The Number Fortys: Ray Parker Jr. - "Jamie"

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.

Songs land at #40 for all kinds of reasons, but the one I'm most fascinated by is the type we'll call:

Their last single was a big hit so even though this one's not nearly as good it's still going to scrape the bottom of the chart just because the last one did so well

A lot of songs we've encountered on this journey have fallen into this category. John Waite, Dan Hartman, Night Ranger, Matthew Wilder. These songs are usually the worst because they sound like a cyncial attempt to have a hit. They lack whatever freshness and originality the hit had, and are usually just the blind fumblings of a career artist trying to "crack the marketplace" or some shit.

Ladies and gentleman, I present the follow-up to Ray Parker Jr.s #1 hit Ghostbusters. It's called Jamie.

This one eventually reached #14, presumably because people recognized Ray's voice. Because the song itself is, um, barely a song at all. It could exist. It could not exist. It starts, it ends, and all our lives are emptier for the time we could have spent listening to something else. At times, it feels more like a song about a guy trying to convince someone of two things:

1. Yes, I really did used to go out with (date? fuckity-fuck? cohabitate with?) Jamie.

2. And, despite Jamie's androgynous name, this person was definitely a girl, not a boy.

As usual in break-up songs--or in this case, a broken-up song--the singer seems oblivious to any part they may have played in the de-coupling (we call this the Jonathan Richman effect). So when Ray says, "I trained her just the way I wanted her," most non-sociopaths go, wait a second. When Ray then adds that, because of the amount of time he put into sculpting and molding (controlling) her, it "ain't fair for her to give it to some other guy," we, the non-sociopaths in the audience, go, holy fuck Jamie I hope you don't get murdered.

For a song about heartbreak, and how it's not fair that a person who "has to have it every night, every night" would prefer to get it from, or in the case of the song "give it to" (nice de-personalization there Ray) someone else (HOW DARE YOU MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS JAMIE), Jamie (the song) is pretty breezy and non-dramatic. The lyrics may be about heartbreak and perceived betrayal, but the music is about a little girl skipping rope on a spring day. Go fucking figure.

Score: 1.


THE NUMBER ONE

We continue last week's excerpt from Wham!'s 1983 interview with Paul Morley, as featured in his book Ask. PM is Paul; G is George; A is Andrew Ridgeley. It is a fascinating argument about pop music. The use of "it's only pop music" as a way to justify/excuse the lack of anything interesting in an artist's music is especially prescient. Today, critics play the part of G and A, and isn't that something.

Paul Morley: How can you feel in any way satisfied or inspired being a prime part of he current charity gay abandon, all this flimsy jingly sing-along?
George and Andrew: That's what pop music is all about?
PM: What, a sing-song?
A: That's what makes pop songs popular, because everyone can sing along with them. There's nothing wrong with that.
G: What fucking right have you got to say that we should sing something that is socially important?
PM: I haven't said that, don't insult me!
G: What are you saying then?
PM: I'm just wondering about the extent of your ambition. You must at times get pissed off with music that is popular, not just indifferent, because everyone can sing along with it. You have to draw the line somewhere -- do you have standards?
G: What are you talking about . . . your standards are what you enjoy.
PM: Tell me something about your standards.
A: If you like it, it's all right. What you enjoy it's all right.
PM: Comprehensive stuff. No second thoughts, no doubts, no feelings of restlessness.
G: What are you talking about? There's obviously a great difference between the way you look at music and the way we look at music. We look at music as something to enjoy, not as what the pop song means or what it represents, or whether it's better than pop music made five years ago. All that's not for us.
PM: I'm just an argumentative bitch. I just have this feeling that it's positive for energy to be used in a different way than how it has been in the past; I like movement rather than self-satisfaction.
G: Look . . . we like pop music . . . we make pop music . . why do you expect something from us other than pop music?
PM: I don't expect anything else, certainly not moral action -- I sometimes think -- this is all -- that within the pop song context you might want to appear a little less common. . . .
A: But we're not writing songs for you or for anyone else fro that matter, so we don't give a toss what you say because we like what we do. . . .
G: What the hell you going on about?
PM: I'm finding it hard to be polite. Instead of just having people sing along with your songs, and blink in the glare of your teeth, wouldn't it please you to think that maybe you'd intrigued, provoked and enlivened your audience?
A: Why do we have to intrigue, provoke and . . . whatever else it is you're going on about. . . .
PM: So what do you want to do then? Sorry I'm so curious.
G: Why the fuck should we do anything?
A: Fucking hell, we play music for ourselves.
G: We enjoy it, our audience enjoys it, why the fuck should we provoke them? What the fuck's that about? Ego, that's what this is about. For Christ's sake, most people have an ego, most people who are in pop music are there because they have an ego . . . the whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend that it's not.
PM: The "ego" you're talking about seems pretty threadbare to me -- it's hardly as though you have the nerve to pretend you're God, just the courage to revel in your own small-minded big-headedness -and if there's ego, self-satisfaction and vanity, why not initiative, inspiration and irritation as well? Wouldn't it be more fulfilling to your ego if you were bolder, bitter, better - you talk of ego but you just mean self-congratulation; you don't want your ego fuelled because of any candour and brilliance.
G: What the hell are you talking about?

Let the record show that George Michael died at age 53. According to Michael's partner, not only was the death a suicide, this was his fifth attempt. At the time of his death. he had sold over 100 million records around the world.