The Number Fortys: Sheena Easton - "Strut"

In The Number Fortys, we review whatever song was sitting at #40 on the Billboard charts. We began in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music, and will continue until we get bored. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either). Also, if you want to read the Number in the title as meaning "more numb," I think that's totally understandable at this point.

If I had been involved in making this song, the first thing I would have done is fire every one of those fucking horn players.

Strut is a song about a woman who doesn't like being sexually objectified by her partner. Sheena Easton, apparently not the deepest thinker about these kinds of things, decided to make a video for the song where she does exactly that. I guess if the words "strut" or "pout" appear in the lyrics, then Sheena, being a true literal-minded showbiz pro, is going to strut and pout when she sings those words, even in a song mocking a man who wants his partner to strut and pout. One shudders to imagine what might have happened if Sheena had ever sung a song about leaping off a bridge, or sticking her hand into a mason jar filled with ants.

For all her pro-ness though, Sheena makes a common singing mistake on the chorus. She starts out singing high when the song will require her to go higher than her voice is comfortable with. So by the time she gets to the watch me baby while I walk out the door her voice has become a barely intelligible screech. Though, to be fair, Sheena had a tendency to go into this range a lot (go check out the ascending key changes at the end of 9 to 5 (Morning Train), or Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)--Sheena also had a thing for parentheses [so do I]. Actually, don't go check those out. They're pretty terrible. As for Strut, it has some good things going on in it (memorable hooks, feminist lyrics), but it has oh so many very bad things going on as well (rooty toot horns and slap bass, memorable hooks that maybe you don't want to remember).

Score: 3.

THE NUMBER ONE

This song is, on an objective level, smooth garbage, but I love it anyway. I'm a romantic sucker at heart, and a song where the singer insists that he's not missing the person who is obviously, desperately, missing, is a concept that totally works for me. A song about trying to convince yourself that you aren't missing the person you're missing is, for the Top 40, a poignant conceit. The conflicting internal monologue makes it a builder, as the narrator gradually realizes--hell, by the final chorus ad-libs (I. Ain't. Missing. You.) Waite and me are both virtually in tears.

Score: 7.