BILLY OCEAN – "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going"

After the Lord Mayor’s Show….

This is a movie soundtack #1 isn’t it? Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Lil’ Danny De Vito in…(movie title escapes me)!

He had a modest run of useful Brit-Motown hits in the mid-seventies, masterminded by the underrated songwriter/producer Ben Findon (who probably owes his underrated status to the fact that he scored his biggest subsequent hits with the Dooleys and then the Nolans), twice hitting number two with “Love Really Hurts Without You” and “Red Light Spells Danger.” Thereafter he settled back behind the scenes as songwriter and session singer, in the latter case most notably as Scott Walker’s alter ego on “Track Three,” released six months before his global comeback with the carefully demographised “Billie Jean” derivé which, depending where you lived, hit as “Caribbean Queen,” “European Queen” or “African Queen.”

His greatest qualitative triumph came with the theme song to Jewel Of The Nile, a deliberately anachronistic and somewhat racist sub-Indiana Jones romp. Sourcing its basic template from Change’s six-year-old “Searching,” “The Going Gets Tough” bounces along with the wrong sort of bigness and its loveless Reaganite pledges (“I’m gonna put this dream in motion,” “I’m gonna get myself ‘cross the river” – not presumably in the Sam Cooke manner – “Your love’s like a slow train comin'”) make it catchy but unlovable, like shingles.

Much of the record’s popularity stemmed from the video which featured a white-suited Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito doing the Temptations walk as though they understood it, though Musicians’ Union fury ensured that a sequence of DeVito miming the glutinous sax solo was edited from the British version. It stands as a slightly forlorn monument to an eighties which could not comprehend subtlety, where everything had to be signalled out in cold Fairlight blasts, could only soundtrack the most bombastic of minor films, could imagine that this was a new gold dream whereas it was the polished but rusty old nightmare. And “When The Going Gets Tough” is also a candidate for the least sexy “ooohh”s on any number one.

I always interpreted that title as “when the going gets tough, the tough piss off”, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t what was meant. It always gave it an unintended air of novelty song for me.

As average as it gets, with a point knocked off for silly mid-80s features: 4.

Jacket sleeves rolled up-watch: present and correct in video!

The bass line is absolutely “Searching” by Change.
(EDIT – I see MC has already mentioned this)

The cut-up intro was used by Power Station on Get It On and Some Like It Hot to good effect, but not so much here.

I think it’s kind of the equivalent of the episode-in-30 seconds pre title tease you got on a lot of shows at the time, to hype you up for the song to come, and actually it should work here, because moving from a hip-hop cut-up intro into a rolling groove makes for a good contrast.

5’s about right. It’s not quite as bad as I remember it. The title always puts me off though – I hate titles that try too hard

NB I got going to Israel while this was Number 1 for a 4 month stint on a kibbutz. A very enjoyable experience, that sadly meant I missed the entire careers of Sigue Sigue Sputnik…

#2 Watch: A week of Madonna’s simply glorious ‘Borderline’, followed by a week of Su Pollard’s rather less welcome ‘Starting Together’

I don’t remember hearing that intro before now – although I’ve never given the song that much attention. Having just done so I don’t think it benefits from much scrutiny – the production is ghastly – replicant soul made somehow worse by Billy’s gung ho performance – and there’s more of this sort of thing to come. The tune is OK in the background – so 4 or 5 for me.

Michael Douglas also appears in the video for bob dylan’s ‘Things have changed’ which won the Oscar for best song from the soundtrack to ‘Wonder boys’.

Kathleen Turner was an outstanding actress for a while – particularly in ‘Body Heat’ and ‘Crimes of Passion’ but the Romancing the Stone/Jewel of the Nile movies were lightweight nonsense.

Commonly known as “Go and Get Stuffed” after an all-too-easy mishearing of the phrase repeated ad nauseam throughout the song. Yes, the title is a clichéd platitude, the intro is a messy amalgam of hip-hop noises and something akin to a revival of “Kung Fu Fighting”, and the ambling bass which I always thought was the redeeming feature of the record, I learn now was a rip-off (I don’t remember the Change track too clearly so I’ll take MC’s word for it). Next to the thoroughly enjoyable “Love Really Hurts…” this is a leaden old stomp, although there were worse examples to come.

Number 2 Watch: Billy’s four weeks at number one saw four different number twos – the previous and subsequent No 1s plus Madonna’s “Borderline” and – urghh! – “Starting Together” by Su Pollard, the theme from a docusoap called The Marriage sung by the unaccountably popular actress of Hi-De-Hi fame. I could never stand that woman …

Another very perceptive review.
When I was at school this was the sort of song that would have been thought of as a “boys record” because of its daft machismo.
What intrigues me about it now is that part that goes “oooh-ooh-ooh. Can I touch you. Can I hold you etc “. There we locate a senuousness that hints at Oceans truer instincts.
I wouldn,t mark it so low. I think it’s a good catchy hit with a cool bassline. Also the sax solo is 1 of the few in eighties pop that is there for sheer fun rather than to signify “sophistication”.
The inner conflict between boyish escapism and an almost feminine sweetness add to its appeal.

