Stranger things have happened. I mean, look at Mark Wahlberg. Maybe Phil had a little Boogie Nights in him yet? Alas, it looks like Buster was a one-time deal and that Phil would just have to keep his genitals in his pants.
Now, if I told you that, once upon a time, Phil Collins had starred in a movie, and then I added that he never starred in another movie again, you would naturally assume that he gave a terrible performance in said movie, right? Full disclosure: I have never seen, nor do I plan to see, Buster. But those who have seen it say ... he did a fairly decent job. Well take a look at him now. Roger Ebert wrote that Collins played the role "with surprising effectiveness." Amusingly, the critical consensus is that, while the film has its flaws, Phil Collins's acting ... isn't actually one of them. Land of confusion indeed. Being American, I am not familiar with the 1963 Great Train Robbery upon which the film is based, but reading about it on Wikipedia makes me nostalgic for the days when trains actually carried cargo worthy of being robbed. Supposedly, the comedic tone of the film doesn't quite mesh with the amoral actions it depicts. Raise your hand if you predicted that a Phil Collins movie would be criticized for being too "dark." Apparently Prince Charles and Princess Diana were planning to attend the premiere, but Phil discouraged them from doing so as he wanted to keep them immune from the "controversy" surrounding the film's alleged "glorification" of violence. Dear God. Imagine the fallout from members of the royal family attending a Phil Collins train heist movie. The scandal! The outrage! The whole thing could have ended in divorce!
So with the early '60s serving as sonic inspiration, Phil cooked up one hell of a snappy soundtrack single. You might be listening to "Two Hearts" and thinking to yourself, "How the hell did Phil Collins completely nail that Motown sound?" Well, I'll tell you how he did it. He did it by co-writing the song with Lamont Dozier.
You know, Lamont Dozier? As in "Holland-Dozier-Holland"?
The songwriting team consisting of brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier was essentially responsible for writing every other Motown hit between 1963 and 1967 (another 25% were probably written by Smokey Robinson, and the remaining 25% were written by about twenty different people). They were a three-pronged hook machine, imbuing their vibraphone-laden choruses with ... I want to say a "jazzy" quality? We're talking "Heat Wave," "Baby Love," "I Can't Help Myself," "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)," "(Reach Out) I'll Be There" ... frankly, I have better things to do than name all the hits they wrote (like write a blog post about a Phil Collins soundtrack single, for instance). In fact, Phil had already covered one of those hits ("You Can't Hurry Love") and scored his own giant hit with it. How, precisely, he came into contact with Dozier is information that Wikipedia does not provide, but if it was a collaboration that did not generate the headline-grabbing pizzazz of "Phil Collins/Phillip Bailey," it was equally fruitful. Aside from the substitution of what sounds like a keyboard with a "vibraphone" setting for an actual vibraphone, "Two Hearts" generally keeps the '80s at bay. The strings swoop and soar in a decidedly non-'80s-like manner, the backing vocals add just the right amount of tension during the pre-chorus, and honestly, the bridge has to be the bridge to end all bridges! That "Collins/Dozier" songwriting credit on the back of the 45 is one of those tiny and yet heavily revealing details that makes an '80s pop scholar such as myself tilt his head back and say, "Ahhhhh ... so that explains it." Not that Phil hadn't already demonstrated a gift for concise, soulful, elegant pop on his own, but come on: having the D in "HDH" along for the ride didn't hurt.
Having never paid close attention to the lyrics of "Two Hearts" (because ... I have a life?), I initially assumed that they portrayed the more melancholy side of romance, given the minor key nature of the music. Then one day I realized that the sentiment of the song is relentlessly upbeat, the singer essentially stating that he and his lover are practically joined via their aortas for all of eternity. (Confession: until about, oh, an hour ago, I always thought the chorus was "Two hearts/Living in just one mind," which doesn't make any sense, because organs live in the body, not the mind, right? But I think the actual lyric is "Two hearts/Believing in just one mind," which doesn't make any sense either, but at least it feels slightly more poetic. Since when is a mind something you "believe" in? Whatever, I give up.) Given the aching sweep of the melody, I feel like the Hallmark-level nature of the lyrics are a kind of a letdown. My ears tell me that this should be a sad song, not a happy one. The words don't quite do justice to the tune. Basically, I think Phil phoned it in. Maybe he thought, 'Well, this is supposed to be a classic '60s-style radio hit, not another scathing divorce lament. I better make it lovey-dovey." Yes, I know, I'm complaining about the superficiality of the lyrics in a Phil Collins song. But with a series of hooks this ingratiating, it could have been something even more special! As it is, I would call it a perfect "sounding" single that I like to pretend doesn't have lyrics. It's two mismatched moods living in just one Phil Collins song.
Less heralded is Buster's other Collins/Dozier collaboration, "Loco In Acapulco," performed by the (then still active!) Four Tops. Phil also recorded a curiously minimalist cover of Wayne Fontana's "Groovy Kind of Love" for the film, although the original came out in 1966 so he really seemed to be fudging the historical timeline there. Jeez Phil! And somehow even that went to #1 in the US.
