And getting caught in the rain
February 19, 2014 7:37 AM   Subscribe

 
Rupert Holmes' masterpiece, as far as I am concerned, is "HIM". Here he is performing it live in Japan.
posted by wittgenstein at 7:42 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


As a sidenote, how exactly does Mufasa expect Scar to help him off the edge? They're both lions. They don't have hands.
posted by Iridic at 7:44 AM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


The Lion King one is spectacular. The rest are funny, too, but that Lion King one is special.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:46 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Related, over on AskMe.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on February 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


HIM

Will Farrell and Zach Galifanakis have nothing on Rupert Holmes for awkward 70s-style earnestness, but the most awkward thing is that guitar lead-in. Yikes.
posted by davejay at 7:51 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


“Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes is great and it should be in every movie.”

Only the ones showing down at the Hell-Plex 666.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:51 AM on February 19, 2014 [11 favorites]


Reminds me of this, and its endless iterations.

Also, my freshman year college roommate listened to that Pina Colada song constantly, and I think I can honestly say that there isn't a song on earth that I hate more vehemently. But somehow I am into this tumblr?
posted by likeatoaster at 7:54 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


If you like one-subject Tumblrs
And getting caught in a meme
If you like wacky soundtracks
And aren't into Guile's Theme
If you like making fun of movies
If your job's slow today
I've got the blog that you've looked for
Come with me and click play
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:54 AM on February 19, 2014 [53 favorites]


No, Rupert Holmes' masterpiece is "Timothy," a song about two trapped miners who eat a third. Written by Holmes, it was performed by The Buoys with Holmes on piano.

"Answering Machine" follows closely after that, but of course it goes without saying that "Escape" should be somewhere in every movie made.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:54 AM on February 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


Tom: Okay. Joel...what's the deal with "The Pina Colada Song"? Oh, and I have a follow-up.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:55 AM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


Dammit, Rumpole, you beat me to it!
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:02 AM on February 19, 2014


Hell yeah! Street Fightin' Man! Rolling Stones! G sevvvvvveeeennnn!
posted by graphnerd at 8:03 AM on February 19, 2014


Man, I love that guitar work in the chorus. It's just so cheesy-perfect. I would be totally okay with putting this song in every movie.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:04 AM on February 19, 2014


I always liked the Piña Colada song. I had forgotten all about 'Him," however.

Anyway the former would be a nice touch in the final scene of Office Space, I think.
posted by jonmc at 8:04 AM on February 19, 2014


Ah, "The Pina Colada Song," the heartwarming tale of two douchey alcoholics attempting, but failing, to commit adultery.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:06 AM on February 19, 2014 [40 favorites]


The thinking man's Barry Manilow.
posted by spitbull at 8:12 AM on February 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


My mom owned this album.

This song will always remind me of her and her divorced friends hanging out.
posted by freakazoid at 8:14 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


A lot of love for a vapid song that begins, "I was tired of my lady..." narrated by a guy actually still in bed with that lady he's so tired of. Special.

I'm also allergic to any song that refers to its female love interest as "my lady." Sure sign of a dick who doesn't think he's a dick but actually is a total dick.
posted by aught at 8:15 AM on February 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


At the time "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" was so popular, that my dad, whose musical tastes mostly revolved around swing bands, rushed out and bought the 45 when it came out. And then, around the same time and possibly under the influence of said record, my mom got completely hammered on Piña Coladas. It's possible that they even made love in the rain, too, though, naturally they wouldn't have let me in on that.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:21 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Mondegreen filter: When I was a kid, I thought that some of the lyrics in the chorus went, "If you like makin' love at midnight/In The Dunes of Ma-Kayth". And I always envisioned Ma-Kayth as some super-exotic desert resort in Morrocco or something, and so the song felt like it was about these glamorously wealthy jet-set people who could flit off to the Middle East or Europe or the Carribbean for their dates.

