Song of the Day 8/13: The Go-Go’s, “Vacation”
Clarence Thomas takes more vacations than anyone I’ve ever heard of. Then again, if you can take unlimited luxury trips on someone else’s dime, why not take 38 of them?
“Vacation,” the title track from the second album by the Go-Go’s, reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 in 1982. It holds a footnote in rock history: It was the first “cassingle,” as the single-on-cassette was marketed. The video, expensive for the time it was made, is notable for the fact that by the end of the nine-hour shoot all the musicians were drunk on champagne.
The hit version of “Vacation” is sort of a cover, but not exactly. Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine wrote and recorded an earlier version with her previous band, the Textones, before it was reworked for the Go-Go’s. The original is much tougher sounding, a reminder that the Go-Go’s started out in the Los Angeles punk scene before veering into New Wave pop.
There was a great documentary about The Go-Go’s that came out a couple years ago. Check it out.
Clarence Thomas? If not now, then later his twenty years of supping at the trough of the rich will lead to a supreme court that plays by the rules. As ever I wonder if I will live to see it. On a lighter note like all the Go Go’s tunes it’s fun, pop and enjoyable as such.