About This Time 40 Years Ago…

It’s The Hits Of July-ish 1985!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet…

How exactly did a song like this – “19” by Paul Hardcastle – become a hit?

• How exactly does a song like this – a documentary about the Vietnam War and its continued psychological impact on veterans, set to a sick beat – conquer the world?

• How does it get to Number One in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, West Germany… but not in Australia, where there had already been a Number One song a couple of years earlier, with a very different approach to the very same statistical fact!

“19” even reached No.15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Higher than anybody could have reasonably expected, as the smart money was saying that radio stations would consider it anti-American and refuse to play it. Turns out the smart money was wrong:

The week it was No.15 on ‘Sales,’ “19” was No.19 on ‘Airplay.’  It may not have been wholeheartedly embraced by radio, but it wasn’t being shafted, either.

Still, how does a song like this become a world wide smash? Was it because the voice over reminded people of The A-Team?

Escaping to the Los Angeles underground, and surviving as soldiers of fortune, was one potential aftermath to fighting in the Vietnam War.

Others – according to the “lyrics” of “19” – include an arrest rate almost twice that of non-veterans of the same age. Also:

How does Paul Hardcastle account for this:

“In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26. In Vietnam he was 19”

“N‑n‑n‑n‑nineteen… n‑n‑n‑n‑nineteen” 

Paul saw Vietnam Requiem listed in the TV Guide. He thought it sounded interesting.

He had one of those new-fangled VCR thingies, so he recorded it. When he got round to watching it, he was struck by the fact that the average age of the soldiers was 19, an age when he was out partying every night. He also “couldn’t believe that anyone could be made to go through hell like they did and then get treated like they were aliens or something when they got home.”

So Paul did what any 20-something dude would do when faced with a horrid historical truth: he started playing around with the audio on his sampler…

…playing around with the voice-over, putting together a sick beat.

The voice-over in Vietnam Requiem was performed by Peter Thomas:

Much to Paul’s surprise, he’d have to pay Peter royalties. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. He was just some dude mucking about on his synthesizer. And it was the 80s; James Brown couldn’t copyright the “Funky Drummer Break” yet, but apparently, you could copyright the news?

Okay, Paul Hardcastle wasn’t quite just some dude.

Which doesn’t sound like a rainforest at all – but rather more like Afrika Bambaataa. (Although given that Paul would later have a career in chilled-out jazz, maybe he was more influenced by Herbie Hancock’s “Rock It”… there was a lot of this stuff around at the time)… and…

Have you ever seen a video more 80s than this?

And look, I don’t know why the video to a song called “Rainforest” is set in outer space either, just roll with it, okay…

Usually, a song like “19” would never have a chance of being a proper chart hit, even if Paul had had a minor hit before.

But it was the 10th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Not that Paul would have known that. Paul didn’t know anything about the Vietnam War. The facts found within the lyrics of “19” were the sum-total of everything about the Vietnam War that Paul knew.

And since they needed a new angle each night, “19” got caught up in the daily news cycle. They were talking about the record on the nightly news.

The fate of Vietnam veterans is a serious issue, and “19” was a novel means of raising awareness about it.

But it’s also more than just a little bit tacky. The stuttering “n‑n‑n‑n‑nineteen” “n‑n‑n‑n‑nineteen”  – as best as I can tell, Paul didn’t mean to make it sound like a machine gun, but it does – turned the song into a bit of a joke at my primary school, whilst the tuneless vocals in the middle isn’t doing anyone any favours.

Those vocals are by a session singer and quiz show hostess:

Paul appears to have just handed her the clunkiest of lyrics:

“All those who remember the war,
they won’t forget what they’ve seen
Destruction of men in their prime,
Whose average age was nineteen”

Honestly, the Europop poets covered below have a better feel for the English language than that.

And he asked her to just make a up a melody. She did the best she could, but it sure ain’t great. Not only does her part take away from the seriousness of the message, it takes away from the brutality of the beat!

Ultimately, “19” is an historically important record.

And it’s always nice to have a weird record at the top of the charts.

It’s just a pity it wasn’t a better weird record.

“19” is a 5.

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Meanwhile, in Europop Land:

Europop: what a thing.

An entire continent producing the cheesiest music known to man.

