Still in Rotation: Friend Or Foe
Still in Rotation is a guest post feature in which talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power.
When I think of a writer whose “Still in Rotation” album essay I think could be intriguing, there’s always a delicious suspense between asking them to participate, and finding out what album they pick. Ninety-five percent of the time, they choose something I never would have guessed. One hundred percent of the time, I’m vastly entertained by their story of musical true love. Case in point: Melisa Wells, who I know from the interwebs in our concentric BlogHer/Listen To Your Mother circles, and her proprietary relationship with post-punk pinup boy Adam Ant.
Still in Rotation: Friend or Foe (Adam Ant)
By Melisa Wells
I have always loved music. When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, some of my favorite songs included Jim Croce’s “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” and Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died”, more than likely because of the prominence my hometown played in their lyrics. I also loved the band “Chicago” back then. I wonder why.
When I was eleven we moved to Ft. Worth, Texas and that’s when I started listening to American Top 40 every weekend. My first concert was—unfortunately for the adult me because it’s not an exciting story—Kenny Rogers. My music tastes ran, for lack of a better word, vanilla.
When I started high school in Knoxville, Tennessee I had a musical reawakening. The (second) British Invasion was in progress. While I adored Duran Duran like all other girls my age and was heavily sighing at Simon Le Bon with my friends, privately I had someone on the side just for myself: Adam Ant.
Adam was a former-punker-turned-New Romantic whose music was New Wave-y but not completely mainstream. I became a fan upon hearing the strong drumbeats of the music he created early on with his group (the Ants), and by the time they disbanded and he released his first solo effort, “Friend or Foe”, I was gone. Diehard. Adam Ant for life. He completely had me at “Hello, I Love You”, his cover of the Doors classic.
Okay, I lied. That song, though I loved it, wasn’t what grabbed me; it just gave me a great opportunity to reference the movie “Jerry Maguire” for the purpose of this essay. He actually had me at “Desperate but Not Serious”, because it had a great beat and it, I mean HE, was oh, so sexy. My fourteen-year-old self had known nothing like it before, but SWOON.
I mean, look:
Hashtag Still Swooning After All These Years.
His real name is Stuart Leslie Goddard and he was born on November 3, 1954, facts that I proudly shared with anyone who would listen, facts that—let’s face it, Gen Xers—weren’t as readily available then as they are today. I did the work. I was on the inside. I was a Superfan, an Ant Person. I had THE Adam Ant poster on my wall. I even dressed like him for Halloween.
His biggest US hit, “Goody Two Shoes”, was on the Friend or Foe album; the song made it to Number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100. When I was 14n I took the song at face value: to me, it was literally about being a Goody Two Shoes. I adored the video, and I, at my Ant-craziest, imagined myself as the blonde-streaked subject of Adam’s admiration:
Fast-forward to the late 2000’s. Adam published his autobiography, Stand and Deliver, which I devoured. I learned all about his difficult childhood, his relationships (including a love affair with actress Heather Graham, for whom he wrote “Wonderful”), and his struggles with bipolar disorder.
After reading the book his music, especially the songs from Friend or Foe, suddenly took on new meaning for me and the lyrics made much more sense with the complete backstory. “Goody Two Shoes” wasn’t simply about teetotaling and eschewing cigarettes; it was about the constant intrusion of the press and their demand for details that he considered none of their business:
Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?
You don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?
Subtle innuendos follow
There must be something inside
“Desperate but Not Serious” was similar in theme:
Mister Pressman, with your penknife
Always asking about my sex life
And who with
And how many times
The title track, Adam claims in his book, was about the extreme reaction people had upon getting to know him, and his lack of caring about which direction they took:
Take it up or leave it
I’m not gonna change a bit
If it means heartache
Then leave it out for your sake
I tried and I tri-tried
To take care of my insides
Nobody’s perfect so leave me if you object
The entire album, as it turns out, is a cacophony of anger, cynicism, and frustration towards the press, fame, and even his ex-wife, set to bouncy, Motown-inspired beats full of horns and guitars. The instruments sing a much happier tune than the lyrics, and that I have loved this album for thirty-four years and counting is no surprise to me because many other favorite songs of mine have similar juxtapositions. This album full of them has the added bonus of my very first fantasy boyfriend.
I was finally able to catch Adam Ant live in October of 2012, and it was worth the wait. My sister and I road-tripped to Milwaukee to see him and we were rewarded for arriving hours early, with prime real estate at the edge of the stage. We were within feet of my very first crush for the duration and, speaking of feet, my sister actually touched his boot while he sang. It’s an act about which she is still so excited and proud that every time his name comes up in conversation, she exclaims, “I touched his boot!” I can’t say I blame her: I’d be adding that to every single social media bio I have, if it were me. It was an awesome show and I floated on air for weeks after while my endorphins faded away and my serotonin levels gently fluttered back down to normal.
Do I still listen to Friend or Foe? All the time. Have I turned my husband and grown sons into Ant People? Absolutely not. Do I care? No. The fourteen-year-old me never wanted to share Adam anyway.
Adam Ant for life.
♪♪♪
Melisa Wells has been writing online at Suburban Scrawl since 2007 and works on the BlogHer social media team, neither of which does much to discourage her addiction to most social media platforms. She is the co-producer of Chicago’s Listen To Your Mother (LTYM) show and is the New Cities Mentor for LTYM National. She and her husband Jim have raised two terribly awesome sons, twenty-one-year-old J and twenty-three-year-old D. She is a Type A Control Freak Perfectionist who loves to travel, exercise and float in sensory deprivation tanks. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @MelisaLW, and on Facebook at Suburban Scrawl.
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