footage is actu­ally the direc­tor as a child.)

The sec­ond music video takes place in an art deco music hall. The band per­forms the song while cou­ples dance. Later, the cam­era pans across the tables and reveals the audi­ence is filled with iden­ti­cal twins. The mir­rored ball falls to the dance floor and a mir­rored dancer hatches from it and dances. Out­side the dance hall, lead singer Jack Hues walks off with­out his suit­case, which sprouts legs and chases after him. This video was nom­i­nated for Best New Artist at the 1984 MTV Music Awards, but lost to Eury­th­mics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”

Mem­o­ries
“Dance Hall Days” is one of the few songs I can hear and instantly feel six­teen again. The song and the music video were in heavy rota­tion on radio and T.V. in the Sum­mer of 1984, which I feel was the apoth­e­o­sis of MTV. There’s just some­thing about the gui­tar and synth, the cryp­tic lyrics, and the sur­real video that has remained with me over the past almost thirty years.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Dance Hall Days” by Wang Chung?

The Story Behind "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Culture, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Mar 152013
 

Cul­ture Club released their most suc­cess­ful sin­gle, “Karma Chameleon,” in Sep­tem­ber 1983.  The song topped both the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100.  It went to #1 in 14 other coun­tries and sold over seven mil­lion copies world­wide.  It was the best-selling sin­gle 0f 1983 in the U.K. and won Best British Sin­gle at the 1984 Brit Awards.

Accord­ing to the Boy George, “Karma Chameleon” is about the cause and effect of not being true to one­self for fear of being ostra­cized by other peo­ple. Although the group wrote their songs together, Boy George often crafted their lyrics. A fre­quent source of inspi­ra­tion was his secret rela­tion­ship with drum­mer Jon Moss, who inspired the lyric “You’re my lover, not my rival.” The stress of the public/professional and personal/private rela­tion­ship would even­tu­ally take its toll on both of them, as well as the band.

The pic­ture of Boy George on the record sleeve was taken by pho­tog­ra­pher, David Levine, brother of Cul­ture Club’s pro­ducer, Steven Levine.

Ver­sions
Karma Chameleon [7″ Ver­sion] 3’59/4’05
Karma Chameleon [Album Ver­sion] 4’11

Music Video
The music video for “Karma Chameleon” is set in Mis­sis­sippi in 1870; how­ever, it was actu­ally filmed in Des­bor­ough Island in South­east Eng­land. Boy George, in his iconic fin­ger­less gloves, braids, and black derby, sings as he and oth­ers await to board a steam­boat, Chameleon. Mean­while, a gen­teel pick­pocket moves through the crowd and steals jew­elry and wal­lets. On the boat, he plays cards with the other band mem­bers of Cul­ture Club. He is even­tu­ally found out and forced to walk the plank. The music video ends with every­one singing and dancing.

Mem­o­ries
My fond­est mem­ory of “Karma Chameleon” by Cul­ture Club is my mom buy­ing a copy of the Colour by Num­bers album because she fell in love with the song. She used to play the album all the time on her big-ass Cur­tis Mathis enter­tain­ment cen­ter that took up a whole wall of our liv­ing room. She’d also watch every inter­view with Boy George that came on T.V. It seemed like the song was every­where and it was insanely catchy. How­ever, it’s one of those songs that was played so much, I rarely have the urge to lis­ten to it.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Karma Chameleon” by Cul­ture Club?

The Story Behind "Back on the Chain Gang" by The Pretenders

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Feb 222013
 

The Pre­tenders released “Back on the Chain Gang” on Novem­ber 12, 1982. The sin­gle peaked at #17 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #5 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. The song was included on their third album, Learn­ing to Crawl, which wasn’t released until Jan­u­ary 1984.

A chain gang is a group of pris­on­ers who are chained together while per­form­ing phys­i­cal labor outside.

