Comments on: BORIS GARDINER – “I Want To Wake Up With You”

By: AndyPandy

AndyPandy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:32:08 +0000

No 36 watch: a new entry for Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk’s “Love Can’t Turn Around” – although as I mentioned before Colonel Abrams ‘Trapped’ of a year before was described in the dance press at the time as ‘house’ at 25 years distance for some people that record doesnt seem so obviously the start of something however no mistake can be made about this being undoubtedly the real thing and so quite an important chart week musical history wise.
Although Trevor Fung’s ill-fated “Project” in South London (in 1985)
notwithstanding as far as the UK was concerned the music would just be played in mainstream discos and old style funk/soul clubs amongst the usual stuff for nearly another year before we had the start of acid house/rave and 18months till the scene really took off.

By: Jonathan Bogart

Jonathan Bogart — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:33:47 +0000

While this was on the top in Britain, across the ocean the more-or-less official tabulators of chart music in America had decided that some record needed to be kept of all the Spanish-language music whose popularity was no longer confined to pockets in the Southwest and urban immigrant communities.

So Billboard’s Hot Latin chart was born, and I’m doing a Popular to it now here. I don’t have any particular expertise in the field; my only real qualifications are that I know Spanish and like pop. Anyone for whom either (or neither!) of those is true is welcome to comment. As someone who counts it an honor being listed in the Comments Crew here, I’m hoping to have a tithe as lively, informed, and enjoyable comments box over in my little corner of the pop playground.

And with that, my advertising budget has run out.

By: DV

DV — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:48:44 +0000

This song is so forgettable that I do not remember it.

By: jonnyk

jonnyk — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:53:34 +0000

Remember hating this at the time, and it’s still every bit as dreary and gloopy as it was then. This was a particularly bleak period in pop – The Lady In Red, Every Loser Wins, The Chicken Song etc – and for me represents the tipping point from the imaginative, creative first half of the 80s into the more formulaic, bland and risk-averse late 80s and early 90s.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:04:56 +0000

Oh, I quite like this. 6 from me…

By: Jimmy the Swede

Jimmy the Swede — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:18:36 +0000

Cheesy ol’ Boris ruins his career with this howler. The sentiment of the song is not romantic at all. It’s just as bad as saying: “I hope you don’t mind a little snorin’, honey!”

Rob #14 – Great anecdote. It’s the fact that you were being completely serious which tickles me.

By: Izzy

Izzy — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:24:40 +0000

#14: hahahaha, Rob K, that is magnificent!

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:02:54 +0000

Since this is a slow thread you can go and read my further chart-nerd reflections on Christmas No.1s instead.

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:17:38 +0000

Every time I try to sing it, I end up with “There’s Something Inside So Strong”.

By: will

will — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:30:58 +0000

At the time I remember being utterly baffled by the success of this dull record. Twenty three years later I’m still baffled.

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46:20 +0000

TOTPWatch: Boris Gardiner performed Everything I Own on the Top of the Pops of December 25th 1986. Also in the studio that Christmas were; Doctor & The Medics, Simply Red, Pet Shop Boys and Chris De Burgh. Peter Powell, Gary Davies, Janice Long & Simon Bates were the hosts.

By: MikeMCSG

MikeMCSG — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:14:49 +0000

I get the feeling this isn’t going to be one of our longer threads.

Another unlikely chart-topper, Boris’s previous hit pre-dated my interest in pop. This is another in a long line of pop-reggae one-off hits in the same lineage as “Everything I Own” “Money In My Pocket” and “Sideshow” and actually inferior to them.

By: The Leveller

The Leveller — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:45 +0000

#3 Jim D – I’ve met Barry Gardiner in the context of government work I once did and that bit of surreal vandalism just made my morning

By: Erithian

Erithian — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:16:39 +0000

Lonepilgrim #11 – nothing to remark at number 2 – in BG’s three weeks at the top the number twos were the previous and subsequent number 1s plus Sinitta back up to 2 after two weeks at 3.

My first year in London and I’d never ventured out to Westbourne Park as yet, but the thrill was there as soon as I did a couple of years later – Boris was here! Of course that phrase doesn’t have quite the same ring to it for Londoners now – unless of course you’re being mugged in town late at night and hoping for a hero to arrive on his bike à la Del and Rodney as Batman and Robin.

I remember this easy listening so-so record being featured on “Our Tune” once, by a mum whose baby had struggled through the first 24 hours of its life. She wanted so desperately for the baby to survive and be there with her when she woke up, that the title seemed appropriate. Just shows the lyrics don’t always count for everything.

