Tag: RFTS (Page 6 of 12)

Chart Week: August 8, 1987
Song: “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” – Whitney Houston
Chart Position: #17, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 for two weeks in June and July.

I tend to shy away from songs that hit number one since they will get the Tom Breihan treatment over at Stereogum. I squeezed in “West End Girls” before he got to it, but now that he’s just about done with the ‘80s, he’s covered every song of the Casey Kasem era.

I making an exception for this track simply because of a little blurb that Casey shared on another summer of ’87 countdown.

Casey told a story from Narada Michael Walden, the mega-producer behind this and so many other monster songs of the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Walden mentioned how his success meant he was able to meet some of his musical heroes. Once of those heroes was Prince.

At some point they were in studios next to each other: Narada with Elton John and Aretha Franklin while Prince was working with Morris Day. Prince invited Narada over, they chatted for a bit, and then Prince invited Narada and Day outside to shoot some hoops.

Despite wearing “seven-inch, high heeled boots,” Prince won the game of 21 rather easily.

HOLY SHIT! Remember when folks confirmed that the legendary Chapelle Show Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories sketch on The Chapelle Show was true? And here we had evidence from way back in 1987!

Chart Week: July 12, 1986
Song: “If She Knew What She Wants” – The Bangles
Chart Position: #29, 10th week on the chart. This was the song’s peak; it fell out of the Top 40 the next week.

I recall being in love with a lot of unattainable women in the summer of 1986. There was Heather Thomas, whose poster I had on my wall. There was Tamlyn Tomita, who played Ralph Maccio’s Okinawan love interest in The Karate Kid Part II. I’m sure there were plenty of girls at my high school I longed to get attention from but was frightened to speak to. And there was Susanna Hoffs.

Man, did I love Susanna! She had a girl-next-door quality to her beauty that made her seem like someone who was too pretty for normal dorks like me to have any hope of dating, but not so hot that she wouldn’t talk to you, laugh at your jokes, etc.

I know I wasn’t alone. And judging by comments from friends, there are a lot of us who are still fans, as she has aged very, very well.

Like most dudes my age I fell in love with Hoffs in the spring of ’86 when The Bangles hit #2 with the Prince-written “Manic Monday.” Later in the year they would release what ended up being the biggest single of 1987, “Walk Like an Egyptian,” another song the band did not write. In fact, of the band’s five biggest songs – all Top Five hits – they only wrote two, and both of those included input from songwriters outside the group. A handful of their other famous songs were also covers, which is a little odd given how the band was fully capable of writing a great tune. I guess they knew how to pick a good cover.[1]

“If She Knew What She Wants” was not one of their biggest hits. It struggled to gain traction on the charts and could only claw its way up to #29 and then fall clean out of the Top 40 a week later. Which is a shame because it’s a totally gorgeous song. Those “Ooooo-ooooo-ooooo-ooooo’s” Susanna throws in at the beginning and end of the track are both angelic and killer. I didn’t understand why people didn’t love it back in 1986, and I still don’t understand why it wasn’t a bigger hit.

It was – surprise surprise – also a cover. In this case it belonged to Jules Shear, a musician with a long, deep track record of writing songs for others. ’Til Tuesday, Marshall Crenshaw, 10,000 Maniacs, and Olivia Newton-John are just the most immediately recognizable artists to record his music.

Shear also wrote “All Through the Night,” which Cyndi Lauper turned into a #5 hit during her huge run in 1984. When she toured her monster She’s So Unusual album, Lauper selected The Bangles as her opening act. While on that tour The Bangles came to know Shear’s music and eventually struck up a friendship with him. When he performed his single “Steady” on American Bandstand in 1985, he recruited The Bangles to be his “background band,” miming the track along with him for Dick Clark and his audience. When asked to record a song for The Goonies soundtrack, The Bangles brought in Shear as a co-writer. As a token of thanks, or just a sign of their admiration for his art, they also selected this track to include on their Different Light album.

They didn’t veer much from Shear’s arrangement. They do flip a few words to adjust the gender perspective. It is their shift toward their favored sound of 60’s-influenced jangle pop with gorgeous harmonies that makes their version really shine, and elevates it above Shear’s version.

For some bonus Susanna Hoffs material, here is her performing two of her biggest Bangles tracks with a string quartet on CNN for the Fourth of July.

Chart Week: June 12, 1982
Song: “Fantasy” – Aldo Nova
Chart Position: #32, 12th week on the chart. Peaked at #23 for two weeks in May/June.