It wasn't until I was nearly thirty-five that I realized it was "the dunes of The Cape", as in Cape Cod, as in "where I spent practically all my childhood family summer vacations where we could stay with my grandparents and the cheap hotel in Wareham," and suddenly this song seemed way more lame.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:24 AM on February 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


davejay: Will Farrell and Zach Galifanakis have nothing on Rupert Holmes for awkward 70s-style earnestness, but the most awkward thing is that guitar lead-in. Yikes.

Your honor, I would like to enter defense exhibit A: one Bertie Higgins video, Key Largo.

Bonus: the man himself responds to YouTube comments.
posted by dr_dank at 8:25 AM on February 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


the heartwarming tale of two douchey alcoholics attempting, but failing, to commit adultery

I doubt they were actually married.
posted by straight at 8:26 AM on February 19, 2014


Always thought it was just this side of being a novelty song, like Junkfood Junkie, or Guitarzan.

I really like Piña Coladas though. Only you have to make them with Coco Lopez, and not that nasty Goya stuff.
posted by valkane at 8:28 AM on February 19, 2014


There was long involved thread on my FB feed about this song yesterday. At this point I need a Gerry Rafferty cleanser
posted by KingEdRa at 8:29 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


> I'm also allergic to any song that refers to its female love interest as "my lady."

As "love" songs go, Love The One You're With makes The Pina Colada Song sound like Unchained Melody.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:30 AM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


The best thing ever done with this song was a bit by the This American Life folks. It starts like a story about personal ads, with the usual musical stings and back-and-forth interview format, and they slowly leak in details from the song over 4-5 minutes, until you get suspicious and think "oh my god, is it? it is! you bastards!", and you're ready for the next detail dropped and they reference yoga and you're "NOOOOO!".

It was done as a short feature that was played during a pledge drive years ago, and I haven't been able to find even a reference to it on the whole Internet, much less a copy of it.

(And I'm sorry but I've spoiled it for you, because the whole trick relies on the listener not having the least suspicion that it will be about the song. But if I ever find it I will have great fun nonchalantly suggesting to people "this cool old This American Life story I found".
posted by benito.strauss at 8:30 AM on February 19, 2014 [9 favorites]


I'm also allergic to any song that refers to its female love interest as "my lady."

So no love here for "Lay Lady Lay" or "Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands"?
posted by octobersurprise at 8:31 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Things I did not know about Rupert Holmes:

-- He wrote and sang the bubblegum classic "Jennifer Tompkins" as the Street People, a song I love.
-- He's now a playwright, and wrote Drood and that George Burns show that Frank Gorshin starred in. He also created a stage adaptation of the Nutty Professor that Jerry Lewis himself directed.
-- He wrote Echo Valley 2-6809 for the Partridge Family, which is about the most 70s thing ever recorded.
-- His actual name is David Goldstein and he now looks -- and talks -- like every rabbi I have ever had. Here's him on Marvin Hamlisch: ""People rarely use the words 'genius' and 'mensch' in the same sentence."
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:31 AM on February 19, 2014 [11 favorites]


EmpressCallipygos: “It wasn't until I was nearly thirty-five that I realized it was ‘the dunes of The Cape’, as in Cape Cod, as in ‘where I spent practically all my childhood family summer vacations where we could stay with my grandparents and the cheap hotel in Wareham,’ and suddenly this song seemed way more lame.”

As a person who didn't hear this song until I was thirty or so, and who has had an adult acquaintance with Cape Cod, that still seems odd to me. Are there really dunes on Cape Cod? I know of beaches, sure, but I never seem to see any full-on dunes out there. Just doesn't seem very dune-y. If you wanted to make love in dunes, it seems like you could pick a much more dune-oriented place to do it.
posted by koeselitz at 8:33 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Are there really dunes on Cape Cod? I know of beaches, sure, but I never seem to see any full-on dunes out there. Just doesn't seem very dune-y.

Oh, heck yeah.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:36 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm also allergic to any song that refers to its female love interest as "my lady."

Dana Carvey completely deflated the whole "my lady" trope when he had her chopping broccoli.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:37 AM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


Here is an interesting interview/discussion with RH about his song. He seems to have a decent sense of humor.

