At night
When you turn off all the lights
There's no place that you can hide
No no
The rhythm is gonna get'cha
In bed
Throw the covers on your head
And pretend like you are dead
But I know it
The rhythm is gonna get'cha
Oh fuck me. Not even safe in my own bed? What if I hire a bodyguard? How about if I learn karate? I mean, there's got to be some way to keep the rhythm from getting me, right? Maybe the rhythm would be open to a little negotiation perhaps, a cash settlement, one half of my stamp collection? Can I at least "stall" the rhythm with a game of chess like in The Seventh Seal? Does it have to truly, genuinely "get" me?
With "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You," Gloria Estefan & the Machine Sound Machine, as they were now being billed, managed to do what no one would have thought possible: they created a "Conga" sequel that was not obviously worse and was not a carbon copy. It still sizzled with that spicy Latin flavor, but it carried a touch more ... menace this time.
As the track commences, the first thing to "get" the listener isn't actually the rhythm, but a tribal warlord chanting "oh-ey oh-ey," echoed by his lusty minions, and one massive, solitary BOOM on a drum so large and so deep it sounds like the Mariana Trench farting. Other little percussive noises quickly pop up from all directions, congas and shakers and all sorts of crazy knick-knacks, while a third group of warriors from (I assume?) a neighboring tribe enter with their own ominous chant of "Yah-ey-oh." Just when all these disparate elements seem to be settling into a groove, there's a giant chord blast from Satan's keyboard, suddenly all the villagers scatter, and we get a brief interlude from what appears to be ... the aluminum cans in your recycling bin? After eight bars, the world's most piercing horn section enters - horns so sharp they could cut Julio Iglesias's balls in half.
Gloria finally calms the cannibals down with her perky entrance, but on the chorus, the Wild Things briefly return: she's doubled up on her third "rhythm is gonna get you" by what sounds like Sloth from The Goonies, then the warlords chime in with a panther-esque "Whoo!" followed by a potent "BLOMP!" from the keyboard of Hades. I tell you what's gonna "get'cha" all right: the Miami Sound Machine's endless arsenal of state-of-the-art studio gimmicks! During the outro, a fourth pack of natives shows up with a comparably less threatening, but seemingly more schoolyardish, chant of "na-na na-na-na na-na," and then everyone sort of gathers around the bonfire and sings their bit before one last comical horn riff grinds the heathen ceremony to a sweaty halt.
As the track commences, the first thing to "get" the listener isn't actually the rhythm, but a tribal warlord chanting "oh-ey oh-ey," echoed by his lusty minions, and one massive, solitary BOOM on a drum so large and so deep it sounds like the Mariana Trench farting. Other little percussive noises quickly pop up from all directions, congas and shakers and all sorts of crazy knick-knacks, while a third group of warriors from (I assume?) a neighboring tribe enter with their own ominous chant of "Yah-ey-oh." Just when all these disparate elements seem to be settling into a groove, there's a giant chord blast from Satan's keyboard, suddenly all the villagers scatter, and we get a brief interlude from what appears to be ... the aluminum cans in your recycling bin? After eight bars, the world's most piercing horn section enters - horns so sharp they could cut Julio Iglesias's balls in half.
Gloria finally calms the cannibals down with her perky entrance, but on the chorus, the Wild Things briefly return: she's doubled up on her third "rhythm is gonna get you" by what sounds like Sloth from The Goonies, then the warlords chime in with a panther-esque "Whoo!" followed by a potent "BLOMP!" from the keyboard of Hades. I tell you what's gonna "get'cha" all right: the Miami Sound Machine's endless arsenal of state-of-the-art studio gimmicks! During the outro, a fourth pack of natives shows up with a comparably less threatening, but seemingly more schoolyardish, chant of "na-na na-na-na na-na," and then everyone sort of gathers around the bonfire and sings their bit before one last comical horn riff grinds the heathen ceremony to a sweaty halt.
For the video, the Machine From Miami That Emits Sound seems to have picked up on the Amazonian rain forest vibe of the song, as Gloria is decked out in full ceremonial face paint a la Captain Willard at the end of Apocalypse Now. And her arms are covered in ... hay? When Gloria Estefan's arms are covered in hay, you know she means business. Meanwhile the rest of the band, including a suddenly more civilized and hay-less Gloria, perform onstage at Miami's most glamorous tiki lounge. At 1:15, she seems to spot her own Surfer Lance in the crowd? One final question: just how many keytarists can one band have? A-ha! Maybe that's the secret to keeping the rhythm from getting you! One must brandish the sacred keytar.
2 comments:
You called them the "Machine Sound Machine". Did you mean "Miami" or was there a joke there I didn't catch?
Let's call it a Freudian typo-slip. I mean, at that point, probably nobody gave a rat's ass what any of the words after "Gloria Estefan" were. Either that, or it was a joke SO INCREDIBLY FUNNY that no one in the entire universe will ever get it.
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