An entire continent where – perhaps due to a distinct lack of baseball games – disco never died but continued to unfurl until it reached its illogical conclusion.

As fitting for a continent of novelty songs, Europop artists found novel ways of getting around that whole “not really having a handle on the English language” thing. And one of the more novel ideas was to sing a chorus that contained no English words at all.

• That contained no words in any known language.
• That might not even be able to be accurately described as singing at all.
• To base the chorus of their big hit single on a Tarzan yodel.

Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh!!!!

Clearly, “Tarzan Boy” is one of those songs where the cover is far, far better than the original.

Jimmy McShane, the front man of Baltimora, an Italo-Disco group – Italo-Disco being the most Europop of all Europop sub-genres – was actually from Derry.

He was a confusing lad.

As if he were Rick Moranis. Or Thomas Dolby. Or whoever the guy was in Electric Dreams (the movie, not the soundtrack to…)

And having viewed multiple television performances of “Tarzan Boy” I can tell you:

But possibly because it’s impossible to dance the way Jimmy did whilst wearing glasses, barely a single live – or, since this is Europop we are talking about, mimed performance – features them. Without the glasses, Jimmy looks an anorexic Frankenstein – the monster, not the mad scientist who made the monster.

Meaning that kids would have had to watch Baltimora on TV, looking a vampire or something.

So how does a boy from Derry end up as the face of the 80s most successful Italo-Disco act?

And I say “the face” because there are persistent rumors that it’s not actually Jimmy singing, that it’s yet another Europop miming farce, although, if you were going to get someone to mime surely you could do better than this guy?

Jimmy had been kicking around Europe for years, initially in Munich where he played the role of a robot in Dee D. Jackson’s 1978 hit “Automatic Lover.”

Dee. D wasn’t German herself. She, like her robot lover Jimmy, was British. Her real name was Deidre. Whilst both Dee. D and Jimmy were in Munich they hung out with people who hung out with people who hung out with Giorgio Moroder.

Instead, Jimmy headed off to Giorgio’s mother country, Italy.

Specifically to Milan, where he met Maurizio Bassi, the man who produced Baltimora, wrote the songs and – allegedly – sung them. And then promptly disappeared. Nobody has seen him since. Or at least not made any records. The man is a complete mystery.

If you are wondering if Baltimora have any connections to Baltimore, they did, sort of.

So, pretty much the Bay City Rollers technique of band-naming then. They then added the A at the end to make it sound more Italian. Mama-Mia!!!

Curiously enough, Jane – from the Tarzan adventures – comes from Baltimore, so they could have used that as their origin story. But that would have required them to do far more research, and put far more thought into the whole enterprise, than it appears that they did.

That is not a criticism: the Tarzan yodel is the best part of “Tarzan Boy.”

The Tarzan yodel on “Tarzan Boy” is HUGE!!! The disco drums pounding under that Tarzan yodel are HUGE!!! At certain points you can hear some sort of jungle animal – A lion? An elephant? A chimpanzee? – Tarzan Boy’s only friends as he plays hide-and-seek, rushing ‘cross the forest, monkey business, on a sunny afternoon! It’s the cheesiest moment of the entire 80s and therefore the best!

There’s no way you could possibly follow up something as momentous as “Tarzan Boy.” You’d be a fool to even try.

Baltimora tried.

Moving on from Tarzan, Baltimora found another fictional character with a signature sound. They found Woody Woodpecker, the inspiration for “Woody Boogie.” This feels like a considerable step down. And it was. It wasn’t a hit.

“Tarzan Boy” is an 8.

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Meanwhile, in Madonna Land…

Madonna was The Queen Of Pop. Madonna was also a dancer.

But Madonna was a very different kind of dancer to The King Of Pop.

Whilst Michael busted out robotic, jerky moves, virtually impossible for mere mortals to replicate, Madonna just threw herself onto the dancefloor. All you needed was a complete and utter lack of inhibition and you, too, could be Madonna.

“Into The Groove” is Madonna’s manifesto on the topic of dancing:

So much does Madonna love to dance that, late at night, she locks the door, so nobody can see.

Except that Madonna was now a grown adult woman. And yet still she was dancing in her bedroom. Other than the idea that there’s ever a moment that Madonna doesn’t want people to be watching her, I think I believe it.

