Sing Me A Story or “Hey, I heard that music in a commercial!”

Let’s be honest. The only reason I’m putting this song in this article series is that it’s already here for analyzing song lyrics. Calling any part of this a story is rather generous. However, it is one of those songs you hear in commercials and either don’t remember what it was or was vaguely popular sometime before you were born.

The Tom Tom Club was a side project by Talking Heads members Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth, a husband and wife team who did stuff a bit more experimental than even the band behind “Once In A Lifetime”. Their 1981 debut self-titled debut album would feature this song. It got some play in the 1980s but it’s not something you hear a lot nowadays even though Talking Heads proves people still enjoy new wave music.

You may have heard parts of it, at least in the US. I’ve noticed a few advertisements have broken out the music or even the line “I’m…in…heaaaaven”. Well, she was talking about being with her boyfriend and getting out of jail…for the first few seconds anyway before it drives straight through funkytown and back to the boyfriend. There’s a reason I said there isn’t much in the way of story with this. I don’t even have enough to say to pad out this intro, so let’s get to it.

What passes for story: she’s in jail for untold reasons (I’m betting the cocaine mentioned was involved), and her cellmates want to know her definition of fun. They will not get an answer. Instead she talks about her boyfriend, goes on an odd tangent about funkmaster George Clinton, r&b sensation Smokey Robinson, the male voice that’s there for some reason says “James Brown” a lot while she just yells “Bohannon” a lot, which is a reference to Hammond Bohannon (I don’t know who he is, either, but I’m not funky enough to know who Bootsy Collins is–hey, I know who Clinton and Bob Marley are so take the victories you can from the New England white boy), and then goes back to talking about how great her boyfriend is. Why is he the “genius of love”? Your guess is probably better than mine because I have no clue.

So why does this song not only get a lot of ad background music time but getting sampled from diverse areas like Grandmaster Flash and Mariah Carrey? Because it’s a fun little beat. I don’t even remember any of the lyrics outside of “I’m in heaven with my boyfriend” being sampled. 80s music is just really relaxing and catchy, so it grabs your attention a bit more. At least this has more utility than a song about a troubled gay couple or using a song that hates teachers to promote an event celebrating teachers. Yes, that last one did happen and I thought I did an article on that but it’s not coming up in search. While putting this together, YouTube happened to recommend this video about all the sampling done with this song.

Catch more from Second Person View on YouTube

It’s interesting to see a new wave group do a song that is half dedicated to various “black” music genres, as in usually the domain of black singers before pop culture went to war and forced divisions. Then it tries to do it’s own funk with that “oops your momma” part and…wow that was a mess. Still, at least it fits better than slipping into German or whatever they’re singing at one point. Weymouth was the bassist for both groups, but when it came time to record “Genius Of Love” she hurt her hand and couldn’t play. With limited studio time she got the assistant engineer to do the bass while she sang. Franz was the drummer for both groups and his hand was fine so he was able to play this song.

Personally I think they should have focused on one topic. Either make the song about reuniting with her boyfriend or a tribute to 70s black music while using a new style from 80s black music. It’s still a fun song to groove to, though. So if you ever wondered heard that riff in numerous songs and advertisements and wanted to know where it came from, now you know. Are you sorry or did you find a new favorite song?