Tune Tag #84 with Dan Pal of PalCinema, TV, & Music, Pt 2: Genesis, Police, Sonny & Cher, Prince, Starjets, Baltimora, Billie Joe Armstrong
Dan Pal has been a Film Professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Moraine Valley Community College, and College of DuPage. His work also includes film criticism, directing, screenwriting, producing, film festival programming, and memoir writing. His Substack page, the popular PalCinema, Television, and Music includes an archive of his film reviews, and can be accessed by clicking here!
Dan is also an avid music fan, and has hosted and administered annual Top Ten Parties for over 40 years!
Dan’s rationale: This is not only one of my favorite songs on my favorite Police album, but it is particularly relevant to me today. On my first Substack anniversary, I had 364 subscribers. That averages to about one a day. Brad referred to this as a form of synchronicity. I was already familiar with the concept thanks in part to the Police’s 1983 album.
While “Synchronicity II” was featured as a single from that album, I always loved Part I, which kicked off the album and set up some of the themes that would run throughout. Prior to this, I had been introduced to the band by my high school friend Mauro (about whom I wrote recently in my “Reflections on Teaching” series, as well as my “Top Ten Memoir: 1979”). We’d listen to The Police, Blondie, The Cars, and Devo in his parents’ basement after school trying to be “new wave.”
By the time Synchronicity came out, I was able to call myself a major fan of the band. I’d also been studying Psychology in college, and became fascinated by the various theories of Carl Jung, who wrote a lot about synchronicity. So, this song and album have a lot of significance to me!
For
’ recent Lipps Service audio/video interview with Police drummer, Stewart Copeland, click here!
Dan’s response: This is a deeper cut from Genesis’s big pop-chart heyday. I had a vague memory of it. My first inclination was to look for some kind of thematic connection between my first song and this one. Because I wasn’t as familiar with this one, I had to read into the lyrics. Not sure what Collins and his co-writers were thinking, but I wondered if the line “Help us someone, let us out of here. Living here so long undisturbed” referred to past inhabitants of this “home by the sea.”
Maybe those living there now were haunted by these past spirits, which might be viewed as synchronistic. But, then I found that “Home By the Sea” was the first of two songs on Genesis’s self-titled 1983 album about a “home by the sea.” Like The Police’s “Synchronicity I” and “Synchronicity II,” they are songs that are two parts of a suite.
It’s surprising that Genesis didn’t call the album Home By the Sea rather than the uninspiring Genesis title!
Brad’s rationale: Two links: 1983, plus the same producer (Hugh Padgham) on both Synchronicity and Genesis. For fans who know, Genesis is best enjoyed live:
Brad’s response: Well, at first blush, I’m at a loss to figure what Dan’s connecting, here, from Genesis and “Home By the Sea” to Sonny & Cher’s massive ‘65 hit, “I Got You Babe” (written by Sonny, who also arranged and produced, for Atco Records)! Could it be 4-word song titles? The hunt begins!
For this album, Genesis was on Atlantic, the corporate head of which Atco has long been a subsidiary (i.e. Atco is to Atlantic as Epic is to Columbia as Reprise is to Warner Bros.). Now, could this be the connection Dan intends? Genesis (along with Charisma), has spent time on (U.S.) Atco, but for only 3 mid-’70s albums, Lamb, A Trick of the Tail, and Wind & Wuthering (1974-76). As they say in chess….“Your move, Dan!”
Dan’s rationale: Genesis lead singer, Phil Collins, was at the height of his solo success when he starred in a 1988 film called Buster. One of the songs from the film, “Two Hearts,” was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar. On the film’s soundtrack album was Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” I have no idea how it fit into the film because I never saw it. However, it’s there at the end of the album’s Side One:
I should note that 1988 was also the year Cher won her Best Actress Oscar for Moonstruck. So I guess there is some kind of synchronicity there…I might be using the concept wrong here! Of course, I was a big fan of Sonny & Cher during the early-1970s when their Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was on CBS. Many of their songs made my Top Ten lists during that era. See “Top Ten Memoir: 1971.”
Dan’s response: I wasn’t familiar with this song or artist. The obvious connection here is that this Italian singer had the same last name as Sonny & Cher, although apparently this was not his real last name. Sad to hear he died so young (29) of AIDS in the 1990s.
Brad’s rationale: Born Alessandro Pizzamiglio in Milan, Italy (July 1964-May 1994), Alex Bono (as he was first known, starting in ‘85), was the opening act in concerts by artists as wide-ranging as Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman, Francesco De Gregori, David Crosby, and Gino Paoli. Here he is in a music video, “Un Amico Come Me” (“A Friend Like Me”) from 1988:
Wiki with the Baltimora deets: Baltimora is “an Italian music project from Milan, active from ‘84-’87. They are best known for their 1985 single, “Tarzan Boy,” and are often considered a one-hit wonder in the UK and the U.S. In other European countries, including their native Italy, Baltimora scored a follow-up hit with “Woody Boogie” the same year.
