NOTE: This is a pre-production transcript and may not match the final show precisely.
Hello! And welcome to the next episode of How Good It Is, the show that takes a closer look at songs from the rock and roll era, and we check out some of the stories behind those songs, and the artists who made them famous.
My name is Claude Call, and Iâm socially distant. But thatâs my usual schtick, so itâs no wonder I have a solo podcast.
Remember to check out the website, How Good It Is Dot Com, and the Twitter, and the Instagram, and of course the Facebook page, which can be found over at Facebook dot com, slash, (ow) How Good It Is Pod.
Hereâs some trivia for ye today: most everybody knows that model Pattie Boyd was the inspiration for a bunch of popular songsâand if you donât, youâll learn about it in a future showâbut among her siblings, Pattie has a sister named Jenny. And Jenny, as it turns out, also inspired a hit song which went to Number Five in the UK and to Number 26 in the United States. What song did Jenny Boyd inspire?
Iâll have that answer to that question near the end of the show.
So I was originally going to talk exclusively about the Go-Goâs first big hit, âOur Lips Are Sealed,â but I kept finding myself coming back around to their sort-of-second hit, âWe Got The Beat,â so I said, Why not talk about both of them? Because thatâs how much I like you guys. Bonus material everywhere.
So letâs first turn the clock back to 1978, because while most people think of the Go-Goâs as an 80s girl group, the band really got their start during that year, in Los Angeles. And at that time they had a slightly different lineup, and a very different sound.
The first lineup of the Go-Goâs was Belinda Carlisle on vocals, Jane Weidlin playing guitar, Margot Olaverria on bass and Elissa Bello playing the drums. And they were a pretty solid staple of the LA Punk music scene. Later in 1978, Charlotte Caffey joined the group, adding another guitar and keyboards, and by the following summer Gina Shock had replaced Elissa Bello on the drums.
In 1979 this lineup put together a five-song demo record, and they followed it up with a tour supporting the band Madness, which was also still up-and-coming. It was because of this tour that they spent a lot of time touring both England and the US, but the fan base really managed to grow in the UK when âWe Got the Beatâ became a hit over there. Because hereâs the thing: a five-track album doesnât fly in the US, but in England you can call it an EP and let it go. And so, this demo version of âWe Got the Beatâ started gaining sales over there, and eventually made it back to this side of the Atlantic as an import single.
[WE GOT THE BEAT DEMO]
It doesnât have that drumming intro, and the guitar is a little more subdued. Plus, you donât have Belinda Carlisle doing that dopey chant during the bridge. But for my money, itâs the superior version. Now, once again, maybe thatâs because this was my entry to the Go-Goâs and I heard this one first but I think I like that slightly punky edge they still had at that point.
[SINGLE VERSION]
But Iâll give you this: that drumming intro makes it pretty instantly recognizable, and the addition of the piano is a subtle underline to the guitar. Charlotte Caffey wrote the song, thinking that it would be a kind of echo to Smokey Robinsonâs âGoing to a Go Goâ. She was drawing on the old Motown beats and thought it would be amusing to work out âGoing to a Go Goâ as a cover song, especially since it was a song that mentioned the name of the band. So while she listened to Smokeyâs song repeatedly, the song that she ultimately wrote doesnât really sound a lot like it. But it pretty much became the bandâs signature tune.
OK, Iâm going to turn away from âWe Got the Beatâ for now, but Iâll come back to it soon.
Now, at the end of 1980 Margot Olaverria, the bass player, fell ill with Hepatitis. The rest of the band was starting to break away from Olaverria anyway because she didnât like the direction that they were taking, so they used the illness as a reason to replace her with Kathy Valentine. Valentine wasnât really a bass player, but then again most of the band werenât especially experienced musicians either when they started out.
Early in 1981 they signed with IRS Records and recorded their first album for that label, Beauty and the Beat. They recorded a bunch of songs, including a re-do of âWe Got The Beat,â probably to make it a little more poppy, and probably so they wouldnât have to pay Olaverria for her work on the demo-slash-import version.
Now, around 1980, guitarist Jane Weidlin was dating British musician Terry Hall, who at the time was the lead singer of The Specials, and later on he sang with Fun Boy Three. As Wiedlin explained in an interview with Songfacts dot com, the Go-Goâs were playing at the Whisky on the Sunset Strip, and The Specials were in town from England. They liked the Go-Goâs enough that they were asked to be the opening act for The Specialsâ upcoming tour. During the tour, a little romance sprung up, and thatâs when things got complicated. You see, Hall was already in a relationship with someone back in England, and apparently there was talk about them getting married and such. In retrospect, of course, she sees the callow 20 year old she was, and how it turned into a lot of drama with the sad correspondence and such.