Madonna could bust out professional dance moves when she felt like it. But when I think of Madonna dancing:

• I think of her throwing herself into the screen in “Ray Of Light”
• Dancing like no-one was watching but the burning crosses on “Like A Prayer”
• Endangering herself on a gondola on “Like A Virgin,”
• Or showing off her arm pits in a club whilst dancing to “Into The Groove” in Desperately Seeking Susan.

Madonna’s armpits play a key supporting role in Desperately Seeking Susan.

Such are the lengths you must resort to when you live your life as a carefree nomadic boho-punk named Susan.

“Into The Groove” was the hit song from – although not, it appears on the soundtrack to – Desperately Seeking Susan.

She’s definitely playing a character who dresses a lot like Madonna. Teenage girls who had been trying to master the Madonna-look based on a selection of three-or-four-minute music videos, now had an entire movie to inspire them.

It only makes sense then that the other major character in “Desperately Seeking Susan” is a bored suburban housewife by the name of Roberta who is also attempting to master the Madonna-look, even going as far as to stalk her and buy the jacket that Madonna just sold at a thrift store. A jacket that used to belong to Jimi Hendrix. Or so she says.

Also to bump her head, get amnesia, and consequently truly believe she is Madonna. Later she bumps her head again and realizes that she’s just a suburban yuppie housewife by the name of Roberta. That must’ve hurt.

“Desperately Seeking Susan” needed a song to be played in a club, a club full of quintessential 80s freaks… Madonna/Susan is hanging out at such a club because she told Roberta’s husband to meet her there. Roberta’s husband does not look comfortable.

The version of “Into The Groove” playing in the club was a demo.

Before they used it for “Desperately Seeking Susan” the plan was to give it to a teenager named Cheyne, who was enough of a big deal at the time that her single, “Call Me Mr Telephone”, had gone Number One on the Billboard Hot Dance Play chart.

It’s not great. I think we can agree that a Cheyne version of “Into The Groove” would likewise have not been very good.

As appropriate for a song being played in an underground club frequented by quintessential 80s freaks, the groove of “Into The Groove” goes hard.

Snares whack, synths stutter and jerk… “Into The Groove” goes harder than any other major hit of the mid-80s. ‘Major American hit,’ anyway. Although it was re-recorded for the official release, it still feels like a demo. It still feels raw.

Who had been a drummer in one of Madonna’s early 80s punk bands. Actually in two of them:

He’d been in The Breakfast Club – since this was the early 80s this was before The Breakfast Club – replacing Madonna herself on the drums when she moved to vocals.

Here they are with “Hothouse Flower.” It wasn’t a hit.

Another reason why “Into The Groove” might feel raw, lyrically-speaking at least, is that Madonna was in a hurry.

She had other things on her mind. I’ll give you one guess what that one thing was:

“When I was writing it, I was sitting in a fourth-floor walk-up on Avenue-B, and there was this gorgeous Puerto Rican boy sitting across from me that I wanted to go out on a date with, and I just wanted to get the song over with.”

That makes sense… Madonna was rushing to finish writing a song about losing her inhibitions, because she wants to go right ahead and lose her inhibitions.

“Into The Groove:” Madonna’s best groove. It’s Madonna at her bratty baby chipmunked best.

And “Into The Groove” is a 10.

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Meanwhile, In Purple Land:

Look at that suit. That cloud suit.

I need that suit.

I probably wouldn’t be able 2 squeeze into it, even though I am kind of short… it doesn’t matter.  

Of course, he’s also committed a whole lot of fashion crimes. Sometimes it’s hard 2 figure out which is which…

But of all of those outfits, nothing compares 2 the “Raspberry Beret” Cloud Suit. With the Purple Rain Ruffles underneath – just so we can recognize that it’s him.

Prince has also released a lot of great videos, or at least a lot of great performance videos in which Prince’s comedic facial expression game is on point.

The “Raspberry Beret” video on the other hand, what with the animation, what with the dancing-clapping crowd, what with Prince having a little cough at the beginning because he’s such a fragile little thing, and – most critically…

All of which is in the service of Prince telling us the story of how he lost his virginity.

