Remember when Pat Benatar was on MTV all the time?!
This song was a lot of the reason. The video itself tells a story of a 30-year-old teenage runaway leaving home to become a taxi dancer, only to lead a dance rebellion by her fellow taxi dancers and escaping the lifestyle.
No, really. That is the storyline of the video.
It was somewhat groundbreaking because it was one of the first music videos to feature dialog - not THE first, but the first well-known video. It is the Oreo to Phillip Bailey's "I Know" Hydrox.
The song was written by Mike Champan and Holly Knight - each of them hitmaking songwriters - and would become one of Benatar's celebrity-making early hits.
This song was a hit in 1983 and 1984. So, imaging the surprise when she appeared on Austin City Limits in 2024 and brought the SAME LEVEL of energy to the song 40 years after its initial release, at age 71.
I'm not overselling this performance. It's incredible.
I have always loved the song, and it's been in my drafts for five years. Today is the day.
It was the biggest hit of 1968, by far. It led year-end charts worldwide.
The song started out as "Hey Jules" in May 1968 - the titular Jules being Julian Lennon, son of John and Cynthia, who had separated in the wake of John's affair with Yoko Ono. Listen to it as not a love song, but as encouragement for a five year old kid who blames himself for his parents' divorce, and you will get it.
Did Paul McCartney ever admit to John Lennon that it was about his son? No. John thought it was about himself.
The seven-minute long magnum opus was, at the time, the longest #1 song in history (later eclipsed by "American Pie" by Don McLean, which was a minute longer, itself eclipsed by Taylor Swift's "All Too Well").
In 1998, I travelled to California with my then-wife for a training class.
The only tolerable radio station we could find was, no joke, Radio Disney.
This song was on super heavy rotation, so, shockingly, we got a quick affinity for the song.
It's clearly a strong attempt to have the word "Spice" repeated over and over in a song.
The song was the lead single from their 2nd album, SpiceWorld, and was a significantly lower performer than their previous songs. Still, it was a hit, and not a bad song (although there are some questionable lyrics).
But can we talk about the B-side? You see, they didn't have any songs left for the B-side, so Virgin Records hired songwriting/producing team Absolute to come up with something. The "something" they came up with was "Spice Invaders" - literally a generic dance beat over hot mics on all the Girls just talking.
It is both horrifyingly awful and amazing at once.
But back to "Spice Up Your Life". This was one of the two songs (the other OBVIOUSLY being "Wannabe") the group performed at the London Olympic closing ceremonies - their first performance together in over a decade.
They did leave out the line about the yellow man in Timbuktu.
So, rather than saying a million words about a song, I want to give you an epic song.
But I can't say nothing about it.
The song was released as a single in 1978 and was a huge UK hit and a minor US one (her first!). But the history of the song was much longer than that. It was originally recorded in 1975 and produced by Andrew Powell and David Gilmour (it is rumoured the latter is the subject of the song, but Bush, the songwriter, has not clarified that).
But she had begun writing songs in 1970, and this song was written in 1972.
Kate Bush was 13 when she wrote this song and 16 when she recorded it. I suppose her youth contributes to the innocent nature of the song - it exudes a sweetness that is rare in music, even in the 1970's.
And, to be fair, she was 19 when she made this video.
Despite the epic nature of this song, it is, at its core, Kate Bush and a piano. Never has that been more clear than her 1978 Christmas special.
Let's start by remembering that, when Jesus Christ Superstar, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical, was first recorded, Yvonne Elliman was 18.
18.
And she sang it with such maturity, and such gravitas, that it quite literally stole the show.
This version is from the 1973 version of the movie, when she was 21.
The song is sung from the point of view of Mary Magdelene, and the "Him" is Jesus Christ himself, in the last couple of days before his crucifixion. Written by Rice (lyrics) and Webber (music), the song owes a huge debt to Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto in E Minor", and if you don't believe me, go check out the 2nd movement about 5 minutes in.
And, more than fifty years after its initial release, it is a song that stands on its own as a classic.
But this wasn't the version I grew up with.
No, in fact, when I first saw Jesus Christ Superstar in the early 1990s, my initial reaction to that song was 1) "that's not Helen Reddy" 2) "this is WAY better than Helen Reddy!"
Now, before you go off and say "OMG, you are being so disrespectful", hear me out.
I was in the early 20s when I saw the musical. I had grown up with parents - especially a mother - who were very passionate about music - especially music they had either purchased on eight-track tape or via a Columbia House membership, or in the case of Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits album, BOTH - and therefore, I grew up with this Helen Reddy cover of the song (a song she initially did not like)....
.... which was actually a hit first, and a bigger hit. The single release of the Elliman version was a reaction to Reddy's - and both were legitimately hits.
Now, as I am older, I appreciate Helen Reddy - the queen of 70's pop - a lot more than I did when I was 20. Her music brings me back to road trips in the van, short trips to school... a simpler time. And her voice was spectacular - let's not pretend otherwise.
I do stand by my statement that the original is the best, though.
And Elliman is still around to perform the song, and she does. The song would be one of her most recognized and one of her biggest hits. And even in this version, where her voice has lost some of the higher register, the passion she still exudes gives me goosebumps.
I decided this year to go through all my drafts on this blog. I have, not a joke, almost 500 of them, a large percentage intended for future March posts.
Yes, my musical tastes skew a little Canadian. Sue me.
This song was my oldest draft, and it'll surprise some of you that I actually enjoy the song, unironically. A song about a young woman leaving home to live her life on her own.... it was written by award-winning songwriter Susan Gibson, from the alt-country group The Groobies - who would go on to RELEASE the song themselves in 1999.... after recording it a few years prior.
So how did the song get to the Chicks?
That album the Groobies was recording was produced by famed country producer Lloyd Maines, who happens to have a daughter named Natalie..... and he thought the song was a good fit for his daughter's new group's first album (which would also be named Wide Open Spaces). (Also, anyone who thinks it's talent and not who you know that makes a hit - well, this is evidence to the contrary).
Remember earlier when I mentioned Susan Gibson was an award-winning songwriter? This song, which she loved and, by most accounts I found, still does, is a large reason for that. Sure, it was deeply personal for her - but the fact that it resonated with another artist was something she not only understood, she appreciated.
Anyway, this song, which ended up being the Chicks' third single, was a HUGE hit - and their performance was a big reason for that.
OF COURSE they perform it live, and of course it is brilliant.
