Rupert Holmes – Escape (The Pina Colada Song)
I don’t have a personal story about “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”. I just want to talk about how completely bonkers this song is.
Not that writing bonkers songs was new to Rupert Holmes: in 1971, he made the Top 20 (and the Top 10 in Canada, because we are more comfortable with weirdness than our American cousins) with a song about cannibalism. After reaching the Top 40 for the first time in 1969 as part of The Street People with the very catchy “Jennifer Tomkins”, Holmes moved on to a band called The Buoys, for which he wrote the aforementioned song, called “Timothy”. The tale of three men (or two men and a duck, according to one sketchy theory) trapped in a mine, we aren’t told exactly how Timothy became an entree. (Peking duck, anyone?) We hear that Joe “would sell his soul / For just a piece of meat” and that there is only enough water for two. When Joe and the narrator are finally rescued, the narrator notes that his “stomach was full as it could be”, and poor Timothy was never found. The song was banned by some radio stations, of course, and it didn’t matter, because the popular will wanted to hear it on their airwaves.
It would be eight years before the public at large paid much attention to another Holmes song, though he kept busy in the interim, writing and producing for others (including Barbra Streisand) and releasing four barely noticed albums under his own name. Then came September 1979 and the release of “Escape”, which became the final #1 song of the decade.
You know the broad strokes of the story: the narrator is bored in his relationship, goes looking for some side action in the personal ads, and discovers his partner (Wife? Girlfriend? He never really defines the nature of their connection.) has the same plan. In fact, she had the idea first: the personal ad that he answers was placed by her. Hilarity ensues. It could be the plot of a particularly weak episode of “Three’s Company”: You just need to work in a character misunderstanding a conversation on the other side of a closed door.
I trust my memory that when the song first came out, people for the most part thought it was adorable. (Later, when it was everywhere, it became annoying, but that’s true of many hit songs eventually.) How sweet: they don’t realize that they’re perfect for each other.
But hold on. Both of them were ready to cheat on the other. (Holmes has said the narrator is supposed to be the bad guy in this story, since at least the woman is trying to do something. Yeah, “something”.) How do you come back from that? “Oh, hi, honey. Fancy meeting you here at the place of my planned infidelity.” And they both immediately admit what they’re up to. I know that neither has any reason to be upset with the other at this point – they’re both cheaters – but people aren’t always rational. Did either consider the possibility of pretending it was coincidental that they both went to O’Malley’s at the same date and time? Of not owning up to what was going on, thus leaving the other wondering if this boring old ball and chain was screwing up their chance at finding true love with an exciting new partner? “How do you know O’Malley’s?” “Oh, I just saw it mentioned in the newspaper and thought it would be worth checking out.” We’re talking 3D chess level mindfuckery.
Anyway, that’s not what happens. Over a gussied up tropical beat (the whole album that it came from, “Partners in Crime”, is classic late 1970s AOR, with elements of light disco, blue-eyed soul and piano bar), they laugh at how little they know each other, and – I guess – start down a path of rediscovery of what drew them together in the first place. (Let’s assume that both can set aside the sour truth that neither can be trusted.) Or – hear me out – nothing changes. Oh, they try. But he finds piña coladas too sweet and they give him monstrous hangovers, so he goes back to champagne. They both catch pneumonia after being caught in the rain, and neither cares much for the scratchy feel of sand against their genitalia when they make love “in the dunes on the cape”. Eventually, they understand that what was wrong with their relationship wasn’t how they spent their time together, it was who they were spending that time with. And they part over one last drink at O’Malley’s, which they very civilly agree is “his place” going forward since he discovered it.
Though this was the bigger hit, my favourite song from “Partners in Crime” was the second single, “Him”, which also made the Top 10. This is another song about infidelity, and I love how the narrator learns he’s being cheated on: a package of cigarettes that aren’t his lover’s brand. It’s a sweetly melancholy song about being part of a triangle and wanting no part of it, even if the cost is losing the one you love.
Holmes hasn’t charted a song as a recording artist since 1982, but he’s never stopped working. He’s released more albums, wrote hits for other folks, created a television show and wrote its music, and wrote a novel, but mostly he’s worked in musical theatre, even winning a pair of Tony Awards in 1986. “Escape” is a bit inescapable – Holmes figures, likely correctly, that it will be the lead line in his obituary no matter what else he might do in life – and it had a nice nostalgia boost in 2014 from the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie. My guess is that there are still an awful lot of people who love hearing this song. I recognized how ridiculous it was a long time ago, but when that opening drum kicks in, I know I’m in for four minutes worth of comfort food. Just like Timothy was for his friends.
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