I only caught a few songs of this countdown, but I tuned in at the perfect time. I’m guessing I had not heard this jam in a long, long time. Which is a damn shame because kicks all kinds of ass. I guarantee it was on a Johnny Lawrence mix tape.

I’m of two minds about this track.

On one hand, it is a pretty cutting assessment of what Aldo Nova saw on his first visit to New York. He had led a relatively sheltered life in Montreal and was shocked by the early ‘80s debauchery of NYC. Drugs and prostitutes everywhere. People losing themselves in lifestyles filled with fiction and sin to maintain some sanity in a city that would gladly chew them up and spit them out. If you strip away all of the general 80’s-ness about the song, it’s a solid critique of that world by an outsider.

On the other hand, that is overthinking things. This is just a straight rock song that is is completely cheesy yet absolutely awesome.

It begins with the artist. Aldo Nova is an amazing name. It was even cooler to a 10/11 year old kid who heard older kids on the bus say it. Aldo Nova sounded futuristic and exotic, like a sleek, rare, Italian sports car you catch rumors of but will never actually see. I doubt his parents, who were Italian immigrants, had any idea what they were unleashing on the world when they named their son Aldo Caporuscio in 1956. Dropping his family name and replacing it with Nova was a brilliant moment of self-promotion, guaranteeing every little degenerate kid in North America would think it was awesome.

Then there is the song and video. The long intro, with the helicopter and sounds of lasers firing was straight cornball. And incredible! Those sounds were perfect for a generation of kids that was blowing its allowance in arcades and had the sounds of techno-war imprinted in our minds. It also reminded me of a movie like Megaforce, generally considered one of the worst films ever made. I was nuts about that stupid-ass flick, and the Atari Force comics, in the summer of ‘82.

In the video, for some reason Nova has to chopper into an area secured by men with weapons. Then he uses his laser guitar to bust open the door to a building, where his band and an adoring crowd are waiting for him.

Why did he have to be choppered in? Why did the guys guarding the landing area have guns? Why did he have to use a laser to cut his way into a building where he was expected? This, my friends, is the beauty of early ‘80s videos! It didn’t have to make sense, because the prime audience was dickheads like me who would watch and scream, “AWESOME!”

Nova is also wearing an absolutely spectacular animal print bodysuit. It might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

The song begins with that big, crunchy rhythm guitar riff, which is quickly covered up by Nova’s soaring, iconic lead riff that carries the track. From there it goes through fairly standard ‘80s rock progressions. It’s worth noting that not all of this was typical yet in 1982. One article I came across suggested that Nova, in this song, created the genre of Hair Metal. That may be giving him too much credit, but you can certainly hear the roots of what would soon dominate the rock charts here.

The rest of the video is loaded with straight cheese. To my eyes, it’s an absolute work of art.

Nova had an interesting career. His debut album went double platinum in the US. He released a couple more albums, but they weren’t nearly as successful and he never had another single that charted in America. He grew disenchanted with the music industry and asked out of his contract. Eventually Nova worked with other artists. Notably he wrote the main, 1000% awesome, riff for Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory.” He produced albums for Celine fucking Dion, winning a Grammy for his work. He even wrote some music for Clay Aiken.

Wacky, wild stuff.

I thank the Music Gods for allowing me to rediscover this completely kick ass song and video, which I’ve listened to/watched at least 15 times over the past week.

Chart Week: May 12, 1979
Song: “In the Navy” – The Village People
Chart Position: #5, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #3 for two weeks.

I wasn’t old enough to “get” the Village People when they were at the height of their powers. I was 6–7 years old during their brief moment at the top of the pop culture pyramid. All I knew was that they were goofy and funny and sang catchy disco songs.

I had no clue about all the subtext that was a part of the band, though. I didn’t know about the coding in songs like “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macho Man.” I didn’t get the meaning behind their name. I had no idea that their costumes and personas were all carefully selected to present a certain perspective of gay male fantasy.

All that makes me laugh because, when you look back on The Village People and their music, how more obvious could it have been what they were all about? Again, I was six and seven. What could I have known?

This countdown had one of my favorite AT40 trivia tidbits, a little note about how The Village People came to be.

The producers who assembled the group had a very specific concept for how they wanted the band to appear. They placed an ad in a trade paper looking for performers who fit this look. According to Casey, the ad sought “Singers and dancers, very good looking, with mustaches.” Wikipedia says the ad read, “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Mustache.”

