Welcome in, everyone. We are jumping straight
into something incredibly compelling today. Yeah,
we really are. It's a fascinating one. For this
deep dive, our mission is to examine a piece
of 1980s pop culture that most people, you know,
they just take it completely at face value. Right.
They just hear a catchy tune. Exactly. But it
actually houses this massive, profound contradiction
about its own meaning. A really massive one.
So today we are looking at the 1984 Bananarama
single. Robert De Niro's Waiting. Classic track.
It is. But the goal today isn't just to revisit
some nostalgic synth pop song. We're exploring
a disagreement so deep that even the people who
sat in the exact same room and wrote the song
together. Literally the same room. Yeah, they
cannot agree on what it is actually about. It's
a perfect case study really in how we consume
art and how creators process their own legacy.
Absolutely. You have this vibrant, highly stylized
artifact of 80s pop and underneath it is this
tangled web of memory, conflicting realities
and just a collaborative mystery. So we're going
to break down the environment this track was
born into, right? The visual culture that surrounded
its release and ultimately that deeply jarring
contradiction regarding its lyrics that emerged
decades later. Decades. It took so long for this
to come out. OK, let's unpack this. Because to
understand the scale of the disconnect we're
going to talk about, you first have to understand
the sheer footprint of the song itself. Right.
You need the context of how big this was. Exactly.
So it was released on February 20th, 1984. It
served as the second single from Bananarama's
self -titled second studio album. And the writing
credits are really important here. Right. The
credits go to the three core members. So that's
Sarah Dallen, Siopan Fehe, and Karen Woodward.
Along with their producers, Steve Jolly and Tony
Swain. And sonically, I mean, this is just quintessential
new wave and synth pop. Oh, absolutely. It's
the kind of production that completely defines
the era. Yeah. Which is why Billboard would later
rank it at number 74 on their list of the 100
greatest girl group songs of all time. And they
described it perfectly, I think. They called
it Breezy of the Moment synth pop. Breezy is
the exact right word for how it sounds. And it
wasn't some fringe release either. It was a major
cultural moment. Especially in Europe. Right.
It peaked at number three on the UK singles chart.
It hit the top 10 in Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland,
West Germany. and even South Africa. Which is
what makes its performance in the U .S. such
an interesting little footnote. Oh, totally.
It barely made a blip over here. Right. It only
peaked at number 95 on the U .S. Billboard Hot
100. Just briefly. It really highlights that
divide we often see in the 80s, right? Between
European synth pop dominance and Well, what American
radio was actually willing to champion at the
time. Yeah, there was definitely a transatlantic
disconnect. But where this release really cemented
its legacy and where the band's marketing genius
really shines is in the physical media strategy.
The physical releases for this song are legendary
for collectors. Oh, I love the physical media
from this era. London Records essentially turned
this single into a modular collector set. They
did. They capitalized brilliantly on the tactile
nature of 80s music consumption. Like, certain
copies of the UK 7 -inch single included cutout
postcards of either Faye, Woodward, or Dallin.
You had to buy multiple copies if you wanted
all of them. Exactly. And then you had three
separate picture disc releases, each one spotlighting
a different member. But the 12 -inch extended
versions, that's where you see the real blueprint
for modern pop group marketing. Yes. The label
pressed the UK 12 -inch on three distinct vinyl
colors, and they assigned a specific color to
each member's persona. Right, so Karen Woodward
was pressed on pink vinyl. Sion Fehe was on green.
And Sarah Dallin was on blue. and they each featured
a large picture label. It is such a striking
visual strategy. I mean, long before the Spice
Girls were handing out highly specific individual
personas to their fans, Bananarama was effectively
doing the exact same thing through colored wax.
Yeah, you weren't just buying the single. No,
you were signaling which member of the group
you aligned with. It was gamified fandom. And
beyond the marketing, the physical records themselves
contained these great little eccentricities.
Oh, like the B -sides. Exactly. The B -side across
the formats was a track called Push. But on the
12 -inch, instead of an expected extended remix
of Push, the track is preceded by a completely
unlisted alternate version of a brief interlude
called Link. Right. And Link is the track that
closes outside one of the main Bananarama album.