Many peo­ple believe “Back on the Chain Gang” is about rem­i­nisc­ing about a past rela­tion­ship. IN real­ity, it’s about for­mer Pre­tenders’ gui­tarist James Honeyman-Scott, who died of a drug over­dose the year before. Lead singer Chrissie Hynde had intended for the song to be about Ray Davies of the Kinks, whom she had just given birth to his daugh­ter. After Honeyman-Scott’s death, Hynde pur­sued a dif­fer­ent direc­tion with the song.

The cho­rus includes a chant that is rumored to be based on a sim­i­lar chant in Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang.”

George Har­ri­son once claimed that he invented a cord used in the Bea­t­les’ “I Want to Tell You,” which The Pre­tenders used in “Back on the Chain Gang.

Ver­sions
Back on the Chain Gang 3’49

Music Video
The music video fea­tures band mem­bers doing flips in the air, then cuts to peo­ple walk­ing through the streets of Lon­don, before focus­ing on Hynde singing to the cam­era on a bridge. She walks through the streets, and even­tu­ally fol­lows a blond man in a trench coat through a door that opens into a sand pit where band mem­bers and var­i­ous men seen walk­ing the streets of Lon­don are now dig­ging with pick axes.

Mem­o­ries
“Back on the Chain Gang” always reminds me of my older sis­ter, Vicki, because when she joined the BMG Music Club, she chose Learn­ing to Crawl as one of her free cas­settes. (The other three were Touch by Eury­th­mics, In the Heat of the Night by Pat Benatar, and Elim­i­na­tor by ZZ Top.) There’s just some­thing about Hynde’s voice, the jan­gly gui­tar, and the melody that make this song mem­o­rable, com­bined with the archaic image of a pris­on­ers work­ing on a chain gang.

I was reminded of my other mem­ory tonight, while sit­ting out­side in the back­yard and watch­ing the sun set. I recall quite vividly sit­ting at my bed­room win­dow at sun­set one Feb­ru­ary evening while lis­ten­ing to the radio in the dark. My bed­room faced the woods and the sky was afire with pink, pur­ple, and peach, just above the tree­line. I was moon­ing over a girl I had a crush on at the time, and “Back on the Chain Gang” was play­ing. The sky and my melan­choly seemed so beau­ti­ful, I told myself it was a moment I would remem­ber for the rest of my life–and I did.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Back on the Chain Gang” by the Pretenders?

The Story Behind "Vienna" by Ultravox

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Jan 182013
 

Ultra­vox released “Vienna” on Jan­u­ary 15, 1981 and spent four weeks at #2 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart with­out ever reach­ing the top spot. The song went on to win “Sin­gle of the Year” at 1981 BRIT Awards and became the fifth best sell­ing U.K. sin­gle for 1981.

After John Foxx left Ultra­vox, Midge Ure was recruited after work­ing with Ultra­vox mem­ber Billy Cur­rie on Steve Strange’s Vis­age project. Ure took the band in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion and their biggest suc­cess, which is often referred to as the Ultra­vox clas­sic lineup.

Although the song is a synth-pop bal­lad, it utl­izes a grand piano and viola, evok­ing a sparse song with grand, clas­si­cal flour­ishes. “Vienna” was inspired by the 1948 film The Third Man.

The record sleeve and music video fea­ture the tomb­stone of Carl Schweighofer, a famous Aus­trian piano maker.

Ver­sions
Vienna [Span­ish 7″ Ver­sion] 3’59
Vienna [7″ Version/Edit] 4’38
Vienna [12″ Version/Album Ver­sion] 4’50

Music Video
Chrysalis Records refused to pay for the music video for “Vienna,” which was directed by Rus­sell Mulc­ahy and cost an esti­mated £7000, so the band paid for it them­selves.  It’s con­sid­ered the first “mini-movie” music video.  Although set in Vienna, Aus­tria, abou half of the footage was shot in Lon­don at Covent Gar­den and Kil­burn Gau­mont The­atre.  Ultra­vox and a cam­era took a morn­ing flight to Vienna and filmed where they could, since many of the loca­tions they had planned to film at were closed, then took a flight back to start editing.

