Monday, March 18, 2013

Boy Meets Girl - Waiting For a Star to Fall

Long time readers will know that we like to feature lots of different types of music on ERV, including well-crafted pop songs.  While "Waiting For a Star to Fall" would be more at home on VH1 than MTV, it is an excellent example of 1980s lite rock and has a cool backstory to boot.

Boy Meets Girl was the songwriting team of George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam.  The married (at the time) couple met at a wedding, and became a personal and professional couple.  While they released an album in 1985, they were best-known as the songwriters behind the Whitney Houston hits "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)."

"Waiting For a Star to Fall" was inspired by an actual shooting star that Rubicam had seen at a Whitney Houston concert.  The song was originally offered to Houston, but her team passed, as they were moving in a more R&B direction.  The song was then offered to Belinda Carlisle, who made a demo recording, but decided not to release the song.

As a result, when Boy Meets Girl released their second album, 1988's Reel Life, they were able to include the song.   "Waiting ..." would go on to become the duos' signature song and biggest hit, reaching #5 on the charts, while the Reel Life album peaked at #50.

Sadly, the couple then went through a rough patch -- their third album, 1990s New Dream was not released by their label, and they divorced in the early 2000s.  However, their professional collaboration continues to this day, we believe.



Cool trivia fact:  The blonde girl in the video is the couple's daughter

Cool trivia fact #2:  Boy Meets Girl is not a one hit wonder, as "Oh Girl," from their self-titled 1985 debut, hit #39 on the charts.

As an added bonus, here is Belinda Carlisle's demo recording of the same song:

7 comments:

  1. There's now a legal version (i.e. uploaded by the band itself through VEVO) on YouTube, if you'd like to change your embedded link to go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhxF9Qg5mOU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Puppyakka thanks for the comment. I prefer to link to the official version, but as of right now, Blogger is not recognizing it. If this changes, I will re-link the video. Thanks again.

      Delete
  2. Update: Blogger is now recognizing the official version, and I have re-linked to it. Thanks again for the help.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Belinda's version sounds like karaoke on a monday with 1/2 price wings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep - though to be fair, it was an early demo recording. It seems likely that Carlisle briefly considered recording the song, did a take, and moved on to other material.

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Yep - we posted the same vid on ERV's Facebook page last September. Good stuff.

      Delete