Rate Your Music score: 3.12 out of 5!
Chirp chirp chirp. Boom! Clap! Clappity-clap!
Anyone alive in 1983 knew that this now-lost hit was about a particular school in Los Angeles. Every radio DJ at the time noted this. One website calls the tune "one of Loggins' oddest songs." Somebody also noted that the song was originally titled simply "Heartlight", but it became "Welcome To Heartlight" to avoid confusion with "Heartlight" by Neil Diamond, which is now also a lost hit. This commenter said of Kenny's record, "Too bad he had to change the name of this good song because of Diamond's movie-plugging song, which was probably the worst song he ever made."
Not much can be found about the school that Kenny sang about. Evidently, the school no longer exists.
I always thought this track was sung using an unusual intonation, as if Kenny was trying to mimic an accent. The way he sang it also reminds me of yet another lost hit, "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett.
This song also has an absurd American Top 40-related memory. Casey Kasem once read a "Long Distance Dedication" in which the letter writer thought the song was titled "Welcome To Hard Life." If I remember correctly, the letter was from a spoiled teenager who was sent to live on a relative's farm for the summer. When they lived on the farm, they had to do actual work. They thought having to work was a "hard life."
That was riding into the danger zone!
No comments:
Post a Comment