Mem­o­ries
“Vienna” was not a hit in the U.S. and I had never heard it before I watched a music video com­pi­la­tion about the mak­ing of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christ­mas?”  One of the music videos included on the video was “Vienna.”  I recall being struck by spare and dra­matic sounds and visu­als.  I never heard the song again until I bought an import synth-pop com­pi­la­tion in 1994 and played this song inces­santly.  It’s fun to sing really loud when you’re wash­ing dishes, although I don’t think my neigh­bors care for it–or maybe it’s just my singing.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Vienna” by Ultravox?

The Story Behind "Goody Two Shoes" by Adam Ant

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Music, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Nov 092012
 

Adam Ant released “Goody Two Shoes” on May 7, 1982.  His debut solo sin­gle topped the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and peaked at #12 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 1oo.  It was his biggest hit in the U.S., thanks to heavy rota­tion of the music video on MTV.

Although Ant had an over-the-top stage pres­ence, the man behind the per­sona was very pri­vate.  He had over­come his drug addic­tion in the 70s and no longer drank alco­hol or smoked cig­a­rettes, which led to the tabloids hound­ing him about his per­sonal life.  Could a pop star really be such a goody two shoes?  Another inspi­ra­tion for the song, sup­pos­edly, came from a per­for­mance by Kevin Row­land, lead singer of Dexys Mid­night Runners.

Ver­sions
Goody Two Shoes 3’15
Goody Two Shoes [Album Ver­sion] 3’27

Orig­i­nal Music Video

Alter­nate Music Video

Music Video
There are two music videos for “Goody Two Shoes.”  The first fol­lows a day in the life of Adam Ant, as he is hounded by the press, even­tu­ally end­ing up with a pretty female reporter played by actress Car­o­line Munro (The Golden Voy­age of Sin­bad, At the Earth’s Core, The Spy Who Loved Me, Maniac, etc.).  The sec­ond video fea­tures Ant per­form­ing in a cramped room with mov­ing fur­ni­ture, then reclined over a room where soap suds fill the floor behind him.

Mem­o­ries
I’ve always had a fond­ness for Adam Ant.  Per­haps it was his flam­boy­ant style or the tribal per­cus­sion dri­ving most of his hits.  Regard­less, I can remem­ber stand­ing in front of the tele­vi­sion, unmov­ing, as I watched the music video for “Goody Two Shoes.”  It was fea­tured on one of many music video shows that were pop­u­lar on reg­u­lar tele­vi­sion after the launch of MTV.  A decade later, I picked up a copy of his Hits video com­pi­la­tion on VHS at Half Price Books in Hurst, TX.  When I returned to my apart­ment, I played it for my friends.  Even though the videos seemed some­what dated–many of them were shot with video, not film–my friends, who were some­what younger than I was, remarked at how there was some­thing inex­plic­a­ble about Adam Ant.  It was a sex­i­ness that went beyond sen­su­al­ity and phys­i­cal attrac­tive­ness; it had more to do with stage pres­ence and his tongue-in-cheek playfulness.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Goody Two Shoes” by Adam Ant? 

The Story Behind "True" by Spandau Ballet

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Soul, Video  1 Response »
Nov 022012
 

Span­dau Bal­let released “True” on April 14, 1983. The song topped the U.K. Sin­gles Chart for four weeks, and peaked at #4 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 that autumn. Sadly, it was the only top ten Amer­i­can hit for the bad, who are typ­i­cally only remem­bered for “True,” and rarely “Com­mu­ni­ca­tion” U.S. #59, “Gold” U.S. #29, and “Only When You Leave” U.S. #34. Oddly enough, the album ver­sion is longer than the ver­sion included on the 12″ single.

When the band formed in 1976, the were orig­i­nally called The Cut, then The Mak­ers, before a friend saw the words Span­dau Bal­let scrawled on a restroom wall in a Berlin night­club and they took them as their name. The band orig­i­nally achieved huge suc­cess in Eng­land as part of the New Roman­tic move­ment, but tran­si­tioned into a slicker pop sound with their True album.

