I Just Don't Have the Heart (Cliff Richard)

Cliff Richard joined forces with Stock Aitken Waterman in 1989 for his 101st single. It hit the top 3 and is one of the few Cliff Richard songs that could be played in a club at the time.

This is a good example of a song with a happy singalong tune but lyrics that don't match the mood of the music. In the original, Sir Cliff sings about being a complete coward and leaving his lover without so much as a by-your-leave. How unkind. This is a theme that Mike Stock also used in the Jason Donovan / Sam Fox track "Too late to Say Goodbye". So pop stars can be bastards who'll leave you and not even bother to tell you. Who knew?

Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) (Pet Shop Boys)

80s greed, Thatcherite economics, looks over talent... This song has it all. After the disappointing chart position of "Love Comes Quickly", the follow-up to "West End Girls", Pet Shop Boys came back with this amazing single (an early mix of which had actually been released before "West End Girls"). Of course, nowadays the relative failure of their second single would have got them dropped from their record label, so let's be glad that this single was a hit. It was their last single to miss the top 10 until four years later, when "Being Boring" only reached number 20. 

A straight reading of the lyrics. Let's make loadsa money!

You Came (Kim Wilde)

I loved this song from the moment I first heard it in 1988. I also loved the lyrics, about being in love with someone whose presence changes you for the better. Only I was wrong. Many years later I found out that the song (written by Kim and her brother Ricky) was actually about the love of a parent for their child, which made it even lovelier. 

This song became very special to me after my husband and I adopted our son. I used to sing it to him when he first came to us. He's now a bit old to appear here, but it still feel the same way. 

Thank you very much to Nico, who was a complete star during the recording, and to his mum and dad for letting me "borrow" him. He's a scene stealer!

Live your Life Be Free (Belinda Carlisle)

From the very first moment I ever heard this song, I thought to myself that the lyrics about seeing your (ex?) lover with his current girlfriend (or wife), yet offering to be there should he change his mind, would work a lot better if the chorus went "leave your wife, be free". Of course such a statement would not have been deemed conducive to radio airplay, particularly in conservative early 90s USA. 

As it was, this song, the lead single from Belinda Carlisle's fourth solo album, wasn't a hit in the US. Her career as a solo artist was a lot longer and more successful in other territories. 

Interpreted from a man's point of view, there's an implication that the object of the performer's desire is a closet case, and he's being encouraged to come out. I hope the writers don't mind the slight change of lyrics. I think they bring a whole new meaning to the words.

I Should Be So Lucky (Kylie Minogue)

Kylie's debut hit in many territories (The Loco-motion came first and was Australia's biggest hit of the 80s before Stock Aitken Waterman became involved) and still one of her most remembered hits (despite zero airplay even from 80s radio stations). General opinion is that the song encapsulates the prototype S/A/W song: banal lyrics and repetitive chorus. It is, no matter how many times she tries to make it somehow credible. Kylie had a bit of an epiphany when she read part of the lyrics at the 1996 poetry Olympics: after a period of denial of her pop persona and her PWL catalogue, she reclaimed the song and her past. She did not embrace it, though, wanting to give her past and edge it simply doesn't have. During the following years and sometimes to this day she tends to perform it as a torch song ballad, but thankfully she performs it in its original form too.

Her reading at the poetry Olympics was self-deprecating and full of irony. I think the lyrics CAN be the basis of an honest performance of longing and the realisation that one's hopes for love sometimes are only dreams. Here's my attempt.

P.S.: I'm going to give the Minogueologues a rest for a bit. It's been one every other one so far! I'll keep posting Minogue-unrelated PopMonologues, though. As always, comments welcome.

Ziggy (Céline Dion)

Written for the French musical "Starmania", the song "Un garçon pas come les autres (Ziggy)" was revived for the English adaptation of the Musical, retitled "Tycoon", with English lyrics by Tim Rice. Céline Dion recorded both French and English versions of the song, and the French version was a huge hit in France in 1993.

The song is about a woman who is in love with a gay man. With a little lyric tweak (forgive me Sir Tim) here's my version of it about a gay man in love with a straight man. Comments welcome.

Can't Get You Out of My Head (Kylie Minogue)

Another Minogueologue! Kylie's career-reviving biggest international hit. The dreamy vocals, multi-layered production, futuristic video, relentless promotion and THAT dress helped it to become a huge robotic-dance-inducing floorfiller. Written by pop royalty, the legends that are Cathy Dennis and Rob Davis, the lyrics convey an almost-painful sense of longing. Whilst Kylie's delivery is sensual, I've gone for a regret and sadness-filled reading, verging on the obsessive.