So
asks Aimee Mann, front-woman, lead vocalist, and bassist of Boston,
Massachusetts’ ‘Til Tuesday. Joined by her band-mates Michael
Hausman on drums, Robert Holmes on guitar, and Michael Montes on
keyboards, the group attempts to provide some context to a collapsing
romance in their single “(Believed You Were) Lucky”, a
tune that deserved far greater recognition and success than it
received.
Best
remembered for their iconic
MTV fueled smash
“Voices Carry”,
(a
#8 hit
on the US pop charts in
‘85),
‘Til
Tuesday released three
albums before closing up shop in ‘89 to allow Aimee to pursue a
solo career.
The
lead single pulled from
the band’s third
and final album, 1988’s
“Everything’s
Different Now”,
“(Believed
You Were) Lucky” contains
elements of power
pop, folk and college
rock that finds Aimee
coming to terms with
the end of a romantic relationship.
Aimee
reflects that she had
been the “keeper of the flame”, and
acknowledges that her partner didn’t
feel the same way about
her, as she did toward
him. She thinks about talking out
her goals for their
future together…
but ultimately,
she breaks
it off, wishes him a
good life, and the ability to see personal
value in himself. A
poignant line in the chorus (that the title of the song derives from)
has me believing that
the guy suffered from
low-self esteem, and felt that
he was
undeserved of
Aimee’s
affection, leading
toward his apathy
regarding the relationship. I’ll
let you hear it for yourself.
Co-written
with songwriter Jules Shear, “(Believed
You Were) Lucky” has
been stated to be about
the breakup of Jules and Aimee’s two year relationship. If this is
true, then this song belongs in a class of tunes
like Fleetwood Mac’s “Go
Your Own Way”,
Culture Club’s “Do
You Really Want
to Hurt Me”, and
No Doubt’s “Don’t
Speak”, in
which two halves of a musician couple either
write,
sing, or play on on a great song that not
only airs their
personal grievances,
but becomes a lasting
addition to the pop music landscape.
Despite
widespread critical acclaim and winning Best New Artist at the 1985
MTV Video Music awards, the group quickly faded into the pop
scene’s background.
Their second
biggest hit following
“Voices Carry”,
1986’s “What
About Love”, lost
steam on the singles
charts at #26. Only
three other singles from the group charted… “Looking
Over My Shoulder”
(#61/’85),
“Coming Up Close”
(#59/’87),
and today’s spotlighted
song,
which registered
a faint
blip at US #95.
So
why wasn’t this
a
bigger hit? It
certainly deserved to at least reach the top 40 if not the top 10.
I
think we can look at the music video for some clue to this mystery.
While the video isn’t bad, it
just looks… hastily thrown together. It’s
not
up to the often theatrical and
imaginative standard
of music videos set
by
Duran Duran, Peter
Gabriel, Madonna,
Michael Jackson and
others in
the ‘80s,
and
it
especially
pales
by comparison with the clip for ‘Til
Tuesday’s own
“Voices Carry”.
It
appears that Epic
Records
put
minimal money behind the video’s production, which also seems
to validate the idea that next
to no promotion
was
being put behind
the band in
general at
this point. I’ve
heard that Epic didn’t like the acoustic direction the band was
evolving
toward,
as they wanted more
tunes in the
same new wave vein
of “Voices Carry” so
they turned their corporate backs on the group.
I
know
I certainly
never heard it on the radio, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the
tune wasn’t
even really pushed to program directors,
thus explaining it’s truly unfair #95 peak on the Billboard Hot
100.
Also,
observant fans may notice that it looks like Aimee doesn’t
appear to be singing
the words “life
could be so great”
in the final chorus repetition in
the video. That would
be… because she isn’t. In the album version of the song, Aimee
sings “F***ing
great” instead of
“so great”.
The audio of the music
video has
been edited to replace the expletive, but
the visuals have not.
As far as that album
version
goes, Aimee’s
profanity completely
fits with her
exasperation
over the way the relationship turned out, and the
fact that she saved
that salty
language until the
very end
of the song heightens its
impact dramatically.
‘Til
Tuesday has so many great tunes, and I
struggled with picking just one for this review. Now,
if
you’d like to hear more, then
I particularly recommend “No
One is Watching
You Now”,
“On
Sunday”,
“Will
She Just Fall Down”,
and “The
Other End of the Telescope”,
which was co-written with and featured
backing vocals by none other than Elvis Costello. All
of
these
tracks feature
Mann’s
incredible musings
on
the
emotional trials and tribulations of relationships, whether they
be
romantic,
or platonic… and
lovely soft
melodies
that have
a way of drifting beautifully,
almost like a musical stream of consciousness. But maybe I’m
partial. I
am a huge ‘Til Tuesday fan, after all.
Give
it a listen below, and share
your thoughts! Do you think “(Believed You Were) Lucky” should
have been a big hit? What are some of your overlooked favorite songs
of years past? Go ahead and post a comment, you know you want to!
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