Says Rupert, "I have a feeling that if I saved an entire orphanage from a fire and carried the last child out on my shoulders, as I stood there charred and smoking, they'd say, 'Aren't you the guy who wrote The Pina Colada Song?'
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:40 AM on February 19, 2014 [18 favorites]


Supposedly, to this day, Rupert Holmes says that people in bars send him over Piña Coladas. Sadly, he dosen't actually like them.

I've only ever had them once, premixed in the bottle from the liquor cabinet of a family I was babysitting for when I was 16. They were OK.
posted by jonmc at 8:43 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


You have to have a non premixed version, and you have to like coconut. Those premixes taste like alcoholic suntan lotion. A decent rum, cream of cocoanut, and fresh pineapple juice, though? Delicious.

Also, the drink was supposedly created by a pirate, Roberto Cofresí, and is Puerto Rico's official drink, so it's got that going for it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:49 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


A decent rum, cream of cocoanut, and fresh pineapple juice, though? Delicious.

Exactly. A little Banana Liqueur doesn't hurt, either.
posted by valkane at 8:52 AM on February 19, 2014


So my kids are off from school this week. One just woke up asking what the song I was playing was. I told him it was late 70s hit called Escape or The Pina Colada Song. He said, "Were all the people that douchy back then? This is a stupid song." Then he went back to sleep.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:55 AM on February 19, 2014 [14 favorites]


Dana Carvey completely deflated the whole "my lady" trope when he had her chopping broccoli

Holy cow do I miss Dana Carvey as a comedic presence in the world.
posted by aught at 8:58 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Are there really dunes on Cape Cod?

There used to be miles upon miles of enormous dunes on Cape Cod but in the 70s they were pretty much wiped out by the vigorous midnight love-making of so many couples inspired by this song. Little known ecological disaster.
posted by yoink at 9:05 AM on February 19, 2014 [18 favorites]


I would be totally okay with putting this song in every movie.

At which point I would be totally okay with never seeing another movie again ever.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:07 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Rupert Holmes resides on my hard disk in the folder
Documents > private > guiltypleasures > deletewhenidie> music > guyswithhighpitchedvoices

Big folder by the way
posted by ouke at 9:13 AM on February 19, 2014 [9 favorites]


A decent rum, cream of cocoanut, and fresh pineapple juice, though? Delicious

We were in Puerto Rico a couple years ago and the power in the neighborhood went out while I was on a piña colada binge. I wound up drinking a couple on the rocks instead of blended. Not bad, actually.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:14 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sigh, thanks for the earworm Metafilter. Must drive it out of my head! Why this song and why now ... twice on Metafilter in a few days. It came out in 1979 but actually was a big hit/came on to my radar in 1980 (the year Reagan got elected incidentally, so not my favorite year.)
So, I would just like to comment that in 1980, you could have been listening to (and this is just off the top of my head) U2's I Will Follow, Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart, Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, or Blondie's Call Me, or Queen, or Pete Townshend, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, or even Devo , the B-52's, Genesis ...
posted by gudrun at 9:22 AM on February 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


Huh. Whaddaya know? Dunes.
posted by koeselitz at 9:26 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


If I had to choose between either listening to The Wall or to The Piña Colada song for the rest of my life, it'd be The Piña Colada song hands down. *shivers.*
posted by octobersurprise at 9:31 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


WE DON'T NEED NO FEEL OF THE OCEAN
WE DON'T NEED NO TASTE OF CHAMPAGNE

posted by koeselitz at 9:41 AM on February 19, 2014 [24 favorites]


Ah, "The Pina Colada Song," the heartwarming tale of two douchey alcoholics attempting, but failing, to commit adultery.
That's exactly what always bothered me about this song. They are both looking for action outside their relationship, they both find out about it, and that... what... re-kindles their relationship? I'm no expert, but I don't think relationships work that way.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:43 AM on February 19, 2014


He wrote Echo Valley 2-6809 for the Partridge Family, which is about the most 70s thing ever recorded.

One of my favorite songs---EVAH!

The Pina Colada Song. One of my LEAST favorite songs.