I met Su Pollard once during my “boho” phase in 1990. I was going to a buskers party with 4 cans of Tennents Super and an 8th of deisel. We bumped into her at Holland Park tube, and invited her along. She politely declined.

My 2 cents as a minor synthpop producer:

I’m sure that sax is an Oberheim synth. I have one and it does a brilliant North-England cornet sound. In fact the bass might be an Oberheim too.

I agree with the consensus here. Nothing more than inoffensive. It does seem like the perfect, ‘peppy’ soundtrack for a hellish, David Brent ‘team effectiveness exercise’ or whatever (whereas Phil Collins and Huey Lewis get to soundtrack American Psycho, murders and executions etc.):
5

Haha when I saw Mutt Lange on the credits I automatically credited him with all the stuff I LIKED about it! Yes he is the Jerry Bruckenheimer of pop but in small doses…

A #1 in the U.S. as well. Once again I find myself going against the grain in these discussions, but the initial 5 is too low. This is a solid 7 just for catchiness alone. By this time Ocean could be counted on for a catchy single to hit the airwaves, and this is one of those times. And he had one more in him before he faded from the charts. His 1988 “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” (another Mutt Lange co-write/production) is better than this one and also went to #1 in the U.S.

That Change/Vandross track ‘Searching’ is new to me, but, yep. that does appear to be WTGGTTTGG’s bass-line. Darn. Colonel Abrams’ ‘Trapped’ was, similarly new to me just in the last week or so. Needless to say *that* was very shocking to me: it made me feel a fool for not knowing at the time where Stock Aitken Waterman got so much of the sound they took to the bank.

I guess this is always the way: experienced critics/writers can always see clearly what’s being strip-mined, roll their eyes at stuff the public falls for, and generally hear things very differently to the person in the street (who, e.g., learns about the Pixies through Nirvana, gets into Elvis through the Smiths, and so on).

#28 JJ we got “Brother Louie” later in the year (got to 4 I think) by which time it had become obvious that our firewall against such crap had just crumbled away.

This tune will of course return to the top many years hence (actually and horrifically, close to the mid-point between the original and now) in a supremely pointless new guise. I’ve a horrible feeling that by then Popular will have turned into a long slog of ‘will this do?’

Oops – ‘will this do?’ was of course referring to the records themselves. Obviously the reviews and subsequent repartee could never be less than quicksilver!

Jewel Of The Nile is a pretty wretched sequel to a film that never needed a sequel. That said Romancing The Stone is interesting for being one of the first family films that was more successful of video than it was in the cinema. It was a minor hit, but not sequel sized, until video rentals packaged it as an Indy -a-like and loads more people saw it. The Jewel Of The Nile though is pap, and has as its key plot device the confusion between an actual Jewel and a holy man who is known as “The Jewel” – which is such a bad plot device that you expect them to escape via the medium of total eclipse. And it is more than a little racist (and confused about where The Nile is to boot).

# 20 – Kat, whatever Su Pollard yelled at you should have been met by a yelled back “GET ON WITH YOUR WORK, PEGGY!!!” in a sing-song Welsh accent. That would have fixed that fucking end of the pier nonentity!

Yep, Alfred, you’re right. Should have double checked my Billboard Singles Book. Sorry and thanks.

About that time I was briefly helping to edit a soon-to-be-never-finished documentary in a seedy Hollywood motel-style building, and Madonna was across the courtyard watching a cut of the Borderline video. She asked me and the editor in to watch it and tell her what we thought. I knew her as a singer with one hit so far (I think or thought), and thought she was cute and dressed cool, and it was a great new song. The video was okay, but most videos were just okay in those days. I don’t remember much else. Not much of a story, I know, and has nothing to do with this entry, really, but I’ve rarely had a chance to tell anyone it, and would I love to go back in time and re-live those ten minutes (and thereby improve the story!)

Romancing the Stone was I guess the kind of movie we all thought we deserved no better than in 1984, and Jewel of the Nile was worse.

Never heard this before. It’s got its moments but it’s a little too evenly-textured and hence feels more aimless and long than it is. I love “Get Outta My Dreams” though so what do I know? I vote for “Go And Get Stuffed” – that’s hilarious!

A bit naff and chunky, and no it hasn’t aged well (although, agreed, “Get Outta My Dreams” is inferior.

Pity that Billy never quite found his niche – “Carribean (or whatever) Queen” towers over everything else he has done, as unforced, flowing, brilliance, which is unselfconsciously enjoyable. So many of the other singles just seem forced, or overproduced, or artificial constructs that haven’t quite gelled, like a poor man’s Alexander O’Neal, which given that Alexander O’neal was a poor man’s Luther Vandross, is not quite right somehow. “Sad Songs” had some life to it, though.

I make this the first no 1 by a resident (present or former) of the London Borough of Barking (Barking & Dagenham since 1980) since (I think) Kajagoogoo’s miserable 1983 offering (though I’m not 100% certain which side of the boundary with Havering Limahl lived on…) – If Five Star had ever had a number one there would be less uncertaintly. I don’t even think this is better than “Too Shy”. And the next B&Der to go number one was with a novelty track of moderate genius in the spring of 88… Of the three tracks this is placed a lowly third.

I enjoy this upbeat track more that Tom does, so a 7/10 for me.