Song of the Day 6/13: Billy Ocean, “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going”

This song was born in the wrong decade. If it had been written and released before the mid-’70s it would be considered a Carolina beach music classic — it’s got that shag-shuffle beat. Instead Billy Ocean and his co-writers/producers went into the studio in the synth-drenched mid-’80s, dialed up the reverb on the drum track to 11 and turned out a tune that swaddles what should be a soul classic in the sterilized sound of the decade. Helping usher the song down the memory hole is its connection to an equally sterile ’80s movie nobody has watched in years.

This song is due for a remake — especially because it’s #metoo-safe. What other soul seduction song includes the line, “Can I touch you?” Just imagine that killer bass line leading to a real horn section instead of those cheesy-sounding synth chords, and Ocean’s impassioned vocals further out front. Heck, if you don’t want to imagine an Otis Redding rendition, imagine it by the Foundations. See what I mean?

This live-in-London rendition gives you a better sense of what the Trinadad-born Leslie Sebastian Charles could do with it on stage.