By: punctum

punctum — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:16:39 +0000

Boris Gardiner was there virtually from the birth of reggae, as original bassist with the Upsetters and producer of various post-ska favourites, one of which, “Elizabethan Reggae,” hit big in 1970; but by 1986 he had long since mellowed into a straight-down-the-line MoR crooner, a sort of JA Johnny Mathis. The fact that “I Want To Wake Up With You” was subsequently covered by Engelbert Humperdinck should confirm its very tenuous connection to Lovers’ Rock, even though it is strictly speaking Britain’s biggest-selling Lovers’ Rock single, and in the post-”Under Mi Sleng Teng” reggae world it came across as even more old-fashioned. But it crossed over to the punters who thought that Dennis Brown wrote The Singing Detective, and its simple and rather repetitive construction was enough to make it 1986′s big last-dance smoocher. Gardiner sings it with fulsome mellowness, and while the song’s sentiments can hardly be disagreed with, ultimately it’s the type of Dale Winton-friendly pop reggae which makes UB40 sound like Black Uhuru. Blameless, but also fairly unexciting, as per its ghastly AoR synth intro.

By: Mark M

Mark M — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:35:13 +0000

Re 12: accordiing to Lloyd Bradley’s Bass Culture, he was discovered via top Jamaican talent show the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour, first hit big over here (as noted) with Elizabethan Reggae, once sacked a member of his band for having dreads, and played bass for Lee Perry’s Upsetters. But even that tiny bit of information is so much more than the vast majority of people hearing or buying this song knew, I suspect – there was no context for this song other than: summer/reggae.

The video is rubbish but I rather like it as a cheery amble around West London (compare with Lily Allen’s tiresomely snearing LDN video – the second version). Certainly, you’d having to feeling as mellow as Boris to be standing on the platform at Westbourne Park with a smile on your face, living in the most distant hope that a train might be coming down the Hammersmith branch of the Metropolitan line (as was).

By: Rob K

Rob K — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:12:46 +0000

So, fast forward to 1989. I’m deep in the throes of my first significant relationship which naturally involved sex. And lots of it.

After one particularly passionate evening my partner breathlessly quoted a line from the film “About Last Night”. “As Demi Moore would say”, she whispered, “I love making love with you……”. Stunned by this curveball I searched my memory banks for a similar reference which I could use to return the complement and with a straight face I solemnly intoned “And as Boris Gardner would say, I Wanna Wake Up With You.”

For that, and that alone, it’s a 10 from me.

By: TomLane

TomLane — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:09:14 +0000

No chart action in the U.S., and I think we didn’t miss much.

By: MBI

MBI — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:39:57 +0000

Someone at the record company fucked up and misspelled the man’s name on the single sleeve. I’m far more interested in that than the song in question.

Wikipedia tells me that Boris was some kind of reggae journeyman popping here and there for years. It doesn’t have a lot of information about him. Can anyone here give me a little context for this guy and this song?

By: lonepilgrim

lonepilgrim — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:34:04 +0000

and I’ve realised that this record was number 1 when I began my first real job as an art teacher – starting a career that only just ran into the sand this year….

any news on what was No.2…who was on TOTP etc.?

By: Jungman Jansson

Jungman Jansson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:22:04 +0000

anatol (#5) – it does indeed. “Boris Gardiner” (which reads as “Boris’s curtains”) could easily have been a Swedish punk band from the late ’70s.

It truly is a harmless song, this. My first impulse was to dismiss it as horrible, but it isn’t. It seems friendly enough. And it unexpectedly started playing in my mind on the way to work the other day, so it’s stickier than I would have thought at first. But it doesn’t go any further than that. Maybe a slightly more riveting arrangement could have helped.

Speaking of the video – the age difference between Boris and his object of lukewarm romantic interest doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that Boris creepily just happens to show up wherever she goes and merely looks at her like a sad puppy.

SwedenWatch: #4. Apparently it was less popular with the Tracks listeners, as it peaked at #9 there.

By: LondonLee

LondonLee — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:57:03 +0000

Is it just me or is that train coming into the tube station more than a little Freudian given that Boris is leering at the young lady at the time?

I usually find that a nice Lovers beat makes even the flimsiest tune listenable but it’s a struggle with this one, especially as it sounds like it’s played on the keyboard I bought my daughter at the Early Learning Centre.

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:44:42 +0000

Aw! I reckon that poor Boris was only bounced into making the video with an unsuitably young woman by his record company. I rather like this – at times when I’ve been particularly struck by the wish to wake up with someone it strikes a cord, and the rest of the time its perfectly agreeable. I even liked it when I was 13.

Boris Gardiner had some good previous form though. His much earlier hit, 1970′s number 14 smash ‘Elizabethan Reggae’ is the business, if amazingly sprightly organ led pop ska instrumentals are your bag – and they should be. Indeed, looking at the chart for 17th of January 1970, the week that it entered, one can see it as part of a golden age of reggae pop; Liquidator, Wonderful World Beautiful People, Moon Hop, and further hits for Desmond Dekker and The Equals.

By: lonepilgrim

lonepilgrim — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:26:10 +0000

I drifted off during the video and was irritated to find him still droning on after what seemed like hours later – all I could think about was that he was going to get his white trousers dirty sitting on the ground like that

By: col124

col124 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:24:16 +0000

Mercy, this one’s dull. Halfway through watching the video I began wondering how many forms of transportation Boris would get to use–walking, subway, car! I was holding out for a boat sequence, but sadly no…

A 2 or 3: I flipped a coin and gave it the lower score.