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Rupert Holmes – “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”

TOP 40 DEBUT: November 10, 1979

PEAK POSITION: #1 (January 12, 1980)


The most famous song ever written about piña coladas isn’t really about piña coladas. Title aside, “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” is absolutely and positively about infidelity. And although that’s an easy sell in pop music, a genre built on the twin foundations of love songs and cheatin’ songs, “Escape” tries really hard to pretend it’s not a cheatin’ song. To wit: Pop songwriting dictates that when you sing about unfaithfulness, you take a side. You’re either the wronged party (“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”) or the party in the wrong (“Me And Mrs. Jones”); your pain either stems from betrayal, or guilt. But “Escape” doesn’t take a side at all. It doesn’t have to, because in Rupert Holmes’ beyond-massive #1 hit, infidelity never leads to pain. It leads to a punchline.


Holmes was born David Goldstein in Cheshire, England, the son of a U.S. Army officer and a British mother. The family relocated to the New York City suburbs when he was six, and both Rupert and his brother Richard eventually attended a private music conservatory nearby. In 1974, Holmes’ debut for Epic Records, Widescreen, brought him to the attention of Barbara Streisand. She recorded a few of his songs for her own albums, including the blockbuster soundtrack to A Star Is Born. On that one, Holmes got to collaborate with the god of ‘70s songwriters, Paul Williams. (Williams forever gets a pass for composing “The Rainbow Connection.” Kermit the Frog took it to #25 in November 1979. It’s a 10.) As the decade progressed, Holmes stayed busy behind the scenes: He produced records for British singer/songwriter Lynsey de Paul and the gloriously weird cult band Sparks. He wrote a minor UK hit for the vocal group Manhattan Transfer. He made a few more solo records. And in the summer of 1979, Holmes recorded “Escape,” his first Top 40 hit under his own name—but not his first Top 40 writing credit.


Eleven years earlier, Rupert Holmes was like many young, struggling musicians: Newly married, fresh out of college, and eager to dive into the music business. His first break came after befriending Michael Wright, a junior engineer working at the in-house studio for Scepter Records, home at the time to Dionne Warwick and B.J. Thomas. Wright was working with The Buoys, an unknown Pennsylvania band signed to Scepter for one single, and he needed a gimmick to keep the group from getting dropped. Holmes’ solution? Write a song explicitly designed to be banned by radio.


The result was “Timothy,” a bouncy ditty about two guys trapped in a collapsed mine who survive by eating their friend. It was tasteless, gruesome, purposely offensive—and a hit. (Despite most stations refusing to play the single, “Timothy” still peaked at #17 in May 1971. It’s a 6.) In wrapping his juvenile prank of a song in sun-drenched harmonies and a stomping hook, Holmes showed a flair for provocation a la Randy Newman. But “Timothy” also displayed the beginnings of an insufferable streak, the mark of a clever writer who wants to make sure you know just how clever he is at all times.


The protagonists of “Escape”—Holmes’ narrator and his (ahem) “old lady”—never resort to cannibalism. But in every other respect, they’re pretty awful. Their lives are static, mundane, caught in the “same old dull routine.” They eat poorly and don’t exercise. They frequent generic Irish bars with names like O'Malley's. Their fantasy getaway consists mainly of champagne, nauseatingly-sweet liquor drinks, and actual (and, one assumes, incredibly uncomfortable) sex on the beach. In short, Narrator and Old Lady seem like the exact kind of Seventies schlubs who decide the best way to commit adultery is via the “Personals” section of the local newspaper. And for Rupert Holmes, the only reason they exist is to be the butt of his smug, satisfied joke.


Holmes had written the music for “Escape” years earlier, in a matter of speaking. The song’s backing track was a 16-bar phrase from an older, discarded recording; he and his producer Jim Boyer performed a primitive version of “looping” by copying the section repeatedly to a new tape, then splicing all the edits by hand. The result? A cod-reggae groove as interpreted by Jimmy Buffet’s backup band, or perhaps the soundtrack to a Sandals Resorts commercial where two boring white people cheat on each other. The actual line about piña coladas was originally “if you like Humphrey Bogart,” meaning Coco López owes their entire fortune to Holmes’ spur-of-the-moment decision to swap out a Casablanca reference five minutes before the tape rolled.


The rest of the lyrics were composed the night before the session, and that “first draft” quality extended to the recording itself, with Holmes cutting his lead vocal in one initial, spontaneous take. So the argument that “Escape” is actually a pitch-black satire about the “Me” generation’s need for instant gratification at all costs? Possible, but highly unlikely. Far more plausible is the notion that Holmes, working on a deadline, simply landed on his punchline and worked backwards from there. (On the way to the studio, he even read the lyrics to his cab driver to confirm the twist wasn’t telegraphed.) If Rupert Holmes functioned as the M. Night Shyamalan of 1979, then “Escape” was his Sixth Sense, the pop-culture smash with the “gotcha” ending.


So let’s talk about that twist. Is it clever? Marginally. Does it make sense? Not even a little. (The first words out of one’s mouth when caught by one’s partner in an act of infidelity are never, “Oh, it’s you.”) But its biggest crime is tonal. Holmes presents the entire denouncement as a cutesy charade, the sort of humorous misadventure you laugh about over brunch. The reality is nothing of the sort.


“Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” is a toxic story about toxic people in a toxic relationship. Narrator is a callow sexist who contemplates infidelity while his significant other sleeps three feet away. Old Lady refuses to share her innermost fantasies with her own partner but happily advertises for a very specific (and scratchy) method of lovemaking in the Classifieds. These people could try communicating. They could go to couples counseling. Or they could decide the rifts in their relationship are simply too deep, and agree to part ways amicably, like adults. Instead, they attempt extramarital affairs simultaneously. And their comeuppance is to wind up exactly where they began, both miserable parties trapped in a hell of their own making.


None of this mattered to the general public, of course. Once the subtitle “The Piña Colada Song” was added (over Holmes’ protests), “Escape” became a phenomenon. And the dark subtext of the story got steamrolled in the wake of that bright, sparkly chorus. “Escape” was, fittingly, the final #1 single of the 1970s, and then rose back to #1 in the second week of 1980, the first song to ascend to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in multiple decades. (Mariah Carey finally matched the feat in 2019-20.) And its success spread far beyond radio playlists; the titular drink went from Puerto Rican curiosity to world-famous cocktail in less than a year.


Forty years later, the song lives on: in Marvel movies, in TV shows, in Simpsons reruns. And to his eternal chagrin, Rupert Holmes will not be remembered for his two Tony Awards, or his three books, or the Emmy-award-winning television series he created. He will be remembered for a dumb song about two horrible people discovering they are perfectly horrible for each other, and also learning they both like piña coladas.


GRADE: 3/10


BONUS BITS: Here’s the great scene from Guardians Of The Galaxy where Star Lord gets his “Escape” on.


BONUS BONUS BITS: Here’s a brief moment from the terrible movie The Sweetest Thing, including solely for the spectacle of Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate crooning along to Rupert Holmes, spectacularly off-key.


BONUS BONUS BONUS BITS: Homer Simpson’s lyrical reinterpretation of “The Piña Colada Song," taken from the Season 10 episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday," is one for the ages.

I WANT MY MTV: Technically this isn’t an official video, just a lip-synced performance from the Dutch TV show TopPop, but still essential viewing since Rupert Holmes looks exactly like the kind of dude you'd expect to sing, “I was tired of my lady/ We’d been together too long.”


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