Tucking an alternate version onto the 12 inch
single unannounced, I mean that is exactly the
kind of Easter egg that rewarded hardcore listeners.
And that loyalty clearly paid off. Yeah. Bannerama
actually re -recorded Robert De Niro's Waiting
Twice in the early 2000s. They did. First for
the G .A .Y. compilation in 2000. And again for
their Exotica album in 2001. So they clearly
viewed this track as a cornerstone of their catalog.
Without a doubt. And that enduring legacy makes
the visual representation of the song all the
more interesting to analyze. The music video.
Yes, the music video. It was directed by Duncan
Gibbons. And it is a perfect snapshot of mid
-80s literalism. It really is. Gibbons basically
took the time looked at Robert De Niro's filmography,
and just built a miniature cinematic narrative
around classic mobster tropes. It's so literal.
So picture this for you listening if you haven't
seen it. Yeah. You have the band walking down
these dark, dimly lit city streets. Very moody
lighting. Very moody. And they're being shadowed
by men in trench coats and fedoras. Real mafia
movie stuff. Right. And the tension ramps up
during the bridge. They show Sarah Dallin running
down the street, looking over her shoulder in
panic. It feels like a thriller. It does. But
it's a complete head fake. A total misdirection.
Because the climax of the video occurs when the
women are back in their apartment, the doorbell
rings, Woodward nervously creeps up and opens
it, and a menacing stalker is standing right
there. And he's holding a classic mafia -style
violin case. Right, the ultimate trope. What's
fascinating here is how the director completely
punctures the suspense. So funny. The violin
case falls open, and instead of a Tommy gun,
it reveals three pizzas and a delivery sign.
A pizza delivery sign just taped to the inside.
Exactly. The tension evaporates into this lighthearted
comedic resolution where everyone just sits around
eating pizza. They're all laughing. Yeah. It's
an incredibly breezy, sunny interpretation that
matches the upbeat synth pop production perfectly.
But does that... literal comedic mobster narrative
actually makes sense if we consider the darker
lyrical themes the band claimed later. That is
the big question. Or was the director just completely
out of the loop? Because here's where it gets
really interesting. This is the core of the mystery.
Right. If you look beneath that upbeat production,
beneath the pink vinyl and the pizza delivery
video, the actual creators of the song harbor
two intensely conflicting realities about what
those lyrics mean. This is exactly where the
artifact transforms from standard pop trivia
into a deep psychological mystery. Yes. How did
the people who wrote the words perceive the art
they created? Let's examine the first perspective.
So jump forward to 2017. Thirty three years after
the song came out. Right. Bananarama gave a reunion
interview to The Guardian. And while they were
discussing their legacy, Siobhan Feihei stated,
and I quote, The thing I'm proudest of is that
we made quirky pop. The lyrics were much darker
than you'd imagine. Okay, darker than you'd imagine.
And then she explicitly claimed that Robert De
Niro's waiting is actually about date rape. Which
is a staggering claim for a song that most people
think is just a fun 80s bop. It really is. And
Karen Woodward immediately backed her up in the
same interview. She literally told the fans,
you'll listen to it with New Year's now. It's
a complete recontextualization of everything
we just talked about. Completely. Suddenly, that
image of Dallin running through the dark streets
in the music video, even with the comedic pizza
ending, feels incredibly unsettling. It changes
the entire tone. And remember that Billboard
ranking we mentioned earlier, where they called
the song subversive? Yes. Well, if we accept
Faye Hay and Woodward's 2017 claim, calling it
subversive is a massive understatement. It means
they smuggled a deeply traumatic commentary on
sexual assault. right onto daytime radio. And
onto top of the pops. Yeah, wrapped in this bouncy,
infectious synth melody. But wait, because we
have to look at the complete picture. The narrative
doesn't stop with that Guardian interview. No,
it doesn't. And this is where the contradiction
comes in. Two years later, in 2019, Sarah Dallen
gave her own interview to The Telegraph. And
she had a very different take. She unequivocally
rejected that dark interpretation. When asked
about it, she insisted the song was her words,
just about hero worship. Hero worship, that's
a huge pivot. Her exact quote was, it wasn't
about rape. I don't know where that came from.