Gotta upload my Partridge Family albums onto my iTunes account.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 9:50 AM on February 19, 2014


Gudrun: you actually linked "My Own Private Idaho" a second time for the Genesis link for 1980.

And I may be the only one who cares but that's only because I know you linked something off Duke and I got all excited because THAT ALBUM KICKS ASS
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:51 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I thought that some of the lyrics in the chorus went, "If you like makin' love at midnight/In The Dunes of Ma-Kayth".

Mrs. Example always likes to sing that part as "If you like makin' love at midnight/With a dude in a cape".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 9:54 AM on February 19, 2014 [14 favorites]


> I'm no expert, but I don't think relationships work that way.

Well, it was the '70s. That's why I had so many friends with two sets of parents in the '80s.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:57 AM on February 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


Oh man, the people in this thread are so much funnier and more clever than the subject of the post. Especially Metroid Baby's sharp and artful mockery, and this from The Card Cheat:

Ah, "The Pina Colada Song," the heartwarming tale of two douchey alcoholics attempting, but failing, to commit adultery.

I laughed out loud at this for like a full minute. Oh my. There's something hysterically funny to me about people failing at unchallenging endeavors, and this summary of the song is...it's just perfect. This is a perfect joke.
posted by clockzero at 10:02 AM on February 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


"If you like makin' love at midnight/With a dude in a cape."

"I'm the Dark Knight you wanted/Go and tell all your friends."
posted by octobersurprise at 10:03 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Are there sandworms in the dunes of Ma-Kayth or is this more a Yog-Sothoth kind of thing


I need to know for my love-making purposes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:11 AM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


Are there sandworms in the dunes of Ma-Kayth or is this more a Yog-Sothoth kind of thing

Couldn't tell you, I was only nine and still thought boys were icky so I didn't care to contemplate that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:14 AM on February 19, 2014


> Are there sandworms in the dunes of Ma-Kayth

Nope, earworms.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:17 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


At this point I need a Gerry Rafferty cleanser

oh, man, another geographic misconception here - I spent most of my life thinking that Baker Street was somewhere in, like, Los Angeles. I didn't know Gerry Rafferty was talking about London until I was forty-one.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:18 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


"And it's taken you so long / To find out you were wrong..."
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:24 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Ah, "The Pina Colada Song," the heartwarming tale of two douchey alcoholics attempting, but failing, to commit adultery.

What about this lyrical ballad performed in celebration of the nooner?

The 70s were a terrible, terrible time.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:29 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Are there sandworms in the dunes of Ma-Kayth

Remember: Walk without rhythm and we won't attract the worm. It will go to the humper.
posted by ODiV at 10:39 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


1908 was really a pretty good year for music. Three more 1980 tracks:

The Talking Heads
Dire Straits
The Ramones
posted by sfred at 10:42 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


oh, man, another geographic misconception here - I spent most of my life thinking that Baker Street was somewhere in, like, Los Angeles. I didn't know Gerry Rafferty was talking about London until I was forty-one.

I didn't know that until I just read it on Metafilter this instant.
posted by wittgenstein at 10:44 AM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


Fuck without rhythm and you won't attract the worm.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:59 AM on February 19, 2014


1908 was really a pretty good year for music.

Scott Joplin's Fig Leaf Rag
Take Me Out to the Ball Game by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer.
Elgar's Symphony #1.

Who can forget?
posted by yoink at 11:01 AM on February 19, 2014 [13 favorites]


We have earworm sign the likes of which even God himself has never seen.
posted by nat at 11:15 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


I hated this song for decades, but then I read Rupert Holmes' mystery novels and was absolutely gobsmacked to find out how good they are, which made me see him very differently.

Seriously -- they are page-turningly, jaw-droppingly good. The guy can really write.

Swing is totally unputdownable, and Where the Truth Lies is a devastating takedown of old Hollywood sleaze. I recommend them to every keen reader of crime novels.
posted by vickyverky at 11:21 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Ayyy, sorry about that EmpressCallipygos. I'm home with a bad cold that will not go away .... and messed up the link. Genesis.
posted by gudrun at 11:22 AM on February 19, 2014


1980 was really a pretty good year for music.