Once again, Phil treated the music video for a Motown homage as another excuse to live out his early rock & roll TV variety show fantasies. Here he stars as not only the blasé projectionist, but as the singer, bassist, keyboardist, and drummer of new British beat group the Four Pound Notes ("Yeah, well, there used to be, uh ... five of us Tony"). I feel it is my sacred blogger duty to mention that Phil had already done this "playing every member of the band" bit twice before (in the videos for "I Missed Again" and "You Can't Hurry Love"), but it is also my sacred blogger duty to mention that ... even the third time around, it's still amusing! As keyboardist, Phil seems to be going for the Stephen Stills look, while as bassist, he seems to be going more for the, let's say, Peter Asher (of Peter and Gordon) look. Meanwhile, the drummer is apparently a hardcore jazz guy (and, given the sunglasses, I'm guessing a junkie), slumming it for a quick buck.
I know I grumbled about the lightweight nature of the lyrics, but if Phil is to be believed at least, perhaps I should take that back. From In The Air Tonight:
There'd been signs for years, obviously, but by the time they found me lying unconscious on the floor of a gay bar in Oaxaca wearing a French maid's outfit, I knew things had really gotten out of control. They say that, for 148 seconds at least, I was legally dead. But anyway, after a couple of jolts from the defribrillator, they tossed me on a cot and rushed me on a chopper straight to Cedars Sinai.
The doctor came in wearing a cheap toupee and the sort of solemn countenance that not even Keith Richards could fail to be unnerved by. "Mr. Collins, I'm afraid ... there's only one way to say this ... you've got heart problems."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, it's really none of my business, but ... let's just say I didn't spend six years at UCLA Medical School for nothing. I know the x-rays of a horse tranquilizer addict when I see one, OK?"
I let out a heavy sigh. "Look, Doc, I know, I've got a problem, but I just need to get through this one more solo tour, and then I'll go clean, I swear!"
"Damn it, Collins, don't you get it? You don't turn things around this very minute, you're gonna be just another dead balding drummer with a Rolodex full of ex-wives! This is your wake-up call, man!" The doctor literally grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me vigorously with his arms. "You've got to get ... yourself ... together!"
My head slumped toward the floor. "OK, OK. Just ... what's the diagnosis?"
"Well, it's not merely the horse tranquilizer. I'm picking up traces of paint thinner, varnish, whale antiseptic ... I mean, stuff I haven't seen in years. Your heart's shot to hell. I don't even know how you're still alive."
"Probably that Belgian lab experiment from when I was a kid."
"Your what?"
"Never mind. So what are we talking about here, a heart transplant?"
"I'm afraid it's much worse than that. What we're going to need is a medical miracle, a procedure that's never been done before."
"I don't follow."
"You don't need another heart. I'm afraid the only thing that can save you is ... two hearts."
I blinked three times.
"There's a hospital in Portugal that's pulled off a similar procedure in a goat, but ... it's never been tried in a human."
"Two hearts ... living in just one mind?"
"Precisely."
"But ..." I poked gingerly at my shriveled chest. "Where will you find the room?"
Well, obviously, they figured it out. I had every intention of turning over a new leaf, I did. I'd been given a second chance - it was a sign from God, right? But about three days after the surgery, I found myself in a foul mood (I think I caught "In Too Deep" slipping from #4 to #6 in the charts), and I figured, "Well, between the two hearts, they can probably withstand more usage than just the one, you know?" So ... I went right back on the stuff.
About a month later, I got a call from Hans - you know, my dealer in Copenhagen - demanding this, that, and the other thing.
"Phil, you still owe me twenty thousand krone, you lying prick!"
"All right, all right, all right! but listen Hans, I'm dead broke, I mean really broke. You know what I just had to pay for?"
"What?"
"I had to pay for an extra heart in my chest."
"Really."
"Didn't come cheap."
"Phil, I do not give a fuck about you and your extra hearts. Either pay up or I am sending the big boys."
"No! no! OK, there's gotta be something, a favor I can do, some kind of benefit concert, like that whole Live Aid thing, you name it, I'll do it."
There was a pregnant pause. "Well ... you know ... I have a friend, a film producer, he is involved with this movie about a train robbery..."
"You need someone to do the soundtrack?"
"Well, yes, of course, but what he really needs is ... a lead actor."
I let out a snort. "Hans, forget it. I can't even keep my own pants on these days, let alone star in a fucking movie."
"Twenty thousand krone, Phil, twenty thousand krone ..."
So ... I took the part. And I wasn't half-bad! Had a lot of fun making it. Ran into Lamont Dozier in an adult bookstore in Simi Valley one day, started gushing about how much I loved his work, how he could really use a comeback opportunity, how I had this whole soundtrack album to do, and how Erica's Daughter was a much hotter read than the sequel, Emily's Daughter. Great track, "Two Hearts." But yeah, all the budget money for the video I had to send straight to Hans, so we didn't have any money left over for actors. I told the director no problem, I could do it all myself. Wasn't anything I hadn't done before.
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