Brad’s response: Gotta go with the Italian link between my song and this. The lead singer of Baltimora (I’d love to be able to say) is Marylanda. But, alas, the world is never as funny as I’d love for it to be! His real name is…..Jimmy McShane.
More Wiki for the history: “In early 1984, Maurizio Bassi, a music producer and musician from Milan, met Jimmy McShane, a native of Derry, Northern Ireland. They decided to form an act fronted by McShane, a trained singer, dancer and actor, who had previously tried to break into the West End theater scene and toured with Dee D. Jackson.
“McShane and Bassi chose the name Baltimora when, one evening together, McShane took a map of the United States, closed his eyes and happened to place his finger on Baltimore. They changed the final letter to an ‘a’ to make the name more in keeping with the act’s Italian roots.”
Dan’s rationale: This 1980s band was made up of several session members from the Italian recording industry. One of the vocalists, who was not originally from Italy, was Jimmy McShane, who was born in Northern Ireland. McShane may or may not have sung the lead vocal on “Tarzan Boy,” but he is featured as the lead vocalist in the band’s video for the song.
While the band recorded two more albums after the success of the song, they disbanded in 1988. In 1995, McShane died of AIDS. This song was popular in the clubs in the mid-1980s, and always brought people out on the dance floor.
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Dan’s response: I am completely unfamiliar with this song and artist. Apparently, they are from Northern Ireland, which connects them to Jimmy McShane from Baltimora. This formerly punk boy band reunited in 2019/2020 and seemed to have made a big impact upon their return.
Brad’s rationale: Assuming that “Tarzan Boy” is one of the “Smart Boys,” we’re also matching Northern Ireland natives Jimmy McShane (from Derry), and Starjets members, from Belfast.
The good news is FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE have been all over Starjets, even to the point of connecting with guitarist/vocalist, Paul Bowen, online! Quotes from him are included here, in an article he’s read and appreciated:
Brad’s response: Well, I know Billie Joe did a series of pandemic live streams he called “No Fun Mondays,” and this must be one of them from 2020; that would certainly explain the shut-down performances from the respective living rooms of Master Armstrong, and the oh-so-fabulous Ms. Hoffs.
Her Bangles, of course, covered the near-legendary “I-didn’t-know-Prince-wrote-that!” “Manic Monday,” on Christmas Eve eve, 1985 (U.S….released a month later in the UK)! Prince’s songwriting credit on the label was pseudonymically (and cryptically) listed as “Christopher.” Can we picture a lavender-clad Prince snickering to himself…“They’ll never guess it was me!”?
Could Dan have drawn a thematic line from the beloved, tragically under-heard power-pop/punk-pop amalgam of (God Bless the) Starjets to the wonderfully pop arrangement of the original Bangles’ “Manic Monday”?
Always far more a fan of Stretch Armstrong than BJ and his Green Day day-job, I have to give props (mad or otherwise) to Master Armstrong (the BJ one), for a bang-up job on the vocals and guitar-play. Of course, Susanna is always a slam dunk on that gorgeous Rick of hers!
Dan’s rationale: At the height of the pandemic, in 2020, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong released an album of covers including a Starjets song called “War Stories.” The track right after that one on the album was a cover of The Bangles’ “Manic Monday,” which was written by Prince under the pseudonym of “Christopher.”
The Bangles’ lead singer, Susanna Hoffs, appeared in a COVID-era video with Armstrong. This is a surprising duet which I, frankly, didn’t even know existed until I was working on this Tune Tag. Thanks, Brad, for making me think and dig a bit!
Dan’s response: Wow! I’d never seen or heard this version before! Like “Manic Monday,” Prince wrote “I Feel For You,” which Chaka Khan had a major hit with in the 1980s. I never knew they performed it together, and with Stevie Wonder to boot! He plays on Khan’s studio version, too. It’s like a meeting of some of the great musical minds of the era!
Brad’s rationale: Another Prince song that he originally recorded on his 1979 self-titled sophomore effort. The planet is far more familiar with Chaka Khan’s cover, 5 years later, that appeared on her fifth solo studio album, I Feel For You. Interestingly, though, arrangements by The Pointer Sisters and Michael’s eldest sister, Rebbie Jackson, were recorded between Prince’s and Chaka’s takes.
Even more interestingly (and hard to believe, frankly), Prince originally wrote “I Feel For You” and his hit single, “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” for singer/musician, Patrice Rushen, but she turned down both songs! The latter song is said to have been written by Prince, motivated by a crush he reportedly had on Ms. Rushen (according to a 2016 SongFacts entry no longer accessible).
