Songs can take many forms. Some are engineered to be an anthemic single. Some are the perfect opener or closer (for an album or a live show). One Perfect Song is an ongoing series in which I highlight a song that always grabs my attention when I hear it.
Previously on One Perfect Song:
Today’s Song: Teardrops by Womack & Womack, from their 1988 album Conscience
So, funny story for a guy writing about a Womack & Womack song: Gun to my head, I couldn’t name literally any other Womack & Womack songs. If I hadn’t had to look up the album name to type it up there, I wouldn’t have known what it was. I already forgot after pasting it in there and had to look back.
I guess that makes me a real Womack & Womack poser, just a fan of their hit single and not a true believer? Well, sure. That’s fine. But there’s just something about this song. I can’t really explain why I like it so much. If I had to speculate, I go back to a theory I developed as a stoned teenager, which is just that some melodies or rhythms or whatever are just more heavily dialed into some people’s brain patterns than others. And Teardrops is just on my brains frequency, I guess?
If it wasn’t enough for this song to be a stone cold pop classic, it also has recurred throughout my life. As a result, when it’s recurred, it’s somehow had both a sense of nostalgia from the previous time and a new currency at the same time.
Which is really interesting because I think this song - from the singers perspective - is about being nostalgic for an earlier time. How about that, huh? This fucking song is really dialed into my brain patterns.
The First Time’s A Charm
I remember in crystal clear vision1 the first time I heard this song, which was (presumably) in the summer of 1988, when I was 7 years old. I was with my mother at her friend Christine’s house. It was daytime. The radio was on in the kitchen and this song came on. I remember liking it, as I did (do) with many of the radio hits of the 1980s. I guess they also liked it as it turned into a dance party in Christine’s kitchen. It was really fun2.
Fun kitchen dance party aside, this song didn’t really have any staying power outside of its time on the charts. It was only a hit in the UK, in Europe, in Australia and in New Zealand. I suspect the lack of being a hit in the US may have prevented it from staying more in the zeitgeist?
Point being, once it’s moment in the sun was over it went into the pre-internet, unarchived black hole of forgotten songs.
Second Chance Saloon
In 2008, 20 years since that fateful kitchen dancefloor, Teardrops got added to one the radio stations in Grand Theft Auto 4, and I found myself driving around a fake version of NYC, having all the nostalgia feels. Not just for this song, but also for all the time I wasted playing GTA3 when I was supposed to be getting a bachelors degree. GTA4 was the first game in the series on the then-modern generation of consoles and was a huge leap forward in every way for the series. (Technologically, of course. Culturally, uh, not so much.)
Again, in crystal clear memory, I remember noticing one of those gameplay improvements, while Teardrops blared out of an oversized SUV that I had (in-game) stolen and parked under the fake Brooklyn bridge: When you exit a car the music keeps going, just at a lower volume, rather than just stopping. Which was a literal game-changer, as now I didn’t need to wait for a good song to end before hopping out of the car to grab something. (Which I also do in real life, btw.)
Third Time Around
Remember when I said that one of the places Teardrops was a hit was Australia. Well, I guess I wasn’t the only child jamming out to it in 1988, because somewhere along the way, it became a feature of the ROYAL HEADACHE live show. That’s right, the same Royal Headache that I proclaimed “Band of the Decade for the 2010s” in a previous issue of Negative Progression.
I don’t really remember when I found out they played this song, but once I did it became another piece of ammo for my assertion that this song was supposed to have this weird and special place in my brain. One of the best bands I’ve ever known played it, it was meant to be.
What’s interesting about their choice to play this song is that a) it somehow fits perfectly into their style, which is pretty far from the style of the original and b) thematically, it’s easy to imagine it being a song that Shogun wrote, it fits right into his general vibe, especially when you take into account this quote he made to Vice in 2015, about his song writing style:
“To be honest they are all sad songs. There’s no other reason to write a song,” explains Shogun. “A song for me is someone trying to deal with a rift between themselves and reality.” For Shogun, stepping out of and challenging comfort zones is punk. “Singing a traditional love ballad to a bunch of Sydney punk kids is one of the most hardcore things you could do.
Here’s the rub though: they never recorded their version of Teardrops, so all we’re left with is live versions - and good quality live footage of Royal Headache is notoriously hard to find.
Here’s the best version I can find, which is them playing Teardrops at the legendary Sydney Opera House (and that show is a whole other story.)
Final Thoughts
At some point a few years ago, I bought the 7” single version of Teardrops. Felt like I had to have it. It cost me the princely sum of $1.25 and is in highly mediocre condition. (At best I’d say its G+, for all you collectors out there)
The last New Years Eve that I spent in England, I remember playing this song a bunch. Not sure why. I didn’t even know for sure that it was gonna be my last one, so it wasn’t that.
So there we have it, I guess this Substack gave up its punk ideals and went pop. Well, it had to happen eventually. Catch ya next time.
My long term memory, and specifically memories of my childhood is, in general, very poor. So a clear memory like this is a HUGE outlier.
Not to psychoanalyze my mother and her friend, but as two divorced single mothers, maybe this song spoke to them?