Previously on Spectre Collie… I was reminiscing about the first songs I ever bought with my own money, but I started to wonder whether I could recall any of the songs I pestered my parents into getting for me. Back in that shadowy time between the Carpenters albums and novelty compilations from K-TEL of my youth, when I started listening to songs that people my age actually liked.
One of the first singles I remember having was “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” by The Gap Band. I was obsessed with that song, and knowing me, I’m sure I went around making the whistling sound when I hummed it.
Hearing it now, and watching that video, I’m kind of surprised that it’s still such a banger. I remember it being kind of corny, even as a kid. There’s no way in hell I was cool enough as a kid to be thinking, “Just you wait until people start sampling the Gap Band, and you’ll be able to appreciate it how prescient I was.” I don’t think I was even pompous enough to use the word “prescient” back then.
The way I know I wasn’t cool back then is that the song I was even more obsessed with was “My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)” by Chilliwack.1Yes, I did have to look up the name of the band today.
I misremembered the song as being by a Gap Band-like one-hit-wonder group, and man, was I way off. I couldn’t hear on vinyl just how white and how Canadian they were. In retrospect, it is kind of a sampler or mash-up of a lot of other songs from roughly around the same time that became my favorites, “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers, and “Leave It” by Yes in particular.
It also reminds me of the early 80s, because I keep thinking of being in middle school band and our band director yelling at us because we kept rushing and getting off beat. (It’s not just me, right? The chorus sounds like it’s in 4.5/4 time or something).
Also I hope it doesn’t come across as making fun (especially since I’m the last person to be making fun of how anyone looks, especially in the early 1980s), but the thing that struck me was how much the lead singer of Chilliwack looks like he was drawn by Jack Kirby.