Precisely because the seventies were so terrible.

You go from Muskrat Love to Sheena is a Punk Rocker because if you don't, you'll end up drowning in a sea of warm, pink sludge.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:23 AM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


Documents > private > guiltypleasures > deletewhenidie> music > guyswithhighpitchedvoices

Robert John just called.
posted by maxwelton at 11:27 AM on February 19, 2014


Supposedly, to this day, Rupert Holmes says that people in bars send him over Piña Coladas. Sadly, he dosen't actually like them.

So you're telling me that people in bars, to this day, will glance around the room and go, "Dude, that guy over to your left - DON'T LOOK! The guy in the blue shirt... I think that's Rupert Holmes! No, I swear to God, that's him!"

Seriously? I don't think there were more than 25 people alive who could have picked Rupert Holmes out of a lineup when that song was in the top 40.
posted by Naberius at 11:32 AM on February 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


...waiting for Blade Runner to get the Escape treatment. "Wake up, time to... if you like piña colada" and "all those moments will be lost like... piña coladas!" [pause the song on the right at soon as it unloads]
posted by morganw at 11:49 AM on February 19, 2014


I didn't know that until I just read it on Metafilter this instant.

Might it further blow your mind that it's also the street where Sherlock Holmes lives?
posted by axiom at 11:51 AM on February 19, 2014


EmpressCallipygos wrote: At the time "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" was so popular, that my dad, whose musical tastes mostly revolved around swing bands, rushed out and bought the 45 when it came out.

vickyverky wrote about the novel: Swing is totally unputdownable....

To connect the dots between these two comments, his novel "Swing" comes with a CD of swing music composed by Holmes as a companion to the novel.
posted by 1367 at 11:54 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh come now, not everything in the seventies was bad - Springsteen anyone? Random example. Another random example. Clapton. Or, if you want 1979 specifically, when Escape (the Pina Colada song) was released, Blondie.
posted by gudrun at 11:55 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


"Babooshka" (from 1980) by Kate Bush, has a similar plot: a woman writes anonymous love letters to her husband, and eventually dates him.
posted by iviken at 11:55 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Dammit iviken!
posted by whuppy at 11:59 AM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Mrs. Example always likes to sing that part as "If you like makin' love at midnight/With a dude in a cape".

I would feel a glimmer of shame at self-linking to this if you hadn't said that: the complete lyrics to The Igor Colada Song (Nice Cape), which I dashed off one day in response to the Twitter hashtag #supervillainpop.

I was particularly proud of the variations on the chorus, for example:
“If you like piña coladas
And making blood flow like rain,
If you’re not hung up on ethics,
Can procure half a brain.
If you’d like making love at midnight
With a dude in a cape
Then you’re the lackey I’ve looked for
Write to me and escape.”
I finished this, posted it, then turned to my husband in despair saying "… oh no. I've peaked, right?"
posted by Elsa at 12:17 PM on February 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


Precisely because the seventies were so terrible.

Nah, between (visualizing my LP collection) Todd Rundgren / Utopia, Talking Heads, Jackson Browne, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Parliament, The Police, Frank Zappa, Fleetwood Mac, Jim Croce, Joni Mitchell, Al Green, Linda Rondstadt, and The Eagles, the teenage me had no shortage of great music to listen to (and not enough money to buy all the albums I wanted). And all in my iPod to this day, yay.

But then I didn't listen to music on the radio much then, and still don't.

"Babooshka yt " (from 1980) by Kate Bush, has a similar plot: a woman writes anonymous love letters to her husband, and eventually dates him.

And the woman was also thought of as his "lady" by the straying husband, if I recall correctly.
posted by aught at 12:28 PM on February 19, 2014


Or, if you want 1979 specifically, when Escape (the Pina Colada song) was released, Blondie.