The mustache line makes me laugh every time I hear it. Was that code in the late ‘70s for gay, particularly in the theater community the producers were searching in? I mean, a lot of dudes had mustaches in the ‘70s. Was the ability to dance while also having a mustache something that clearly identified a man as gay at the time?

That does not explain Victor Willis, the main vocalist and lyricist for the band. While he was leading The Village People, he was married to actress Phylicia Ayers-Allen, who a few years later became famous for playing Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Willis has been married at least one more time, also to a woman. Doing some research, it seems that Willis was the only straight member in the classic lineup of the Village People.

Over the years so many gay entertainers had to present themselves to the public as straight, married, family men. But Willis, perhaps the most famous “gay” man in the world in the late ’70s, was actually straight. Pop culture doesn’t always make sense.

For some reason I can’t embed the video, so go here to watch it. 

Chart Week: May 1, 1982
Song: “867–5309/Jenny” – Tommy Tutone
Chart Position: #8, 15th week on the chart. Peaked at #4 for three weeks in May and June.

Quick show of hands: if you were alive and old enough in 1982, how many of you dialed 867–5309 to see if Jenny would answer? I know I did. I believe in Kansas City the response was an AT&T recording that there was no such number in my area code (816 represent!).

Unintentionally, the band Tommy Tutone set off a brief fad with their ode to looking for a good time by calling a number scribbled onto a wall.

According to Casey Kasem, dozens of people around the country had the number 867–5309 when the song was released. As the song climbed the chart, and volume of callers looking for Jenny multiplied, it created great annoyance and forced many of those poor folks to change their phone numbers.

A couple businesses tried to take advantage.

A talent agency in Los Angeles adopted the number and connected it to an answering machine, where a woman named Jenny asked callers to leave a message.

Chicago radio station WLS went a step further. The AM radio giant also claimed the number. In a matter of weeks they got over 18,000 calls. The phone company told the station they needed to add more lines to handle the flood of callers. WLS did, and enlisted Tommy Tutone lead singer Tommy Heath to record a message that answered the calls, thanking fans for their interest in the song.

If only I knew the Chicago area code in 1982! Then again, long distance calling was an expensive luxury back then. My mom probably would have killed me when the phone bill arrived listing a bunch of calls to 312–867–5309.

As I listened to this week’s countdown I couldn’t help but compare this little bit of harmless marketing fun to how brand managers would handle a similar song today. Can you imagine? There would be coordinated social media pushes. There would be ads on YouTube. There would be carefully crafted GIFs, Tik Toks, and Instagram filters. Jimmy Fallon would do a super dumb parody. And since the charts are so different now, the song would hang around for nearly a year, to the point where we would all be sick of it and never want to hear it again.

Thank goodness the ‘80s were different times! Instead of being overexposed and forgotten, “867–5309/Jenny” become one of the most beloved, iconic, and unforgettable songs of its era.

Chart Week: March 26, 1983
Song: “I Know There’s Something Going On” – Frida
Chart Position: #13, 21st week on the chart. Peaked there for three weeks.

One great thing about The Number Ones series is how it has forced me to re-evaluate artists I soured on over the years. Phil Collins is a perfect example.

I forgot how many massive hits he had. Dude had seven number ones and six other top tens as a solo artist. At one point six out of eight singles topped the Hot 100. He added six more top tens and a number one with Genesis. He was a menace!

I probably forget about how big he was because, like Whitney Houston, many of his songs were Adult Contemporary schmaltz. But where Whitney elevated her songs with her once-in-a-generation voice and fashion model looks, Collins was a pasty, balding British guy with a passable but not terribly impressive voice. He didn’t force his music into the cultural memory through the genius of his overt talent.

After reading Tom Breihan’s write-ups of Collins’ early Number Ones, though, I’m finding a new appreciation for his work. I still mostly hate his ballads. But when I hear his more up-tempo tracks, I no longer switch away immediately, and am able to find enjoyment in them.

Although Collins’ voice may not have been as unforgettable as Whitney’s, he did make an indelible mark on ‘80s music. While working with Peter Gabriel on his former Genesis bandmate’s 1980 solo album, Collins, along with producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham, accidentally developed what came to be known as the “gated reverb” sound. I don’t do well with technical descriptions of music. The easiest way to understand gated reverb is to listen to “In the Air Tonight.” The epic drum break near the end of the track is the ultimate gated reverb moment. Collins continued to use that sound on many of the biggest songs of his career.

