The other day must have been Diana Ross‘ birthday, or something, as our local AAA station played a block of her music, from The Supremes through the excellent “Upside Down” single she did with the Chic crew. The penultimate track in the block was a song that, when it started out, I’d forgotten about, “Love Hangover.” While driving around and digging this unexpected block, I turned up the volume once more and as this forgotten hit from my early teen years started up. Then it happened: the song suddenly shifted to a Why Bother? disco jam that never let up for the rest of the song. It kicks in about 90 seconds into this live version.
“Why bother,” those who like to dance may say, “because we like to dance, Cement Hips!” I don’t know, even if I could dance, what’s there to get out the tacked-on disco exercise that that song turns into. I might as well be strapped into a massage chair. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
It made me think of the classic Mel’s Rockpile episode on SCTV, where Richard Harris performed his new stylings on “MacArthur Park.” That bit said it all about the moment when disco went from a fun, innovative, cultural celebration to an impersonal Happy Ending.
Oh man, I love Love Hangover and I love when it kicks into disco overdrive. (Not the live version, though. But the business around 6 minutes when she busts the guy who can’t sing for crap is pretty damn funny.) Perhaps this is right time and place also to confess who much Touch Me in the Morning just kills me every time I hear it. I mean in a good way. Yes, dammit, I love Love Hangover AND Touch Me in the Morning. Bring it on!
The 12″ extended mix was quite the fad, wasn’t it? One can sort of see the point for dance music although, as Mr Mod and Long Hangover demonstrate, nothing exceeds like excess.
But what was the point for everyone to jump on the bandwagon? Did we need Springsteen extended remixes? Do we need a thread to settle, once and for all, the most pointless extended remix? Or maybe the most pointless disco versions of non-disco songs? Cue the Beach Boys and Sinatra. Or the Venn diagram intersection of the two?
I forgot how much I liked “Touch Me in the Morning” – or the parts I can recall, as the song has been stuck in my head the last 48 hours. When I revisit it, will there be a forgotten 8-minute disco break?