It's absolute rubbish. Calling your own co -writer's
interpretation absolute rubbish is a profound
denial. It completely shatters the idea of a
unified creative vision. It really does. And
Dallen had even mentioned in earlier interviews
that her initial goal for the track was simply
to capture the vibe of Grace Jones' pull up to
the bumper. Which is interesting in itself. Right.
She admitted it didn't quite work out that way
sonically. But her reality remains that they
were writing an innocent song about having a
crush on a movie star. If we connect this to
the bigger picture, it forces us to analyze the
mechanics of a collaborative writing room. Think
about it. You have three band members and two
producers in a room in 1983 or 1984. How does
a single writing session accommodate such wildly
different realities? Did one person write the
hook with an innocent celebrity crush in mind
while another wrote a verse channeling something
much darker and they simply never communicated
the intent? That's the part that is so difficult
to wrap your head around. It's not a subtle disagreement
over the tone of a chord progression. Not at
all. One half of the writing team believes they
authored a heavy, serious commentary on sexual
assault. And the other half believes they authored
a light -hearted ode to a celebrity actor. To
the point of outright dismissing the darker claim
in the press. It's fascinating. It brings up
the concept of the death of the author, that
literary idea that once a piece of art is created,
the creator's intentions are secondary to the
audience's interpretation. Right, the audience
decides what it means. But here, the authors
themselves are experiencing a localized version
of that phenomenon. Memory, personal trauma,
and just the sheer passage of time have completely
warped the shared history of this one song. And
we have to consider how Public relations and
shifting cultural landscapes play a role too.
Like in 2017, revealing a subversive feminist
underpinning to an 80s pop hit adds critical
weight to their legacy. It fits perfectly into
the cultural conversations happening in 2017.
Exactly. But then in 2019, perhaps the desire
was to protect the innocent nostalgia of the
era. To just let a pop song be a pop song. Right.
And you brought up Dallin wanting the vibe of
Grace Jones's Pull Up to the Bumper. Yeah, that
detail always sticks with me. Adds a whole other
layer of weirdness to this. I so. Because Pull
Up to the Bumper is legendary for its intense
double entendres and its gritty club -focused
edge. Very true. If Dallen wanted that specific
energy, but claims the lyrical result of her
own song was purely innocent hero worship, there
is a massive disconnect between intention and
execution, even within her own personal memory
of the event. That is a great point. It suggests
a creative environment where ideas were just
thrown into the mix without a singular guiding
manifesto. The result is essentially a Rorschach
test of a pop song. Both realities exist simultaneously
because human memory is fallible, especially
when parsing out who contributed what to a pop
song over 30 years ago. Yeah, we can't definitively
point to one version of history as the objective
truth because the primary sources themselves
are at war over it. Exactly. So what does this
all mean? We started out looking at a highly
successful 1984 synth pop single. A huge hit.
We examined the ingenious physical marketing.
the pink, green, and blue vinyl that gamified
fan identity. We analyzed a music video that
played on literal mafia tropes for comedic effect.
But beneath all that 80s gloss, we found a heavily
contested legacy. It is a song that functions
simultaneously as a harmless celebrity crush
anthem and a dark narrative about assault. Depending
entirely on which of its creators happens to
be holding the microphone on any given day. It
really strips away the illusion that the pop
machine operates with perfect clarity. The surface
level gloss often hides a deeply fractured creative
process. It really does. So the next time you
are tapping your foot to a breezy nostalgic track
from that era, keep Bananarama in mind. Look
a little closer. Exactly. Remember that the pristine
synthesizer melodies and the perfectly curated
marketing campaigns might be masking a profound
disagreement about what the music actually stands
for. It is a perfect reminder to look closer
at the things we think we understand. Beautifully
said. And it leaves us with an important question,
something for you to consider long after we wrap
up today. I love this part. We are conditioned
to believe that the artist has the final definitive
word on their work. But if the original creators
are alive and they publicly and vehemently contradict
each other about the fundamental meaning of their
art who actually owns the truth of that song
once it exists in the world, is it the writers
who can't agree? Or does the truth ultimately
belong to you, the audience, deciding what it
means when you hear it?