Or, you know, Off The Wall, which only has the misfortune to be overshadowed by its even more amazingly successful sibling. Which is not to disrespect Blondie. 14 year old me was a huge huge huge Blondie fan. Now I wouldn't offer Clapton as evidence of things not sucking in the seventies (StonesCon), but ... On the whole it was a pretty good decade for a variety of popular music and 1979 in particular was great.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:36 PM on February 19, 2014


[Afternoon Delight] YT link

Yeah... I think about how my sisters and I happily sang along with that on the radio as kids with no idea what it was alluding to, and get creeped out to this day.
posted by aught at 12:37 PM on February 19, 2014


Hey, if it's right, it's right.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:42 PM on February 19, 2014


I remember watching Starland Vocal Band perform "Afternoon Delight on Merv Griffin."
posted by octobersurprise at 12:44 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Rupert Holmes was also responsible for Remember WENN, American Movie Classics' first original television series, about a radio station in Pittsburgh at the beginning of WWII. It was a terrific series which is now nearly impossible to find anywhere.
posted by Spatch at 12:47 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


'Babooshka' is a bit different in that only one of the couple truly wants to cheat; the wife does all the letter-writing and chasing because she wants to "test her husband" and when she meets him incognito she shouts at him. I don't think that one has a happy ending, unlike the Pina Colada pair. And the moral here is: cheating is consequence-free, as long as it's mutual!
posted by andraste at 1:06 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


All this pina colada love and here I was hoping for someones killer recipe! Maybe it's older pineapple but I have a hard time getting the right balance of flavors when I try and make one.
posted by Carillon at 1:08 PM on February 19, 2014


cheating is consequence-free, as long as it's mutual

And everyone is drunk.

Although, can you actually get drunk on Pina Coladas? I tried once, long, long ago, to see if I could get drunk on frozen strawberry daiquiris and I got sick to my stomach well before I was anywhere near what a reasonable person would call "drunk."
posted by Naberius at 1:21 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


WAY late for the Pina Colada party, but I discovered Rupert Holmes years earlier via his first album, "Widescreen", which contained such outside-the-norm 'pop' songs as...

"Soap Opera", which juxtaposes personal failure with '70s daytime TV... (fan-made video with dolls)

"Second Saxophone", another sad-sack story, this time in Big Band style...

a song to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner, "Our National Pastime", that would be considered treasonously inappropriate today... (another fan-made video)

and then ended with a ten-minute satire of '40s radio: "Psychodrama". This was the best predictor of his future skills writing things like Remember WENN and Drood (and a truly creepy novel about a 'Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin'-like comedy team oxymoronically titled "Where the Truth Lies").

His second album started down the road to greater Pop Conventionality that ended with "Escape" but also included "Brass Knuckles", a musical detective story with (spoiler) an unhappy ending.

I knew he was destined for great musical things, but unaware how cheezy he'd have to get...
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:07 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


All this pina colada love and here I was hoping for someones killer recipe!

Here's my recipe (it's not exactly a pina colada but more of a riff on a pina colada, because I hate frozen drinks):

2 oz. dark rum
1 oz. Malibu
Splash of cream of coconut
3 oz. pineapple juice
Serve over ice

I had one this very afternoon while reading this thread, and it may not be killer but it is possible to get drunk from it.
posted by Daily Alice at 2:09 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wow, benito.strauss, your This American Life reference answers a question that's been bugging me for many years. (Just moments before I started writing it up as an Ask Metafilter question.) Many thanks!

As astonishing as it seems now, the first time I'd ever heard the song was during that This American Life short piece. (Those of us who live under rocks discover music more slowly than the rest of you.)

Instead of the slow recognition you describe, I heard it as an entirely straight documentary piece about an astonishing coincidence that concluded with a song written to commemorate the event, presumably commissioned by the radio program. The story seemed just on the edge of credible, and (at least to my barely-adult brain at the time) quite sweet, and the song was memorable.

Then, over the next few years I was amazed to repeatedly hear the song in bars and public places, divorced completely from the radio program. I was surprised such an unlikely real-life coincidence would inspire a song that then managed to get years of mainstream airplay. So, I felt compelled to tell people about it. Several times a year, for many years, I repeated my hazy memory of the story to anyone who would listen, most of whom expressed healthy skepticism but didn't argue the point.

