Can’t Take It With You
First Choice
Breakaway, 1980

First Choice is the group responsible for the disco classic “Let No Man Put Asunder” which you probably know, even if you think you don’t. They also did “Love Thang” which was sampled by Boogie Down Productions on “A Word From Our Sponsor” and “The Blueprint.”

This is one of my favorite songs by them and once you listen to it, you’ll see why, in 1980, three years after Saturday Night Fever, in the height of disco-gone-wrong, it was destined to be an album cut.

This is one of what i feel like is a large number of songs (large as in like, 10) that start out sounding like romantic/love-hanging-in-the-balance songs but somewhere late in the song (too late if you ask me), we find out that our two main characters have children together and the situation is more of a…family issue.

My other favorite example of this is “I Miss You” by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. 7:04 into the song, after saying “[my friend] told me you did ask about me” and “i even went out and got a gig, oh, i forgot you’re not hip to the hip talk - plain j-o-b baby” (and randomly mentioning that he won the lottery, thinking it “might make up” for past), he says “enough about you & me, how’s my little son? does he ever ask about me? does he still like to go down by the supermarket?” I don’t know why he’s surprised that she’s asking his friend where he is - she wants her child support you unemployed gambling dead beat dad!

The funny and great thing about this song is that after 3 minutes of singing about how her man/husband/whatever is caught up in the great paper chase (”what good is wealth if you lose your health?”) the leader singer suddenly breaks into “i love you i want you, the children need you!” and then tops it off with two made-up kid’s names that stick out like a sore thumb: “little bobby and susie - they need you! need you!”

Somehow, they pull it off and the song is still totally convincing…even while alternately saying “life is very short” and “life ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Check it out, you’ll see.

>> songs are available for two weeks [6.9 MB]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 at 4:12 am and is filed under Music Appreciation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.