Porn Chic & Radio Demons

Alan O'Day's two number one songs

In 1977 the United States was definitely in the grip of a sexpot decade. The sixties brought us Joy of Sex and Kama Sutra and the wonders of hippie sex with unshaven armpits and legs, but the seventies were the decade in which pornography made its way into the mainstream of entertainment and even made some pretensions towards art. Advertising used subliminal messaging like the clam plate orgy and the ice cube sex silhouette thing. Nancy Friday published My Secret Garden, a book which demonstrated that women fantasized as much as men, and about a diverse variety of situations.

It was a hell of a time to be a fifteen year old.

The pop music charts for that year were no help at all, with songs touting love, sex, illicit affairs, and scandalous activities. The Billboard Hot 100 for 1977 reads like a porn script, with Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night," a dirty little ditty of seduction complete with Britt Ekland moaning Frenchisms in the background, the number one song of the year. Number seven is Thelma Huston's pant-fest "Don't Leave Me This Way" which was featured on the Looking For Mr. Goodbar soundtrack. Number ten has "Torn Between Two Lovers," Mary McGregor's confessional hit penned by Peter Yarrow. There was Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," a song that was his response to a request from his record company to record a disco track, seemingly tossed off, yet which continues to be influential to this day. Peter McCann had "Do You Want to Make Love," and further down the list come "After the Lovin'," "Nobody Does It Better," and "Muskrat Love."

Out of nowhere that year, clocking in at number nine of 1977s Hot 100, came a single recorded by a songwriter named Alan O'Day. Alan was not new to songwriting, in fact he'd already written a number one song for another artist (more on that later), but this was his first recording as an artist. Warner Bros. Music had set up the Pacific label specifically to release records by their songwriting talent, and O'Day was the label's first release.

The song was "Undercover Angel," and it took O'Day to the number one spot on the charts as well. But it also helped at least one fifteen year old boy get through an especially rough year.

"Crying on my pillow/lonely in my bed" the song starts with a nod to the teen songs of woe that goes back at least to Little Anthony & the Imperials' "Tears on My Pillow." The lyrics are tightly constructed, more R&B style than rock. But then he hears the voice of his angel and this is what she says: "Wonder is your nite light/Magic is your dream." These are the words of porn dialogue. It's the kind of thing that vapid people say to each other right before they rip each other's clothes off. And it is uniquely seventies. It could be the slogan for literally anything, from a vacation spa to the NBA to a new vodka brand.

And if you had any doubts, what follows next is a middle eight that is basically a somewhat sterile funk backing that, because it is 1977, was undoubtedly a stab at disco. And since it was the year of Saturday Night Fever, disco was about to be undeniably dead. By this time disco was no longer primarily dance music associated with the black and gay communities. It was the purview of the suburban mall culture in which I grew up. I mean, moms and dads were shaking it up on the dance floor at the nearest bar or disco. Something had to give.

When the Disco Demolition crap came down the pike, I was no fan of music that seemed to be commercial music created for the sheer purpose of selling records by artists who appeared to be non existent, but I didn't hate it because it was music created by black and queer people. I'd say that if anything, many suburban kids were ignorant of the roots of the music, but of course there are always those elements who strive to hold their grip on the lowest common denominator. I certainly would never have attended an event like Disco Demolition, because it was obviously a self-promotional prank on the part of the DJ who organized it, and because it took place at a baseball game, a sport that I had taken no interest in since perhaps the age of twelve.

Anyway, over this discofied background we get this even more porn-like conversation leading into our chorus:

I said, "What?"

She said, "Ooh-ooh-ooh, whee"

I said, "All right"

She said, "Love me, love me, love me"

What was that bit in creative writing class about not having to identify each line by its speaker in a two-way conversation? "It's not a play. Take a look at Hemingway."

Now comes our payoff, the chorus, and it's all smooth and leaves no doubt about the consummation of the narrator's relationship with Angel, but the most important line is the final one, "You made me know that there's a love for me out there...somewhere." And despite all the overheated sex fantasy talk, the lighting, the costumes, the jizz, this is where the song reveals itself to be a paean to finding love and acceptance, which it turns out is a pretty universal need. That's a lot for little pop song to carry, especially one with pornographic intentions.

So there we are, and Angel tells the narrator to go and find his soulmate and that "When you look into my eyes, you'll see me again". Meaning that you'll feel the same way that you feel now, only it will be better because it is real. It's not as though the girl is some kind of stand-in and only through her body can Angel return. That sounds a lot like possession, leading us to consider that other number one song that O'Day wrote.

"Angie Baby" was written and recorded by Australian artist Helen Reddy in 1974. It's a gothic story song, sharing a vibe with songs like "Ode to Billy Joe", "Fancy," "The NIght the Lights Went Out in Georgia," and Reddy's earlier hit "Delta Dawn."

It begins with a tale of teen isolation that sounds all too familiar in today's social media driven world:

You live your life in the songs

You hear on rock and roll radio

And when a young girl

Doesn't have any friends

That's a really nice place  to go

Folks hoping you'd turn out cool

But they had to take you out of school

You're a little touched you know Angie baby

So we find out that Angie is a 'special lady' who summons lovers to her room at night that seemingly aren't real--they disappear when her Daddy knocks on her bedroom door.  There's that theme about living life through songs on the radio, the importance of music in our lives, its ability to create an entire space for us to inhabit now matter where we are mentally or physically. And it's a witchy woman kind of song, a popular theme in the mid-seventies.

When O'Day recorded his version of the song on his Appetizers album in 1977 (the album he got to release on the strength of the also-included "Undercover Angel") he played it on the bluesy spooky side, and his rendition does offer a take on the song that is fairly straightforward. The Helen Reddy version offers swirling strings that recall the string arrangement on "Ode to Billy Joe," mimicking the sound of leaves circling down into the river. That arrangement and Reddy's vocal may have helped confuse people about the plot of the song creating the kind of stir that Bobbie Gentry's song had.

Angie attracts the attention of a neighbourhood pervert who has been watching her through the windows at night, and he arrives at her home with evil intentions. But 'when he walks in the room/he feels confused/like its soul has lost its way'. He is drawn into Angie's world and the music on the radio surrounds him. As she turns down the volume he finds himself pulled into the vortex of sound, into her realm, 'never to be found.' The final verse talks about how the local boy disappeared and is presumed dead by the townsfolk, but reference is made about Angie's 'secret lover who keeps her satisfied.' According to O'Day's own words:

"As the writer, I knew exactly what happened to this horny little pervert! Angie, it turns out, had more power than he or the listener expected; she literally shrank him down into her radio, where he remained as her slave whenever she desired him to come out.

But interestingly, those details did not seem to translate clearly to some listeners. And the lack of clarity led to wild & creative speculation on the part of the public. The song was compared to Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe” (something was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge, but we don’t know what)."

Angie gets the last word: "It's so nice to be insane/no one asks you to explain/radio by your side, Angie baby." That line always makes me think of the final scene of Psycho, where Tony Perkins sits in the police station wrapped in a blanket and we hear his insane inner dialogue. Come to think of it, this song also shares some of the unpleasant feelings of the 1976 film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane starring Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen. That film was based on the 1974 novel.

O'Day once said "It's wonderful when you find out what feels right, and then it also feels right to other people. That's a songwriter's dream." With "Undercover Angel" and "Angie Baby" it's clear that he was living the dream. Alan O'Day passed away in May of 2013.

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