“Oh Sheila” – Ready For The World
I’m sticking with this 1985 thing for another week. A week after hitting #1, this was #4 this week in October 1985.
There’s a lot to discuss.
Prince’s influence is all over this. So much so that even now people think he wrote the song.[1] While the band wrote it themselves, it sure sounds like something Prince would have cranked out and passed on to one protege or another. It’s not as funky as his stuff, but the drum sounds especially are straight out of Minneapolis.
Let your SoulGlo! The Jheri Curl was in full effect!
Two drummers!
Did it take like five minutes for them to choreograph their cheesy dance moves?
And for some reason, like fellow Michigander Madonna, the lead singer affected a British accent during the song’s open.
Plenty to make fun of, but a pretty solid song from the era when pop music was shifting from being dominated by 1970s rock influences to sounds typically found on the R&B charts and played on urban stations.
- Thus it was also assumed the song was about Sheila E. It was not. ↩