TOP 40 DEBUT: November 10, 1979
PEAK POSITION: #1 (February 16, 1980)
It’s hard to see your own parents as sexual creatures. Sure, as a kid you crunch the numbers and realize your folks must’ve done the deed at least once, maybe even two or—depending on your number of siblings—three times. Later, you have “the talk” and begin to grasp that your father might possibly have first-hand experience on the subject. And then, you get older. You develop empathy. You finally, and belatedly, view your folks as complex, flesh-and-blood individuals with desires and needs no different from your own. But still, to actually imagine Mom and Dad boinking in the bedroom? For most of us, that’s a bridge too far.
Therein lies the problem with “Do That To Me One More Time.” It’s a sex song performed by, arguably, the least sexual couple of the late ‘70s. And it runs contrary to the carefully constructed public persona of Captain & Tennille as a husband-and-wife team both blandly unthreatening and aggressively wholesome. White bread wasn’t just part of the duo’s menu; it was their entire meal. They recorded multiple songs written by Neil Sedaka. They recorded songs later made famous by Barry Manilow. They recorded frickin’ “Muskrat Love.” (“Muskrat Love” peaked at #4 in 1976. It’s a 1.) They hosted their own short-lived, predictably terrible, variety show. And then, with strait-laced image firmly established, Captain & Tennille released a single espousing the virtues of male virility and multiple orgasms. Considering the source, “Do That To Me One More Time” might as well be the musical equivalent of walking in on your parents mid-coitus.
Both Tennille and the Captain came from far weirder musical backgrounds than their eventual soft-rock success would suggest. “Captain” Daryl Dragon was the son of Oscar-winning conductor Carmen Dragon, as well as the godson of comedian Danny Thomas. By age 20, he’d become a full-time musician, songwriter, and producer. He backed up Charles Wright in the soul legend’s first band, the Wright Sounds. (Wright’s most enduring hit, “Express Yourself,” peaked at #12 in 1970. It’s a 10.) With his brothers Doug and Dennis, he recorded an album of wonderfully bizarre, psychedelic surf music under the name The Dragons. And starting in 1967, Dragon began playing keyboards on tour with the Beach Boys, where Mike Love gave him the nickname “Captain Keyboard.” (Dragon’s ever-present yachting cap both reinforced the nickname and hid early hair loss.)
Toni Tennille grew up in Alabama before moving to California at age 19, where she met and married her first husband. In 1971, she was touring behind Mother Earth, an ecological rock musical she’d co-written with Ron Thronson, when Dragon showed up at the show’s San Francisco auditions. The pair quickly bonded professionally and personally, moving from Mother Earth to the Beach Boys’ 1972 tour (where Tennille became the group's first and last “Beach Girl”) to the L.A. nightclub circuit. On November 11, 1975, the couple tied the knot, five months after their first A&M single, “Love Will Keep Us Together,” topped the Billboard Hot 100. (It’s a 3.)
In short succession, Captain & Tennille hit the Top 5 four more times. But by 1977, the duo’s fortunes were declining rapidly. Their variety show was cancelled by ABC after a single season; A&M Records dropped them one year later, after 1978’s Dream failed to even go gold. Unlikely salvation arrived via Neil Bogart, the coke-addled mastermind behind Casablanca Records, and by early 1979, Captain & Tennille were sharing a label with KISS, Donna Summer, and the Village People. A few months later, as Tennille auditioned several self-penned compositions for her new boss, Bogart singled out one of her "throwaways" as a potential smash, telling her “that’s going to be your first single.” True to his word, “Do That To Me One More Time” was released in late October. Four months later, it finally reached #1.
There’s an authenticity when Tennille writes for herself, and that authenticity alone makes “Do That To Me One More Time” marginally more palatable than most of the duo’s other hit records. The song itself oozes a quiet sort of sensuality—less unbridled desire, more long-term marital bliss—and its overall vibe certainly plays into the image of Captain & Tennille as a picture-perfect, carefree couple. (Decades later, Tennille’s 2016 autobiography revealed the reality to be far more noxious.) Plus, there’s all sorts of grace notes to elevate the track above the usual soft-rock flotsam. My favorite might be that quirky solo from Tom Scott, a veteran session musician who performed his part on a Lyricon, basically a synthesizer controller played like a soprano sax. (Scott and his Lyricon would later appear on Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which will be appearing on this site soon enough.)
But underneath its smooth exterior, “Do That To Me One More Time” is really just an unvarnished appeal for sex. Lots and lots of sex. Multiple bouts of sex. And “Captain & Tennille” should never appear in the same sentence as “lots of sex.” That’s to take nothing away from Toni Tennille, a singer versatile enough to have background vocal credits on both “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” and Pink Floyd’s The Wall. (And yes, I realize the latter credit in 1979 is akin to Celine Dion singing backup for Pearl Jam in 1994.) She’s strong. She’s confident. There’s a sly fashion in the way she stretches the line “once is never enough with a man like you.” But she can’t quite sell the sex angle. Imagine “Do That To Me” in the hands of Tina Turner, or Betty Wright, or a gender-switching Al Green; the song would be transformed. But Captain & Tennille were far too genteel to do their own creation justice. They only offer the G-rated version of an R-rated intention.
In an odd bit of serendipity, Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille finished their Top 40 history the same way they started—with a #1 song. Neither follow-up single even scraped the Top 50. For all its crossover success, the momentum of “Do That To Me One More Time” couldn’t keep the duo’s particular brand of ‘70s soft-rock from sounding hopelessly old-fashioned by the middle of 1980. And after 1982’s More Than Dancing wound up being released only in Australia, the couple didn’t record another album for a quarter-century.
The marriage, however, survived. Or at least it did until January 16, 2014, when Toni Tennille filed for divorce from her husband of thirty-nine years. But the story of one of pop’s most famous couples still had one last, bittersweet turn to take. Five years later, on January 2, 2019, the Captain passed away. Tennille was right by his side.
GRADE: 4/10
BONUS BITS: Another Simpsons clip, this time from the Season 16 episode "Don't Fear The Roofer." Yes, that voice is Ray Romano.
I WANT MY MTV: Watch the song’s low-key video and just imagine the reality show Captain & Tennille could’ve had in a different era. Life With The Captain? VH1 would’ve been all over this.