Gui­tarist and song­writer Gary Kemp remem­bers sit­ting on his bed at his par­ents’ house and wanted to write a song about a girl he was in love with, yet had no idea of his feel­ings for her. She had given him Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita to read, and he took the lyric “Take your sead­side arms and write the next line” from the book. The expe­ri­ence made him aware of how dif­fi­cult is to put one’s feel­ing into words with­out seem­ing maudlin or cliche.

Pro­duc­ers Tony Swain and Steve Jolly pro­duced the entire True album for Span­dau Bal­let, which was recorded at Com­pass Point Stu­dios in the Bahamas. They had pre­vi­ously scored hits with Imagination’s “Body Talk,” Bananarama’s “Cruel Sum­mer,” and “Robert De Niro’s Wait­ing,” and Ali­son Moyet’s “Love Ressur­rec­tion,” among others.

The gui­tar hook from “True” was sam­pled by P.M. Dawn on their U.S. #1 hit, “Set Adrift on Mem­ory Bliss,” in 1991, and lead singer Tony Hadley makes an appear­ance toward the end of the music video.

Gary Kemp and Tony Swain remixed “True” in 2002 for the Span­dau Bal­let com­pi­la­tion Reformation.

Ver­sions
True [North Amer­i­can Promo Edit] 4’58
True [Edited/Edited Version/Long Ver­sion] 5’40
True [Album Version/Long Ver­sion] 6’30
True [12″ Ver­sion] 6’08
True [Live/Recorded Live] 6’54
True [New Mix] 6’42

Music Video
The music video for “True” fea­tures the band (dressed in ele­gant suits) per­form­ing the song in what appears to be an unfilled, indoor swim­ming pool. The visual atmos­phere really fits the sound of the song, and the split-screen effects were inno­v­a­tive for the time.

Mem­o­ries
“True” is one of those songs that just sort of snuck onto the radio and into the back­ground of my teenage years with­out a for­mal intro­duc­tion. I always loved the the vibe and sax solo of the song, as well as lead singer Tony Hadley’s soar­ing voice. Although I like “True,” it’s one of those songs that’s included on almost every 80s com­pi­la­tion and played to death. (Not to men­tion it was sam­pled in P.M. Dawn’s “Set Adrift on Mem­ory Bliss,” which was also played quite a bit.) Given a choice, I would prob­a­bly choose “Chant No. 1 (I Don’t Need This Pres­sure On),” “Round and Round,” or “Gold” as my favorite Span­dau Bal­let song. I think this song was con­sid­ered the tune you were most likely to make out to, if I remem­ber correctly.

What are your mem­o­ries of “True” by Span­dau Ballet?

Top Ten Funniest Bananarama Stories

 80s, Celebrities, fashion, Humor, Music, New Wave, Parody, Pop Culture, Pop Music, Top Ten Thursdays, Video, Women's Interest  4 Responses »
Oct 042012
 

Since Bana­narama is com­ing to the Hard Rock Café in Atlanta on Sun­day for Pink­to­ber, I thought I would com­pile the top ten fun­ni­est Bana­narama sto­ries that I remem­ber them shar­ing in inter­views over the years:

01. The idea for the name Bana­narama came from a love of Roxy Music’s “Pyja­ma­rama” and the fact that their first sin­gle, a cover of Black Blood’s “Aie a Mwana,” was sung in Swahili, so they tried to think of some­thing trop­i­cal, arriv­ing at bananas.  “If we had known we were going to last 3o years,” Keren Wood­ward said, “we would have cho­sen some­thing less embarrassing.”

02. When Keren and Sara Dallin, child­hood friends, first moved to Lon­don, they shared a room at the Y.W.C.A.  Keren worked in the Account­ing Depart­ment at the B.B.C. because she tested well in math, while Sara attended Lon­don Fash­ion Col­lege, where she met Siob­han.  Even­tu­ally, Keren and Sara were kicked out of the Y.W.C.A. for keep­ing late hours, because they liked to stay out late at the clubs.

