Chart Week: August 1, 1981
\nSong: \u201cDon\u2019t Want to Wait Anymore\u201d – The Tubes
\nChart Position: #37, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 for two weeks.<\/p>\n
The Tubes will collect residual checks until they die for one song: \u201cShe\u2019s a Beauty,\u201d their #10 smash from the summer of 1983. It is an absolute classic of its era; any list of best songs of the 1980s would be incomplete without it. If you listen to 80\u2019s on 8<\/em> on SiriusXM or your local retro station very often, you are guaranteed to hear it a couple times each week. Nearly 40 years after its release, it still immediately reminds me of hanging out with friends at the YMCA day camp pool while Q–104 or ZZ–99 blared out over cheap speakers.<\/p>\n Most folks would consider The Tubes One Hit Wonders. For years I would have argued against that, submitting that they also had a cool song called \u201cTalk To Ya Later.\u201d<\/p>\n For years, it turns out, I was wrong. I remember \u201cTalk To Ya Later\u201d pretty well, but it didn\u2019t even crack the Hot 100, peaking at #101 in 1981. I\u2019m guessing it was resurrected by some DJs after \u201cShe\u2019s a Beauty\u201d hit, and that\u2019s how I know it.<\/p>\n The band indeed hit the Top 40 one other time, though, in the summer of 1981 with \u201cDon\u2019t Want to Wait Anymore.\u201d This song is not seared into my brain at all. In fact, when I heard it last week, I was both sure I had never heard it before and shocked that it was The Tubes.[1]<\/a> <\/p>\n Some of that is because rather than regular lead singer Fee Waybill, guitarist Bill Spooner supplies the vocals here. <\/p>\n I also probably don\u2019t remember it because it kind of sucks. <\/p>\n Seriously, what the hell is this? How did the same band that came up with such a bright, fun, and unforgettable track as \u201cShe\u2019s a Beauty\u201d hit the charts with this piece of boring, middle-of-the-road, crap? I would describe \u201cShe\u2019s a Beauty\u201d and \u201cTalk To Ya Later\u201d as \u201cFast Times Rock.\u201d I.e. from that broad swath of early \u201880s music that was equal parts New Wave and straight rock and would have fit nicely onto the soundtrack for Fast Times at Ridgemont High<\/em> or any other teen movie of the early \u201880s.[2]<\/a> <\/p>\n This song strikes me as something a band trying hard to sound like Chicago on the state fair circuit might have written, not a group that had serious roots in the art, punk, and glam worlds. I guess there\u2019s a touch of some Styx-like space rock in there, if you listen hard enough. Still, that ain\u2019t New Wave. Hell, if there was a horn section, you could talk me into believing this was a deep track on Chicago 16<\/a><\/em> or Chicago 17<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n I totally get why the rest of the band does not appear in the video. They knew it was trash. I guess the joke was on them, though, as this is the song that saves The Tubes from being a One Hit Wonder by the strictest definition of the term.<\/p>\n