b/w Borrowed Time
| Released: 1978 (MCA) Written by: John Farrar Produced by: John Farrar Album: Totally Hot |
| U. S. Billboard Charts: | |
| Hot 100 | 3 |
| Adult Contemporary | 4 |
Olivia Newton-John moaning seductive lyrics? I'm there. At the height of the disco craze, this song was like nothing else on the radio. I take that back, the verse bears a resemblance to Nick Gilder's "Hot Child in the City" from a few months earlier. But the advantages this song has over "Hot Child in the City" is that Olivia is performing it plus it's a better written song. At 12 years old, I certainly didn't get the double entendre of "Will a little more love bring a happy ending" and that's probably for the best.
This song was written by ONJ's long-time producer/songwriter John Farrar, who also wrote Olivia's contributions to Grease and Xanadu. After a brief intro, the verse is seductive with Olivia's vocals punctuated by guitar hits at the end of each line. Then it moves into a more popish transition building to the chorus, which has a great synth line and ONJ's multi-layered harmony vocals. In an usual but clever writing move, the end of the chorus harkens back to the verse. No middle 8, no solos, just verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus-chorus and we're done.
This song came out not long after my family and I had moved 500 miles to the Texas gulf coast. In an effort to fit in, I joined the basketball team at my new school. This song reminds me of trips to basketball tournaments in early 1979 (7th grade basketball tournaments - Catch the Excitement!). In particular, I'm remembering one in an old rickety gym that looked like it could have been used as a filming location for Hoosiers. Why would this song remind me of that? Who knows?
This song was written by ONJ's long-time producer/songwriter John Farrar, who also wrote Olivia's contributions to Grease and Xanadu. After a brief intro, the verse is seductive with Olivia's vocals punctuated by guitar hits at the end of each line. Then it moves into a more popish transition building to the chorus, which has a great synth line and ONJ's multi-layered harmony vocals. In an usual but clever writing move, the end of the chorus harkens back to the verse. No middle 8, no solos, just verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus-chorus and we're done.
This song came out not long after my family and I had moved 500 miles to the Texas gulf coast. In an effort to fit in, I joined the basketball team at my new school. This song reminds me of trips to basketball tournaments in early 1979 (7th grade basketball tournaments - Catch the Excitement!). In particular, I'm remembering one in an old rickety gym that looked like it could have been used as a filming location for Hoosiers. Why would this song remind me of that? Who knows?
The mysterious associations we can't explain are part of the fun with old songs.
ReplyDeleteThis song is indeed slinky and seductive. And what about that impossibly high voiced choir; could it be Olivia overdubbed? She definitely uses more voices in this song than any other I can think of.
ReplyDeleteThe accompanying official video of her in the studio is just a little too tame for such a slow-burning scorcher. She was always too wholesome, innocent and naive to be a fully committed sex symbol but she gave it her all didn't she?
I owned this album and was always a huge fan of the single. Whenever I hear it today on XM, I feel a little twinge of "dirty" (in a good way ;) ).
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