Movie Music Monday will return next week. Instead, here is a piece I wrote for Dave at A Sound Day’s Turntable talk. It first appeared on his site last week.
Dave has picked a topic this month that takes me back to the 70’s. He said “the topic we’re going to try here is Catch That Phrase – pick a song that you like (ideally) that has a line or phrase in it so iconic it could be on a T-shirt or bumper sticker and others would get it. And give us your thoughts on the song or the reason it caught on. “
The thing that stuck with me about his instructions was that the catch phrase could be on a T-shirt. When I was a kid, my favorite T-shirt was grey and simply said, “Try it. You’ll Like It!”
I wore that shirt constantly, which surprises me that I can’t find a photo of me in it. Anyway, that was the angle I decided to come at the topic – what would the shirt say?
As I always do, I made a list of possible songs to choose from and was surprised at how many I came up with. Some of my songs included:
- What’s Going On
- Bust a Move
- You Can’t Always Get What You Want
- Easy Come, Easy Go
- Take This Job and Shove It
- Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It
- Put A Ring On It
- Count Me In
- Hard To Handle
There are just so many that work on T-Shirts!
Don’t forget that Elvis took Taking Care of Business and made a logo for his entourage to wear!
During the 1980 NFL season, the Detroit Lions were doing well and with each win, a Queen song title was plastered on T-shirts all over the state!
As silly as it is, and despite the numerous entries on my list, I kept coming back to one song! It was a song that was big on T-shirts and was a HUGE song they year I graduated. The song is the only a cappella song to reach #1 in the US. Do you know it yet?
The song title appeared on numerous T-shirts in 1988 and well beyond!
The song certainly was known from appearing in the 1988 movie Cocktail and led to lots of radio airplay, but the video was really the catalyst that shot it into stardom. This could be because of the star power in it. According to songfacts.com, “Robin Williams appears in the video, as does the lesser-known comedian Bill Irwin (Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street). The clip, which got lots of airplay on MTV, plays up the comedic nature of the song with lots of goofy hijinks, including a scene where McFerrin plays a distraught investor ready to jump out of a window. That part was ripped from the headlines: on October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones lost 508 points, shedding 22% of its value. In the video, McFerrin is holding a newspaper that reads “Dow Plummets 508 Points.”
How big was the song? Well, it won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Vocal Performance and Song Of The Year in 1989.
It may seem strange for a song like this to shoot to the top of the charts, but in 1988, the charts were full of a variety of artists. As songfacts notes, “There was plenty of hair metal (Bon Jovi, Def Leppard) and teen pop (Tiffany, Debbie Gibson), but many older-skewing artists as well: The Beach Boys, George Harrison, Chicago and Steve Winwood all had #1 hits.” Having a jazz song hit number one shouldn’t have been too big a surprise.
As for the phrase itself, it came from an Indian guru named Meher Baba. In an interview with USA Weekend magazine, McFerrin explained that he saw a poster of him with the phrase and thought it was “a pretty neat philosophy in four words.” That philosophy turned out to be a smash hit record and a catchphrase that is still used today (even though many don’t know where it came from).
The song is an earworm that, once you hear it, stays with you for awhile. For that, I apologize. In high school, I remember buying the “cassingle” (a cassette that held one song on each side) of the song and it was often played when we were out driving around. Listening to it again for this piece, I gotta tell you, it’s really amazing what Bobby McFerrin was able to do to make this song.
I’ve always loved a good acapella song, and I suppose the recent success of Pentatonix means other folks like it too. Before I wrap up, I suppose we should give Bobby a listen….
I want to thank Dave for once again picking a great topic and hosting the Turntable Talk feature. I’m already looking forward to the next topic. For now, I suppose, I should “Hit the Road, Jack,” so I’ll leave with a simple, “See Ya Later, Alligator …..”
Sources: Songfacts.com, Wikipedia