03. The girls were friends with Paul Cook, the for­mer drum­mer for the Sex Pis­tols.  He let them live in the room above his rehearsal studio

04. Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three saw Bananarama’s pic­ture in The Face (mag­a­zine) and liked their thrift store style, so he rang them up to meet them.  Hall was ter­ri­bly shy and Bana­narama was ter­ri­bly shy, so they all stared at their moc­casins and barely said any­thing.  Even­tu­ally, the man­aged to record a cover of “Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It)” and it was Bananarama’s first big hit.

05. After the suc­cess of “Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It),” Fun Boy Three backed Bana­narama on their cover of the Velvette’s “Really Say­ing Some­thing.”  While per­form­ing the song on Ger­man T.V., they were goof­ing around and acci­den­tally knocked the set down.

06.Siobhan Fahey once asked for a light for her cig­a­rette. Sarah got dis­tracted while light­ing the cig­a­rette and acci­den­tally set Siobhan’s hair on fire.

07. After Bana­narama had a hit with “Robert De Niro’s Wait­ing,” the actor rang them up at the flat they shared and asked them out for a drink. They were so ner­vous that they got hor­ri­bly drunk before they went to meet him.

08. Keren lives with Andrew Ridge­ley from Wham! on a farm in Corn­wall.  George Michael some­times flies out in his heli­copter to visit them.  In a radio inter­view, Keren shared that George had recently given her son Tom a lift back to Lon­don in his heli­copter.  This was shortly after one of George’s auto­mo­bile mishaps, so Keren added, “For the record, he wasn’t dri­ving the heli­copter.  I’m not mad, you know.”

09. While on the Here & Now Tour, a disco ball fell from the ceil­ing, nar­rowly miss­ing Boy George dur­ing a rehearsal.  He joked that Bana­narama was try­ing to kill him.

10. When Sara’s daugh­ter, Alice, was younger, she didn’t believe that her mother had once been in Britain’s most suc­cess­ful girl group and had had more hits than the Spice Girls.

11. Keren and Sara were once at a pub when Sara asked what George Michael was up to these days. Keren said, “I know his alarm code, let’s go let our­selves into his house and find out.” When they got inside they found George Michael in his paja­mas with lit­tle trains on them. He said, “Oh, it’s you lot.”

Dawn French, Jen­nifer Saun­ders, and Kathy Burke par­o­died Bana­narama for their 1988 Christ­mas spe­cial.  Bana­narama enjoyed it so much, they joined forces for a cover of the Bea­t­les’ “Help!” for Comic Relief the fol­low­ing year.

Lananeeneenoonoo’s Par­ody of Bananarama

“Help!” — Bana­narama with Lananaeeeenoonoo


 

Tracey Ullman’s Spoof of “Shy Boy” on Three of a Kind

The Story Behind "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Culture, Pop Music, Retro, Rock, Video  No Responses »
Sep 212012
 

Rick Spring­field released “Jessie’s Girl,” from the album Work­ing Class Dog, on March 17, 1981. It reached #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 for two weeks and won a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Per­for­mance. The song was not released in in the United King­dom until three years later, and only man­aged to reach #43 on the UK Sin­gles Chart in April 1984.

In the song, Spring­field sings about secretly being in love with his best friend Jessie’s girl, and wish­ing that could be with her or have a rela­tion­ship like she and Jessie have. The inspi­ra­tion for the song occurred when Spring­field took a stained glass class with his friend Gary and Gary’s girl­friend. He changed the name of his best friend for the song, and chose the name Jessie when a girl wear­ing a soft­ball jer­sey with the name “Jessie” on the back of it. Oddly, Spring­field does not remem­ber the name of Gary’s girlfriend.

Ver­sions
Jessie’s Girl 3’15

Music Video
The music video shows Spring­field watch­ing his friend Jessie spray paint “Jessie’s Girl” on a wall while his girl­friend watches, inter­spersed with Spring­field per­form­ing with his now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t band. Near the end of the video, Spring­field checks his hair in the bath­room mir­ror and sees Jessie’s girl­friend. He then smashes the mir­ror with his gui­tar, which is a good reminder why it’s unsafe to play elec­tric gui­tar in the bath­room. At the end of the video, the cam­era pans around and we see Jessie and his girl in the audi­ence with the dog from the Work­ing Class Dog record sleeve wear­ing a shirt and tie.