Finally, a thoughtful and worldly friend pointed out that the song was as old as me, and that it was released by a band without any mention of it being a true story, and that I was almost certainly wrong. I combed the internet looking for confirmation of the crackpot story I'd been telling for years and discovered two things: First, the song not only existed long before any radio program I could have heard, but was also a world famous chart-topper. Second, nobody within google's reach has ever claimed it was a true story.

Every year or two I do a search to try to figure out exactly which radio program tricked me those many years ago. I would have naively guessed it was This American Life, based on half-remembered tone and style, but no amount of searching could ever turn up the offending program. I've tried every other plausible radio program I can recall listening to with no luck.

At last, I have a solution. And, hearing someone describe the radio piece as it was intended to be heard - by someone who recognized the song - is fascinating. Now to try to get a copy of that radio program, so that I can prove to the world once and for all that I'm not crazy but merely hopelessly naive.
posted by eotvos at 2:18 PM on February 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


How did I never realize Drood's Rupert Holmes was the Pina Colada Song guy? It's not like "Rupert" is all that common a name...

In other '70s news, ABBA admits the eye-blistering costumes were "for tax reasons."
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:29 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I loved the Pina Colada Song, but I was 11.

Does anyone remember Rupert Holmes' "Lunch Hour?" It's the second-most embarrassing song about a nooner, next to "Afternoon Delight."

"How do you find time to eat
when there are so many people on the street
and all of them are hungry, hungry, HUNGRY!

Give me a sandwich to go
As long as I can see you I know
I'll never go hungry, hungry, HUNGRY!"

He was just so nonironic. Is there a word for something that is just completely free of irony, that maybe should be ironic? Camp? I don't know.

My mom had the 8-track for this. Yes, 8-track. Look it up, and get off my lawn, and turn your crap music down!
posted by MoxieProxy at 2:31 PM on February 19, 2014


well, MoxieProxy, "Terminal" was also from Rupert's first album, about what you could call a "One Rush-Hour Affair". (I didn't include it before because it wasn't THAT weird)
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:40 PM on February 19, 2014


I HATE THAT SONG SO MUCH ARRRRRRGH! (I blame my unhappy years working at a chain drugstore, which played THE WORST MUSIC EVER on an endless loop. Once I quit that job, I vowed that I would never, ever work anywhere that played music.)
posted by sarcasticah at 2:47 PM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


So you're telling me that people in bars, to this day, will glance around the room and go, "Dude, that guy over to your left - DON'T LOOK! The guy in the blue shirt... I think that's Rupert Holmes! No, I swear to God, that's him!"

No, he just looks like a guy who would really, really like pina coladas. It's an amazing concidence, really.
posted by yoink at 2:59 PM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


No, oneswellfoop, not weird, but just so very, very sincere.

I only have had time to listen to Soap Opera from your offerings up above and, god help me, I want to send it back to my 11 year old self right now.
posted by MoxieProxy at 2:59 PM on February 19, 2014


well, Moxie, Rupert's first album was 5 years before the Pina Colada Song, so it was available to your 6 year old self... but probably not recommended, both for content and already-old-musical-styles.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:03 PM on February 19, 2014


Professionally, I fucking hate all blender drinks. They are the bane of my existence.

Personally, I like to imagine the couple in the song went home, made crazy monkey love, and in fact went on to become mad swingers with a drawer full of Polaroids the kids are gonna stumble across one Christmas vacation home from college while looking for that old box of ornaments Grandma had. And Mom & Dad are all like
"Deal, kiddos. Y'all got here somehow, and yeah, we had a life before you were born, and they invented summer camp for a reason, and it wasn't to teach you how to paddle a canoe. So wassail & pass the cider and drop the gobsmacked look or I start mentioning the epic stack of Playboys you thought you'd cleverly hidden behind the headboard back in 8th grade."
Hard to hate a song that takes you down a path like that.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:44 PM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


I admit I knew it was coming but still lolled every time it started playing.
posted by vespabelle at 3:58 PM on February 19, 2014


Ugh, most of the video clips are copyright-claimed down now. something really needs to be done with youtube wrt that.
posted by emptythought at 4:07 PM on February 19, 2014


Here it is, Horace Rumpole linked to a transcript above, but here is video of Joel and the Bots' bit on The Deal with the Pina Colada song.