Included in that list are songs he produced for or appeared with other artists. “Easy Lover,” his duet with Earth, Wind, & Fire’s Phillip Bailey is one example. His drums on “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” are nearly as memorable as Bono’s line.[1]

And then there was this track. Somehow I didn’t remember until recently that Collins produced the biggest album of former ABBA member Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s solo career. The drums should have been a dead giveaway. There is no mistaking the classic Collins sound in those primordial beats that anchor the song. In a track that is all about discovering your partner is cheating, the drums are as impactful as any of Frida’s words. Something is going on, and some shit is about to go down.

It’s interesting (to me at least) that several of Collins’ biggest hits of the early 80s were about the end of his first marriage. I don’t know if there was any carry over, but I can’t help but think some of the power in his drumming for Frida came from his own romantic pain.

Oh, and this song is an absolute banger. Loved it when I was 12, and I still love it today.

Chart Week: February 16, 1980
Song: “Coward of the County” – Kenny Rogers
Chart Position: #3, 14th week on the chart. This was the song’s chart peak.

One of my complaints about the old American Top 40s that I listen to is that only a small selection of the total library of shows gets played. If you listen often enough, you’ll quickly hear repeats of the same shows. With something like 18 or 19 years of programs to choose from, that seems hard to do.

Last year I joined a Facebook group dedicated to classic American Top 40. Every month or so someone will ask the same question: why do we keep hearing the same shows over-and-over? One of the engineers who remastered the original recordings is a member of the group. He claims that every show Casey Kasem recorded has been remastered and turned over to whoever currently holds the rights to them. He is at a loss as to why such a small group of the original shows are replayed these days.

I realize this is an issue that probably only bothers an exceptionally small number of people. But for those of us who are super fans of the show, it is super annoying.

I mention that because, thanks to repeated airings of a few countdowns from early 1980, I’ve heard Kenny Rogers’ “Coward of the County” more in the last six months than I’ve heard in the last 40 years combined.

Which has led me to realize that some of the lyrics are…problematic?

I have strong memories of this song. This was when the radio in my room was AM-only, so the stations I listened to were playing the fuck out of every Kenny Rogers song. I clearly recalled it being about a dude, Tommy, who walks away any time he encounters a violent situation. This was because of his dad’s dying words to him: that “you don’t have to fight to be a man.” His dad died in prison. I guess he was in lockup for fighting someone, it’s not made clear.

Anyway, some local toughs beat up Tommy’s girlfriend, he realizes that sometimes you, in fact, do have to fight to be a man, and he kicks their asses.

Keep in mind, I was eight years old when this song came out. So I was not mature enough to get what Kenny was saying when he described the attack on Tommy’s girlfriend as:

One day while he was working, the Gatlin boys came calling
They took turns at Becky, n’there was three of them

Holy shit! Did Kenny Rogers just casually describe three dudes gang raping a woman?!?!

Surely this caused a ruckus back in the day, right?

I did some digging – I checked Wikipedia – and turned out there was indeed a controversy surrounding the song. And it related to the lines I quoted above. However, the controversy was about who some people thought the lines were about rather than the act of sexual violence it described.

Apparently there were some folks who thought that the “Gatlin boys” of the song meant the country group The Gatlin Brothers. Larry Gatlin later claimed that he and the song’s co-writer, Roger Bowling, had a beef in the late ‘70s and this line may have been a result of that beef. However, Bowling’s co-writer, Billy Ed Wheeler, claimed he never knew of any conflict between the men and that Bowling never suggested the line was aimed at the Larry or his brothers. Rogers later claimed he would have pushed to change the lyric had he know it would ruffle any feathers.

THAT was the controversy. Not that the song was built around the gang rape of a woman and how that was the impetus for the coward of the county to finally grow a pair and take out the Gatlin boys in a locked bar one night. Which, depending on how you think about it, almost makes the rape a positive moment, since it forced a man to stand up for himself and his family.

Crazy how when young Black people sang about consensual sex between adults a few years later, people lost their damn minds. But when a middle-aged, white, country superstar sang about gang rape, it didn’t move the needle.

The song was so popular it turned into a very shitty TV movie in 1981. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube if you want. I recommend skipping that, though, and just watching the completely awesome fight scene that brings the story to a close. Kenny Rogers was even the star of the movie, and gave Tommy a big assist on the night he stood up for Becky.

Songs:
“Sweet Caroline” – Neil Diamond. Peaked at #4 the week of August 16, 1969
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” – John Denver. Peaked at #2 the week of August 28, 1971
“Smoky Mountain Rain” – Ronnie Milsap. Peaked at #24 for two weeks in February/March of 1981

A different kind of RFTS post today. Rather than breaking down a song (or songs) and its place on the Billboard chart, this is a story about one of my kids with a pop music connection.

Sunday M and I were eating breakfast before she left to go to work. In the background was an AT40 from 1981. While we ate our French toast, we heard Ronnie Milsap’s “Smoky Mountain Rain,” which, as I’ve shared before, is a jam.

I noticed a look on M’s face and was wondering if she would comment. There is pretty much zero country music ever played in our house, and while “Smoky Mountain Rain” fits into the country-pop sound that often hit the charts in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, it still stands out as a country track compared to what we usually listen to.

Finally she said, “This reminds me of “Country Roads.”

I chuckled a little and said, “How do you know ‘Country Roads?’”

“We sang it at CYO camp,” she responded.

I nodded, made sense.

After waiting a beat she continued, “It’s also one of those basic white people songs that everyone knows. You know, like ‘Sweet Caroline?’”

I about choked on my food as I laughed.

As my friend Stacey B said, she’s not wrong.

Chart Week: January 21, 1984
Song: “Undercover of the Night” – The Rolling Stones
Chart Position: #20, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 for two weeks in December and January.

This edition is more about how I listened to the song than the song itself. Although there will be some song trivia before we’re done.

1983 was a big year on my Classic Christmas Gifts post list. That was the Christmas I received, among other things, a Pioneer SK–111F boombox. Although that boombox only lasted a few years, it had a huge influence on my life.

For a few years some manufacturers included the shortwave radio bands on their boomboxes. I imagine 99% of kids who had one of these radios either totally ignored that feature or scanned through the shortwave bands once (likely accidentally), were thoroughly confused, and then ignored them.

Not me.

I explored them almost immediately and was intrigued, if unsure of what I had stumbled upon. After a family friend who knew a little about international radio gave me some pointers, I started scrolling through the bands more often. Listening to the Voice of America, BBC, Radio Moscow, Radio Havana Cuba, and others come at the same story from very different angles fascinated me. I eventually got a proper shortwave radio and continued listening to those frequencies for many years. [1]

For all the time I spent listening to those government-run stations that focused on news, current events, and general talk programs, there was another surprising station that was on my list of favorites.

WRNO was an FM rock station in New Orleans that also broadcast on shortwave. At the time it was one of the few private shortwave stations in the US, and the only one that didn’t broadcast primarily religious programming. WRNO played Top 40 pop and rock, thus the motto “The Rock of the World,” and also aired Saints football games and programs about the culture of the New Orleans area.[2]

Looking back, it’s strange that I devoted much time to listening to WRNO. The audio was generally bad, worse than even tuning to a local AM station. There was often interference from other stations, or lots of static and fading depending on atmospheric conditions. They didn’t play anything I couldn’t hear much easier and better on Q–104, ZZ–99, or KY–102 in Kansas City. I guess I thought it was cool that I was listening to the same songs at the same time as a kid on the other side of the world.

That’s where this song comes in. I did not like the Stones much as a kid. This song, though, had an unsettling, dangerous edge to it that caught my attention. Casey Kasem told me, at some point, that the song was about political strife in Central and South America.

That was the connecting point.

I wondered how listeners in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Argentina, or other Latin countries in the midst of political crisis would react to one of the biggest bands in the world singing about events they were experiencing first hand. Being idealistic, I liked to think this was inspiring people to throw off the yoke of the oppressor and claim their freedom. Granted, I was a little fuzzy on the details of the conflict in each country. And my politics were quite different at age 12/13 than they are today. But, still, I loved the idea of international radio and rock music playing some part in motivating people to fight for their freedom.

Crazily, while trying to find some images of WRNO to include in this post, I found this clip of a WRNO broadcast that features a few seconds from “Undercover of the Night.”

(There are other clips of WRNO broadcasts on YouTube if you have any interest in hearing more of what its transmissions sounded like.)

I thought I remembered something about this song being controversial. As I read up on it I learned (or re-learned) that it was the video that caused problems. MTV labeled it as too violent and at first refused to air it. After some negotiations and editing, MTV relented, but only played it after 9:00 pm. Watching it from the perspective of 2021 it’s kind of crazy to think that this video raised any red flags. I suppose there is a lot of gunplay. But it all seems cartoonish and no more serious than the fake mustache Mick Jagger wears.

When director Julien Temple offered his video treatment to the band, he was concerned with how they would react. Jagger and Keith Richards were in the midst of one of their more contentious periods. Temple had Richards’ character murdering Mick’s. He didn’t know if Mick would be ok with that, or if Keith could even be bothered to take part. But when the Glimmer Twins read his proposal, they were both thrilled and jumped in enthusiastically. I love that.

Chart Week: December 22, 1984
Song: “Bruce” – Rick Springfield
Chart Position: #33, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #27 for a week in January.

As artists move through their careers they often jump from one record company to another. This can lead to uncomfortable situations when the artists break through and their previous employers attempt to capitalize.

Rick Springfield was about as big of a second-tier pop star as there was in the early 1980s. He never quite reached the heights of the giants of the era: Hall & Oates, Prince, Madonna, or Michael Jackson. But he was a consistent hit-maker in the first half of the decade. After some minor hits in the 1970s, his ‘80s run began with the classic “Jesse’s Girl,” which hit #1 in 1981. Over the rest of the decade he had 14 more Top 40 hits and four Top 10’s, including the #2 “Don’t Talk to Strangers.” He sold out concerts. He had a major role on the wildly popular soap opera General Hospital. And he was one of the biggest male sex symbols of the era.

By many measures, he was a bigger star than Bruce Springsteen.

Until the Boss broke through with Born in the USA in 1984, Springsteen had been more of a critical darling than commercial star. Sure, he had a wildly devoted following and sold out arenas. But his songs were never mainstays on the pop charts the way Springfield’s were. Only 1980’s “Hungry Heart,” which peaked at #5, made a real dent in the public consciousness.

Born in the USA changed that. “Dancing in the Dark” made it to #2 and began a run of eight-straight top 10 hits over the next two years. Bruce added two more top tens from the Tunnel of Love album before the decade was over. Springsteen became one of the biggest acts in music, a spot he’s maintained for over 30 years despite massive changes in the music industry.

With Springsteen’s success came an effort by record companies to push artists similar to him. John Cougar Mellencamp and Bryan Adams were touted as Springsteen-like. John Cafferty sounded a whole hell of a lot like Bruce, and in 1984 catapulted from the clubs of Rhode Island to the pop charts. Billy Vera and the Beaters got some run for their Springsteen-light vibe.

Rick Springfield didn’t sound a thing like Bruce Springsteen. But apparently some folks got their names confused. Which kind of makes sense. They were born a month apart, struggled through the ‘70s before breaking through in the ‘80s, both had dark hair, and both had last names that began with ‘Spring…’.

This had apparently been a problem dating to before the men became stars. For his 1978 album Beautiful Feelings, Springfield recorded this track, a humorous account of getting confused for another young singer. A woman calls out “Bruce” name during sex with Rick. An autograph seeker tells him he loved “Born to Run.” It’s light-hearted, fun, and weightless. I don’t think Springfield was trying to piggyback on Springsteen’s success, since there wasn’t much to piggyback on at that point. It was just him sharing a funny story of life as a struggling artist.

With Springsteen’s ascension in 1984, Springfield’s former label, Mercury Records, pounced. They held the rights to Beautiful Feelings. Without any input or involvement from Springfield, Mercury re-recorded the music for the album, slapped his original vocals over these new tracks, and re-released Beautiful Feelings with “Bruce” as its lead single.

It worked. Kind of. Despite the combined Springfield/Springsteen mojo, it could only climb to #27. The album could only make it as high as 78 on the Billboard 100 album chart.

I can’t find any comments from Springfield related to the song or album. I would bet he wasn’t thrilled. His Hard to Hold album, released by RCA, was still on the charts, spawning three top 20 singles. A fourth single did not quite reach the Top 40, but its lack of success may be more because it was a B-side than because “Bruce” was taking away airplay and sales.

I was also unable to dig up any comments from Springsteen. I’m guessing he realized the song was from a different time and totally harmless.

I wonder if Bruce and Rick ever talked about the song, and swapped stories from those early days when they were both trying to carve out identities for themselves.

This video features the original backing music tracks. Below is a Spotify link to the 1984 single version.