No topicality this time, but a link to the last record I posted, as I bought them both in the same place at the same time, as it happens.
This is one I've wanted to do for a while, but been unsure what to say about it. It's another example of the 7 inch single being the perfect form for greatness. Some of their other songs are quite good, but they're crucially not as good as this one. Good Girls Don't, their follow up single which was a hit in the US but not here in the uk, sadly falls into the latter category.
That needn't concern us, however, for the brief span of time I am giving the band today.
I love this song, and have loved it for a long time, but have never considered that it might be about someone before, I just thought it was about finding a pretty girl and being, well, generally excited.
Not only is it about a real girl, she's really called Sharona and you've already seen a picture of her where she's not wearing a bra.
Sharona does seem the sort of name you'd make up because it's fun to sing (and, based on how long I've been singing along to this, I should know) but she seems to be reconciled to it, having the address www.mysharona.com for her personal website, from which we learn that
"Sharona was only 17 when she was immortalized in the Knack's 1979 hit single "My Sharona". Sharona believes that "'My Sharona' has had an impact on my ability to understand the entertainer's mind, there's something simpatico. You've got to care to the n'th degree. You can't drop the ball for one minute." I sell "the most emotional product on the market, because a star's home is their only safe haven."
She now works, you see, as a high-end estate agent and does seem to be quite respected with it. Interestingly, the guitarist claims that he wrote the song for her when she was only sixteen, so either it was written some time before it became a hit, or he lied on her website to make herself sound a bit better. She was certainly a lot younger than Doug Fieger, the aforementioned guitarist who would have been 26 or 27 that year.
This being 2010, some if you might be drawing unsavoury conclusions about him and her involving the words "jail" and "bait." I don't want to encourage or condone those thoughts, but it had occurred to me when reading up on this, that it might have been politic for him to at least disguise her name a little, or at least suggest that if she insisted on being on the cover, she should at least put some underwear on.
Thing is, though, they didn't, it was a massive hit at it doesn't seem to have done her any harm, so let's say no more about it.
I've been thinking for a while whether it's better to have a few smaller hits and fade away or have one huge hit that defines you. I went to the band's official website to see if I could glean any idea of their relationship with the song, whether it was an albatross around their necks or not. If you haven't clicked on that link yet, see if you can guess which song plays as their intro. No, it's not Baby Talks Dirty. That they even have a website as a going concern is due almost entirely to My Sharona, and hopefully they're accustomed to and comfortable with that. If you're in The Knack and can't bear to even think about this blasted song, then well done for reading this far, and please god get in touch and I'll rewrite the damn blog post.
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