WARNING: Hotlinked from within the movie Monster A-Go-Go, which is known to cause spontaneous head explosion in laboratory animals and people, so be careful playing beyond the extent of the bit.
posted by JHarris at 5:46 PM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Will Farrell and Zach Galifanakis have nothing on Rupert Holmes for awkward 70s-style earnestness

feh - the king of awkward 70s-style earnestness is dan hill

if you know this name, you'll know what this is and you won't want to click on this

if you don't know this name, for god's sake, don't click on it - you'll be very sorry

the queen of awkward 70s-style earnestness is charlene

don't click on this, either - and who is the poor "lady" she's assaulting with tales of her woe-filled existential angst? - i feel sorry for her - i feel sorry for me because i left it on for a minute while copying the link
posted by pyramid termite at 7:33 PM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


and, oh god, that partridge family song is awful
posted by pyramid termite at 7:37 PM on February 19, 2014


i feel sorry for me because i left it on for a minute while copying the link

I've never even been to me. I'm the one you should feel sorry for!

Also, we need a judge's ruling on Dan Hill. He's up against Fogelberg, Sovine, and Chapin and that's some stiff competition.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:52 PM on February 19, 2014


Wait, wait, wait. Am I the only person who thinks the story in the song still makes sense?

He was tired of his lady and she was tired of him. Usually when people say this is happening, they're trying to retroactively cover their asses, but it appears to be true in this case. They were in a rut and wanted an exciting change and some cinematic romance. Now, I don't condone seeking out a new relationship before ending the one you're dissatisfied with, but the speed with which my divorced family members remarry tells me that it isn't unusual, even among seemingly respectable adults.

Reading the personal ads should have been a safe diversion, but actually posting one is a bit naughty. After that, their true love takes over. Something in his stupid ad calls out to her heart, unconsciously reminding her of the way things used to be. She wasn't expecting it, but how can she not respond? Where's the harm? Then he gets her letter and, wow.

When they meet at the bar, they remember all the things they loved about each other. All the things they'd started to take for granted ("the curve of her face"), all the things about themselves that they let slip when they got comfortable and lazy, things they hadn't bothered to tell each other, things they never got up the nerve to confess.

How does this song not speak to the souls of everyone who has been in a relationship that just couldn't work, even though you both care for each other? This is like the dream break up.
posted by MsDaniB at 5:17 AM on February 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Wow, even I didn't know I had so many feelings about this song.
posted by MsDaniB at 5:18 AM on February 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


sarcasticah: Once I quit that job, I vowed that I would never, ever work anywhere that played music.

So, when did you start working for MTV?
posted by hanov3r at 5:24 AM on February 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


"Panic and Order Manhattans" was the name of my high school Michael Moorcock/Woody Allen tribute band.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:20 AM on February 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Why do these all end with a Lion King title card? Or am I just having a weird Vimeo glitch?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:42 AM on February 20, 2014


The 70s were a terrible, terrible time.

More terrible than the 80s?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:59 AM on February 20, 2014


EmpressCallipygos wrote: "At the time "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" was so popular, that my dad, whose musical tastes mostly revolved around swing bands, rushed out and bought the 45 when it came out."

Ordinarily I'd let this kind of obvious mis-attribution go, but my blues-and-rock-loving father would never forgive me if I didn't point out that a) I didn't write this, and b) My father wouldn't have ever in his LIFE bought a copy of "Escape" and would probably have rather retched furniture first.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:04 AM on February 20, 2014


> The 70s were a terrible, terrible time.
More terrible than the 80s?


I think we can all agree that every decade is horrific in its own way.
posted by aught at 9:11 AM on February 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Fuck without rhythm and you won't attract the worm.

So, sandworms: not a problem for Mr Walston
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:42 PM on February 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


« Older 'contemplating the nexus between meat and...   |   Moving 360 Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments