The Babys - Midnight Rendezvous

My latest 4AM earworm is a pop-rock masterpiece

1. WORM Radio

I, like many of my fellow blessed sonic sufferers, often receive earworm transmissions 24 hours a day. We are continuously bombarded by the signals of our private inner radio station, only they’re playing the same song — or if we’re lucky, a group of songs — over and over, ad infinitum. Sometimes our station (call letters, WORM) will broadcast bits of a song: a chorus, a verse, a single lyric, or a guitar riff, and it never stops repeating it, except for short breaks for the station to identify itself.

Sometimes my station has a DJ. The DJ tends to have a voice resembling Gilbert Gottfried, or on a good day, Wolfman Jack.

gilbert and wolfman, iconic voices

“You’re listening to WORM, where we play all your favorite earworm hits. We spin you round, baby, like a record, baby, right ‘round ‘round ‘round. And if you are Steve Goldberg, you probably have that 1984 Dead or Alive Hi-NRG new-wave dance classic on repeat just about now!”

Although WORM is on the air 24/7, there are times when the signal is stronger than others. Often, in the middle of the day, when I’m busy accomplishing the responsibilities of daily life, sensory distractions can drown out even the most pernicious earworm.

But in the dead of night, when the only sounds are the chirping of crickets and the faint rumble of distant car traffic, Wolfman and Gilbert and their turntables of torture come in loud and clear. Their songs become the soundtrack of my dreams (and nightmares).

I have a feeling some of you can relate. While others might be clutching your heart in empathy. How hard it must be to live inside your brain, I’ve been told countless times (usually by my wife).

The thing is, I don’t see this as a bad thing. It’s not something to wish away. It’s, in fact, a gift. To have dreams without a soundtrack that might include such artists as Barry Manilow, Seals & Crofts, or Hall & Oates sounds sad and empty to me.

As a teen/20-something during the 1980s, this tends to be the decade that dominates my inner radio station. I think it’s also largely due to MTV coming into the world in 1981 when I was the very impressionable age of 14.

You know how it seems that kids today spend at least 20 hours a day on their phones and laptops? That’s how I was when it came to MTV. My family didn’t have cable in 1981, but we did by 1982, thanks to my whining and complaining. Thankfully, a couple of my friends did have cable and I distinctly recall going to Howard Lasser’s house to binge-watch music videos after school.

Two videos I remember seeing over and over, like a visual earworm — an eyeworm you could say — were The Fixx’s “Stand or Fall” and INXS’ “The One Thing.” (I could say so much more about these brilliant songs and videos, but I’ll leave them for another day.)

2. The Babys — Midnight Rendezvous

One song I don’t recall seeing a video for on MTV was The Babys’ “Midnight Rendezvous,” the third single from the band’s fourth album, Union Jack. Maybe this was because it was released in early 1980 and the new music network wanted to stick to newer songs. That could have played a part, but I don’t think that’s why. I just looked at the first 100 videos MTV aired, and plenty of older songs are on the list.¹

Despite a decent amount of rock radio airplay back then and even today on Classic Rock satellite radio, “Midnight Rendezvous” only reached 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 (in the U.S.; it didn’t even chart anywhere else). Of the band’s 10 singles released from their 5 albums from 1976-1980, this was their 7th most successful. Their highest charting and likely most recognized song is “Everytime I Think of You,” which reached #13 and is another stellar track.

It was “Midnight Rendezvous,” though, that earwormed its way into my wee-hours slumber last night. I have no recollection of what was happening visually in my dream, whether there was some rendezvousing occurring, but I vividly recall the opening guitar riff ringing in my somnambulated brain.

It’s an iconic riff, powerful enough to spark ad-nauseam repetition before any words are sung.

As my dream morphed to bleary-eyed wakefulness at 4 am (probably due to having to pee, or perhaps my giant pitty Bernie had kicked me), I could not shake the feeling that this Babys riff was not an original. That it had been aped from another legendary rock track.

And then it hit me like a bat out of hell (no it’s not the Meatloaf track).

Listen to the first 12 seconds of this clip below and tell me that Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” doesn’t have the same exact guitar line.

The Babys added a delicious 3-note tag to the end of the Joel melody, but otherwise (to my ears) it’s the same.

Now, I’m not accusing The Babys of plagiarism or whatever song stealing is legally called these days. Most of “Midnight Rendezvous” sounds nothing like “You May Be Right.”

My more astute readers might be wondering: wasn’t Glass Houses (Billy Joel’s album from which I refer) released in 1980 as well? This is indeed, true. It is possible that it was the Piano Man who copied the Babys riff. Maybe I have it all backward.

To get to the bottom of this conundrum, I will utilize my patented 5-minutes-of-research methodology. It is now five minutes later, and I have discovered the following:

1. The Babys’ Union Jacks album was released on 8 January 1980.

2. Billy Joel’s Glass Houses was released on 12 March 1980.

3. Might both bands have been recording in the same studio? I wondered.

4. Union Jacks was recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles, was produced by Keith Olsen, and was released on Chrysalis Records

5. Glass Houses was recorded at A&R studios in New York City, was produced by Phil Ramone, and was released on Columbia Records. I don’t see a connection there.