Mem­o­ries
I can remem­ber hear­ing “Jessie’s Girl” on the radio when my older sis­ter Vicki drove me to school in the morn­ing and on the way home in the after­noon. The song seemed to be every­where in 1981. I remem­ber that I always felt so sad for Rick Spring­field and hoped that one day he would find a girl­friend. I’ve always wanted every­one to be happy. In spite of being a song about lone­li­ness, the music is rather ener­getic and happy. When­ever I catch the song on the radio, I always sing along to it and brings back happy mem­o­ries of what it felt like not have a care in the world. I also recall that Rick Spring­field had really good feath­ered hair in the music video.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield?

The Story Behind "Cool Places" by Sparks & Jane Wiedlin

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Culture, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  2 Responses »
Aug 312012
 

Synth-Pop duo Sparks, con­sist­ing of broth­ers Ron and Rus­sell Mael, released “Cool Places,” a duet with Go-Go’s rhythm gui­tarist Jane Wiedlin, in April 1983.  It reached #49 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 and peaked at #13 U.S. Bill­board Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Jane Wiedlin had writ­ten a let­ter (on Go-Go’s sta­tion­ary, no less) to the Sparks Fan Club, stat­ing how she had been a fan for 10 years, which was given to lead singer, Rus­sell.  He wrote her back and asked if she would be inter­ested in record­ing a duet.  They actu­ally ended up record­ing two for the Sparks in Outer Space album, “Cool Places” and “Lucky Me, Lucky You.”

Ver­sions
Cool Places 3’23
Cool Places 4’38

Music Video
The music video fea­tures Jane Wiedlin and Rus­sell Mael singing and danc­ing in front of a blue screen with dif­fer­ent images pro­jected behind them.  Mean­while, Ron Mael per­forms magic tricks, con­torts his body, and does a funky lit­tle dance.  Although it doesn’t fit the syn­thetic sex­i­ness of late night Los Ange­les club life, the video does seem to fit the quirk­i­ness of Sparks and the song.

Mem­o­ries
I first remem­ber hear­ing about Jane Wiedlin per­form­ing with Sparks when I picked up a review of a Go-Go’s con­cert in the cam­pus news­pa­per when my high school jour­nal­ism class vis­ited Texas Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity. Who were Sparks? And why was the rhythm gui­tarist of the Go-Go’s singing with them?

A few months later, I was watch­ing Solid Gold on T.V. with my older sis­ter, when Mar­i­lyn McCoo intro­duced Sparks & Jane Wiedlin singing their hit song “Cool Places.” Radio in Dallas/Fort Worth didn’t play the song, so I’d never heard of it. It was very dif­fer­ent from the Go-Go’s, but I liked it. I looked for it in the music depart­ment of Wal-Mart the next time I was there, but they didn’t carry it. (Burleson, Texas didn’t have a lot of options in 1983.)

A few years later, I walked into the Sound Ware­house on Camp Bowie in Forth Worth and wan­dered around, flip­ping through records, when I remem­bered “Cool Places.” I checked the Sparks bin and found it on their album Sparks in Outer Space, which I picked up for $5.99. I’d never heard any other mate­r­ial from Sparks before, but I was feel­ing ballsy at 17. When I got home, I put record on my turntable and the song and imme­di­ately liked the synth-pop sound and quirky lyrics in such songs as “All You Ever Think About Is Sex,” “I Wish I Looked a Lit­tle Bet­ter,” and “Dance Godammit.”  I played the album for my best friend, Kent, and he became an even big­ger Sparks fan than I–even cut­ting his hair just like Rus­sell Mael and dress­ing like him.

My favorite mem­ory, though, is pick­ing up all of my high school friends in my dad’s com­pany car and dri­ving around the back roads of Burleson, Crow­ley, and out to the Ben­brook Dam, while play­ing “Eaten by the Mon­ster of Love” from the Angst in My Pants album.  Good times …

What are your mem­o­ries of “Cool Places” by Sparks & Jane Wiedlin?

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