[OUR LIPS ARE SEALED]
At any rate, at some point Hall sent Wiedlin the lyrics to âOur Lips Are Sealed,â and it was pretty clear to her that what heâd written was about their relationship. She finished the lyrics and wrote the music to it and, as she says, the rest is history. Now: the bridge for âOur Lips Are Sealedâ was sung by Jane Wiedlin, and Iâm sure youâd agree itâs a really sweet sound. Wiedlin campaigned to sing lead for the band more often, but she was frequently rebuffed by other band members, and ultimately itâs what led her to leave the group in 1985 to strike out on her own as a solo artist.
The video for the song was financed by leftover money from the budget for videos by The Police, and coincidentally it was directed by Derek Burbidge, who directed The Policeâs videos around then as well. Thereâs no real story attached to the video, partially because the budget was so low: it alternates between the band playing the song in what appears to be a small club, interspersed with shots of them cruising around Los Angeles in a Buick convertible. At one point Belinda Carlisle, whoâs driving, parks the car in front of a lingerie store, and the girls pile out, leaving Jane Wiedlin alone in the car to sing her part. After that bridge, we see the band cavorting in a public fountain instead of driving around, and we still see shots of them playing in the club.
âOur Lips Are Sealedâ was selected as both the opening track to Beauty and the Beat, and the first single from that album. And a successful single it was, making it to Number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, Number 10 on the US Dance charts and a Top Five single in Canada and Australia. It didnât fare as well in the UK, peaking at Number 47, but from a charting standpoint that was better than the original âWe Got The Beatâ release. âOur Lips Are Sealedâ also had a long life on the Billboard chart, spending a total of 30 weeks on the Hot 100. That sounds unusual nowadays, and nowadays it IS unusual, but the early 80s had a bunch of songs that managed to linger on the charts for inordinate amounts of time. For example, Soft Cellâs âTainted Loveâ hung around for 43 weeks that same year. These numbers have been surpassed by other artists, but Iâm pretty sure that longevity on the charts isnât as common as it used to be.
[LIVE VERSION]
OK, let me come back to âWe Got The Beat.â As I just mentioned, âOur Lips Are Sealedâ spent a long time on the chart, long enough that it was still charting when the re-recorded âWe Got The Beatâ was released as a single in January 1982. âWe Got The Beatâ ultimately spent three weeks at Number Two, held out of the top spot by Joan Jettâs âI Love Rock and Rollâ. Oddly, the official video for the song is a live performance that the Go-Goâs did at Palos Verdes High School in California. At any rate, âWe Got the Beatâ was ultimately the bandâs biggest hit.
And one final note about both of these songs. On November 14, 1981 the Go-Goâs were one of two musical guests on Saturday Night Live, and during that show they played both âOur Lips Are Sealedâ and âWe Got The Beatâ. Now, the Go-Goâs were known to imbibe a few, ah, adult beverages before most of their performances, but if you can find the video onlineâitâs a little bit tough but it can be doneâyouâll see that thereâs clearly something off about their performance. To me they seem a little off-speed. But whatever it is, there isnât much doubt that the earlier drinking kind of caught up with them.
[HILARY & HAYLIE]
In 2004, sisters Hilary and Haylie Duff recorded a cover for the soundtrack to the film A Cinderella Story, in which Hilary starred. I donât know that theyâre bringing a lot to the table here, but I do like the guitar work. And the video is clearly homage to the Go-Goâs in that the Duff sisters are again seen tooling around in a convertible, which is interspersed with closeups of them singing and a few shots from the movie. AND it ends with them cavorting in a fountain, although in this case soap bubbles have been added to the water.
And finally, let me leave you with this cover versionâŚ
[FUN BOY THREE}
âŚthis is from 1982, and itâs the Fun Boy Three recording, with the songâs other writer Terry Hall singing lead and June Miles-Kingston providing drums and backup vocals. This version did better in the UK, making it to Number Seven. So far as I know it didnât chart in the US.
And now, itâs time to answer todayâs trivia question. Back on Page Two I asked about the song that was inspired by Pattie Boydâs sister Jenny.
[JENNIFER JUNIPER]
I kind of feel as though this one was maybe a little obvious? But maybe not. The song was this oneâŚ
âJennifer Juniperâ was written by Donovan about Jenny Boyd while she was in the middle of a recovering from a heroin overdose. He wrote it just before they departed along with The Beatles to Rishikesh. Donovan and Jenny never had a romantic relationship, probably because of her on-again, off-again relationship with Mick Fleetwood, though Donovan later admitted that he did have a little crush on her. The last verse of the song is sung in French, but itâs pretty clear that Donovan wasnât a French speaker, so that was a little experiment he didnât try again. And finally: why âJennifer Juniperâ? Well, Juniper was the name of a boutique she ran. Simple as that.
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Next time around, weâre going to find out How Good It Is when you feel like I do.
Thanks for listening, and Iâll talk to you next time.