6. Attempting to look deeper into when the songs “Midnight Rendezvous” and “You May Be Right” were written and recorded has taken me more than my allotted time so I’ll have to make assumptions.

7. Could Joel have heard the guitar riff from “Rendezvous” on the radio and written “YMBR” between the 8th of January, 1980, and early March? It seems that wouldn’t be enough time, but perhaps he had the song nearly finished, but never liked the opening. Then, after hearing “Rendezvous,” Joel realized it was perfect for his tune.

8. “You may be right,” I imagine Joel’s guitarist Dave Brown saying after Billy showed him the new riff to open the album.

I can’t prove any of this. But my spidey sense says something is fishy. Maybe one of you knows the truth. Thankfully, my audience is filled with rock and roll sleuths, so I’m sure we will get to the bottom of this. Was there thievery? Was it a happy accident? Let us know your findings (guesses) in the comments.

3. Not So Special After All

I’ve discovered that Billy Joel is not the only rock artist I’m hearing strong similarities to in this song.

This will be a bit tougher to provide a side-by-side comparison, as the bit is in the middle of the song, but bear with me and I’ll put in time stamps to argue my case that 38 Special’s “Hold On Loosely” borrows from this Babys classic. (Midnight Rendezvous :44 sec, Hold On Loosely :30 sec)

First, before I disparage the fine men of 38 Special (please don’t shoot me, fellahs!), I want to say that in the early to mid-1980s, a good percentage of recorded popular music was compressed to high heaven. The drums on a ton of songs sounded the same — loud, dry, and gated. But there also seemed to be a recognizable melodic guitar sound in many pop-rock hits of the day.

Take “Hold On Loosely.” It’s a great song, one with about as addictive a melody as you get from a Southern rock band. And great relationship advice in the chorus too:

Just hold on loosely, but don't let go
If you cling too tightly
You're gonna lose control
Your baby needs someone to believe in
And a whole lot of space to breathe in

The song was released in 1981, so I have to believe it was written and recorded after “Midnight Rendezvous.” I’m not going to question which direction the melody borrowing goes.

Take a listen to the choruses of both songs. They’re clearly not the same, but they are similar enough to warrant me adding a couple hundred extra words to this post.

I took the time to edit the choruses of both songs back to back. You can decide for yourself by playing the clip below.

4. Stop Acting Like a Baby

If you came here hoping to learn all about the band members of The Babys, you’ve come to the wrong place. I already used up my 5 minutes of research trying to determine if John Waite (he’s the lead singer and bassist, and wrote many of the band’s songs) stole from Billy Joel or vice versa or neither.

See, now you know one of the band members! I would say that John Waite is the most recognizable member of The Babys, especially after the success of his 2nd solo album in 1984, No Brakes, which includes his #1 smash hit, “Missing You.”

You are probably also familiar with Jonathan Cain, who joined The Babys prior to their 4th album (Union Jack), because right after the band broke up in 1981, Cain immediately (he didn’t even stop to pee) joined Journey as their keyboardist/backing vocalist, right before recording their mega-platinum release, Escape.

So those two guys did pretty well for themselves!

In the early days of The Babys, there was a fair bit of turnover. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention founding member and guitarist/keyboardist/songwriter Michael Corby, who first brought in Waite and then a rotating cast of players, several of who are part of the reunited Babys (2012 to today). Neither Waite nor Corby have been a part of this reformed band.

I did spend a bit more than 5 minutes on research for this piece, or more accurately, I fell into a small (you might say ‘baby’) rabbit hole, while looking up details about the band’s history.

One website I discovered, classicrockhistory.com, posted a top-10 songs from The Babys article. It was not well-written and the fact that it didn’t include their 3rd biggest hit, “Back On My Feet Again,” seemed particularly lame to me.

I wasn’t the only one confused by this page, as when I scanned to the comments section at the bottom, I discovered a lengthy rant written by none other than the Babys’ original founding member Michael Corby. ²

It’s friggin’ hilarious and more than a bit unhinged, but so are the responses by the original author. Apparently, the article was first posted with tons of inaccuracies that were mostly corrected by the time I read it. Take the incivility for what you will, but it’s a fascinating read and look into the online behavior of outraged and defensive men.

Here are the first couple of paragraphs, for your edification. Click the link in the footnote (and above) to read the whole thing. It’s worth it. The author of the article is named Brian.

Well, that went in a bunch of directions I didn’t expect! That’s how it works here at Earworms and Song Loops.

• Were you familiar with The Babys’ song “Midnight Rendezvous” before this post? And why is it such an amazing song?

• What do you think about the whole Babys/Billy Joel feud I’m starting 45 years after the fact? (And the 38 Special fight too.)

• I didn’t even get a chance to talk about the lyrics to the song! Oy! Well, it’s not exactly Shakespeare, so I feel okay about that. But I welcome thoughts about the lyrical content in the comments too!

• Are there any two songs that seem exceedingly similar to you that haven’t gotten the attention they deserve?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_music_videos_aired_on_MTV

It’s eye-opening to look at this. I’m shocked that MTV played three different Iron Maiden videos in the first 100. Also, a whole lot of REO Speedwagon.

2. https://www.classicrockhistory.com/the-babys-top-10-songs/