Fact #193308
When:
Short story:
I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred enters the UK Singles Chart where it will peak at No2 during a run of sixteen weeks.
Full article:
Richard Fairbrass (Right Said Fred) : That was originally another song called Heaven with a completely different bass line. One sunny afternoon we were working with a guy called Brian POugsley, just messing around, when we started singing, 'I'm too sexy' along with this line.
We thought this was extremely funny and very silly, but we took it away and thought about it. When we added the 'I'm a model' bit, the song immediately made sense. Fred (Fairbrass) wrote the rest of the lyrics, I came up with the title and Rob (Manzoli) wrote another part of the melody.
It took us about nine months to record it because we had no money, we had to keep on going back and doing it in bits and pieces.
We went into the studio with Tommy Dee at that stage and he added the little drum rolls, that's how it came into fruition.
Really the idea sprang up because Fred had been out with a lot of models - 'I'm a model, you know what I mean?' is a line he actually heard. The I'm too sexy for your' ... whatever ... lines don't really mean anything, they could relate to the chair, the house, the garden - we had thirty or forty alternatives along with the ones we settled for in the song.
We were surprised at the success of the song. Punters pick up on things that you don't notice and sometimes the strongest ideas are the ones you don't see, especially because we'd spent nine months on it.
The final mix sounded great, but we didn't think it had a cat in hell's chance of being so successful.
We used the B-52's Love Shack as a template, not for production but for the spirit of the song. It's a very 'in your face' song and we we played it in the studio to remind ourselves of what we wanted. Love Shack is also a nonsense song but very effective. The only trouble with fun songs is that they're not regarded very highly with those in the know, like the awards people. If you do comedy acting or music, people literally don't take you very seriously. It was a clever but tongue in cheek song.
We needed an instrumental, but not a solo, in it, and because Rob's a big Jimi Hendrix fan, what we ended up with was a bit of Third Stone From The Sun, which we didn't realise until this bloke came up to us at a gig up north and told us. The Hendrix Foundation were incredibly cool about us using it and just wanted a credit on the CD and album, just so young people knew where it came from.
When it came out, everything went bananas which, in retrospect, wasn't really how we'd have wanted it. It was a bit like enjoying a pleasant walk one minute and then being dragged around the park by a mad dog. No control and no idea of where you're going to end up.
It took us all over the place and we ended up promoting it in territories two years after it was all over. America especially wasn't interested in anything else, because they wouldn't stop playing it.
Sexy should have been the fourth single ideally. It's been the goose that laid the golden egg. It was number one in about 26 countries and the most performed song, as was Deeply Dippy. The album did huge business and we sold quite a few other singles but everyone remembers us for I'm Too Sexy.
(Source : Inspirations by Michael Randolfi, Mike Read and David Stark, published by Sanctuary)
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We thought this was extremely funny and very silly, but we took it away and thought about it. When we added the 'I'm a model' bit, the song immediately made sense. Fred (Fairbrass) wrote the rest of the lyrics, I came up with the title and Rob (Manzoli) wrote another part of the melody.
It took us about nine months to record it because we had no money, we had to keep on going back and doing it in bits and pieces.
We went into the studio with Tommy Dee at that stage and he added the little drum rolls, that's how it came into fruition.
Really the idea sprang up because Fred had been out with a lot of models - 'I'm a model, you know what I mean?' is a line he actually heard. The I'm too sexy for your' ... whatever ... lines don't really mean anything, they could relate to the chair, the house, the garden - we had thirty or forty alternatives along with the ones we settled for in the song.
We were surprised at the success of the song. Punters pick up on things that you don't notice and sometimes the strongest ideas are the ones you don't see, especially because we'd spent nine months on it.
The final mix sounded great, but we didn't think it had a cat in hell's chance of being so successful.
We used the B-52's Love Shack as a template, not for production but for the spirit of the song. It's a very 'in your face' song and we we played it in the studio to remind ourselves of what we wanted. Love Shack is also a nonsense song but very effective. The only trouble with fun songs is that they're not regarded very highly with those in the know, like the awards people. If you do comedy acting or music, people literally don't take you very seriously. It was a clever but tongue in cheek song.
We needed an instrumental, but not a solo, in it, and because Rob's a big Jimi Hendrix fan, what we ended up with was a bit of Third Stone From The Sun, which we didn't realise until this bloke came up to us at a gig up north and told us. The Hendrix Foundation were incredibly cool about us using it and just wanted a credit on the CD and album, just so young people knew where it came from.
When it came out, everything went bananas which, in retrospect, wasn't really how we'd have wanted it. It was a bit like enjoying a pleasant walk one minute and then being dragged around the park by a mad dog. No control and no idea of where you're going to end up.
It took us all over the place and we ended up promoting it in territories two years after it was all over. America especially wasn't interested in anything else, because they wouldn't stop playing it.
Sexy should have been the fourth single ideally. It's been the goose that laid the golden egg. It was number one in about 26 countries and the most performed song, as was Deeply Dippy. The album did huge business and we sold quite a few other singles but everyone remembers us for I'm Too Sexy.
(Source : Inspirations by Michael Randolfi, Mike Read and David Stark, published by Sanctuary)