It appears 2 have been a success. They may say that the first time ain’t the greatest, but Prince wouldn’t change a stroke etc. The “Raspberry Beret” girl herself was quite a bit more experienced at this sort of thing: she may not have been 2 bright, but Prince knew, when he kissed her, that she knew how 2 get her kicks.

“Raspberry Beret” also happens 2 B Prince’s greatest pop moment.

There may B funkier Prince songs, but there is no Prince song that is more POP!

Prince has written a lot of those songs. Songs where Prince is just minding his own business, not bothering anyone, walking down the street, when suddenly he meets a virgin, on her way 2 B wed, but Prince is such a hunk, so full of spunk, she’ll…

“Raspberry Beret” was originally written in 1982, so about the same time as the similarly themed “Little Red Corvette.”

Prince certainly had sex on his mind a lot at the time. Here he is talking 2 Melody Maker in 1981:

“… because I was wondering why I was so sexual-minded… He asked me 2 talk about my childhood U’know, ’when U first experienced this and first experienced that?’ I realised that, when I was young, I used 2 read my mother’s dirty novels and I was more taken with them than anything – it was a lot better than comic books.”

This makes perfect sense, right? Prince’s sex songs sound exactly how U would expect a sex song 2 sound when the author spent his teenage years reading his mother’s dirty novels.

“Raspberry Beret” may B about Prince losing his virginity, but it’s almost certainly not based on a true story.

We can say that with confidence, because Prince never worked part time at a five-and-dime.

Despite this lack of real-life experience, Prince manages to capture the frustration of the daily low-wage grind, complete with a possibly racist boss by the name of Mr McGee. “He told me several times that he didn’t like my kind”? Hmmmm….

Things start 2 look up 4 Prince however, when sees a girl walking in through the out-door (the out-door) and after some preliminary filthy flirting – she asks Prince if he plans 2 do her any harm – Prince puts her on the back of his bike, and they go riding – this has suddenly turned into a scene from Purple Rain – and they do it in a barn.

Despite the fact that it’s an overcast day, and overcast days, don’t turn Prince on – it’s rather comforting, I suppose, 2 learn that there is at least one thing in this world that doesn’t turn Prince on – but it’s okay, because something ‘about the clouds and her mixed’, and what does that even mean? What R U going on about, Prince?

Anyway, despite being an even more accessible single than anything on Purple Rain, “Raspberry Beret” belongs to Around The World In A Day:

Now, most pop stars wanting 2 walk away from fame, would do just that… but this is Prince, and he still had a whole bunch of songs that he wanted the world 2 hear. So he gave these songs 2 the world in the most confusing way possible. First he announced that he wasn’t going 2 tour anymore – possibly 4 only a short while, possibly forever – because he was going “2 look 4 the ladder.”

Um… okay Prince.

So then Prince releases the album but doesn’t release a lead single!

Radio stations didn’t know what 2 do! What song should they B playing? U would think that “Raspberry Beret” was the obvious pick, but it took a while 4 there 2 B a common consensus.

• Should it be “America”?

Some thought it a little 2 political, and not in a cool way. There’s this one verse where Prince condemns some kid called Jimmy Nothin’, who refused to make the Pledge Of Allegiance, 2 a life living on a mushroom cloud. It’s sometimes easy 2 forget – what with his wearing of high heels and all – that Prince was a big Reagan fan.

• Should it be the hippy-dippy “Paisley Park”?
• Or the anti-drug “Pop Life”?

They were all solid pop choices, but Around The World In A Day is not exactly remembered 4 being an album full of solid pop choices. It’s more remembered 4 being one of the great derailing-your-career-by-following-up-your-blockbuster-with-something-willfully-weird albums of all time.

Prince’s In Utero, if U will.

It would probably have that reputation even without the stubbornly difficult release schedule.

Eventually, Prince put radio programmers out of their misery and released “Raspberry Beret” 4 real.

I remain unsure if that was the plan all along – that he’d string radio along 4 about month or so, but then eventually release a single – or whether it was a game of chicken, and Prince finally blinked.

All of this confusing not-releasing-a-single, and then finally-releasing-a-single tomfoolery is the only conceivable reason for “Raspberry Beret” failing to go Number One:

Stuck behind Duran Duran’s James Bond theme song “A View To A Kill.”

“Raspberry Beret” is a 10.

Hmmm… it makes me think:

Where have all the raspberry women gone?

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