Song #674: "Wild, Wild West" by The Escape Club

Date: Nov 12, 1988
Weeks: 1

"Heading for the 90s living in the wild wild west." It seems very odd to write a song with those lyrics less than a year and a half before the 90s came along. And the lyric is so central to the song, and repeated often enough, that it's hard to just overlook. The song revolves around it.

This song is a bunch of chaotic 80s rock fun. Guitars, that thumping 80s rock drum, saxophones, I think there's some synth-keyboards in there, and an unapologetic woodblock driving the whole thing along. There's nothing remotely western about the music, except for the gunshot sound that goes off periodically. The singer clearly has a British accent, but he's singing about the Wild West, and somebody does Spanish-with-a-Jamaican-accent rap for the bridge. It's silly chaos, but it's fun silly chaos.

I have no idea what this song is supposed to be about. The lyrics are utter nonsense. Songfacts has some attempted interpretations, but mostly it's just a list of coded references to things that was on the band's mind in the late 80s. "Waiting for the big boom" references nuclear war with the Soviet Union, "safe sex" was a new idea in the 80s, and I guess "her wild, wild hair" is supposed to reference the women of punk rock, but the reiteration of "wild, wild" makes me think of jungle hair.

Despite the chaos in both music and lyrics, the music is really pretty solid. The bass line carries this song. The vocals are charming, even including the rap-reggae-whatever bridge....

Bleh.

I'm working really hard to justify my affection for this song when really I can't come up with anything more than that I liked it back in the day. It's goofy and cheesy and if I encountered a goofy and cheesy song from the 70s I'd mock it and tear it apart. But because I thought this song was fun in the 80s, it still feels fun to me today. And yet, isn't that the ultimate goal of pop music? Isn't it a successful song if it's fun, even if you can't quite explain why? Even if you have every reason to say it's silly and pointless and doesn't mean anything?

My verdict: Like it. Sorry, other decades. Songs from the 80s tickle my nostalgia bone in just the right way.