A thread for Rupert Holmes, the Pina Colada song dude

Let's talk about this guy. This song totally brings the LOLZ. He really comes off as a stalker in this one doesn't he? I remember Negativland using a bit of this song once. So cheesy!

And what about this one, where he says he "just stepped out to buy some dog food for the cat"???

Well, he's no Bread, but damn, he's smooth.

The 45 rpm single of "Answering Machine" is one of the first records I ever bought, when I was 7 or 8. B-side is "Lunch Hour" (unavailable on YouTube) that opens with "She gets an hour for lunch/But if it comes to the crunch/She can stretch it, if you know what I mean."

LOLOLOLOLOLOL oh my god what the fuck is he talking about his goddamn glasses for??? This guy is a gold mine of funnies. He's like a bad movie I can't stop watching despite myself.

I have to hear that Lunch Hour track now.

Chorus:
Lunch hour, lunch hour, lunch hour, lunch hour
How do you find time to eat
When there are so many people on the street
And all of them are hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry
Give me sandwich to go!
As long as I have you I know
I'll never go hungry

Good heavens, he really plumbs the depths of how bad lyrics can get, I think.

And the part in the Him song where he talks about the cigarettes not being his brand "you understand"...omg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0WElXOdLBU

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat the fuck, lunch hour, I think this guy might have actually invented Weird Al.

Do you like pina colonics, and getting caught in therain... passing out in the ocean...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2_7Ujxt-sU

''I'm not much into health food''- god, what a weak basis for a relationship. This song and ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' should write each other personals ads based on a shared unpassion. ''I think we both kinda liked it.'' Or is it just hearing them both in one night at karaoke that's making me think this?

One of my primary school teachers was his mum (or maybe his mum-in-law, it was a long time ago).

—produced an album for Sparks
—wrote "You Got It All" (aka "You Got It All Over Him") by the Jets
—1994 album Scenario contains a song called "The Eighties Never Happened" and another called "Information Superhighway" in the #2 & #3 slots, respectively
—performed "Escape" on either MIke Douglas or Dinah Shore when I was in junior high and gave a theatrical face-mugging flourish to the line "I know that sounds kinda mean" which haunts me to this day
—"Him" clip that kicks off this thread is pretty unreal and should at least be viewed to the point when he leaves the piano for the siren call of the microphone: whose idea was this?
—latter question can be asked about a fair number of choices that on reflection were probably those of Rupert Holmes himself

kinda getting morbidly obsessed with this Scenario album, which is naturally out of print/hard to hunt down along with most of the rest of his catalog

did anyone see that nyt article where he was getting mad at wikipedia for giving away the ending of the pina colada song

guys you have to find me this record

His first album since Full Circle didn’t arrive until 1994, and in an unlikely place: Japan. The Japanese JVC label had commissioned an album from Holmes, who quickly realized that for most listeners, English would be a second language. So he adapted his lyrical style to a somewhat simpler one; the album also sounded different, too. Due to a grueling schedule and lack of time, Holmes played all of the album’s instruments himself, most via synthesizer. Recently, Holmes wrote of Scenario: “How do I feel about these songs? I am totally comfortable with some of them.” It’s a fair description. On one track, Holmes asserts “The Eighties Never Happened” but nicely concluding as a result, “And we’re back in love again.” On “Information Superhighway,” he tackles downloading, modems and megabytes on a track that now seems a bit quaint! “The Hurting Part” is another Holmes look at picking up the pieces of a troubled relationship, and was intended to be the album’s single.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsZ5a5UQvrs

to know that this dude once got a ton of pussy, really pisses me off.

mudball35 2 months ago 42

looooooooooool

oddest holmesfac i know - he wrote the novel that the atom egoyan film 'where the truth lies' was based on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkulXMkx_0

this is very special

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI3vTbhZyOM

i think of so very many things when i watch that.

i want aerosmith bootleg's take on rupert's performance technique during that number. or anyone's take. its pretty touching.

Once I was working in a diner and a customer had gone outside to smoke a cigarette and left his phone on the table. Someone called it and his ringtone was "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)", which played for about 30 second. Then silence for a minute or so. Then we hear "If you like pina colada!" as someone calls it again. Then another silence. Then someone calls it again. "IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADA!" It was hilarious, almost like a real life version of the Simpsons rake gag. Phone probably went off 5 times before he came back in.

that video scott posted is EVERYTHING

Rupert's Broadway musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was revived last year, and it was awesome. His songwriting in that musical is a great blend of catchy and witty. some cheesy lyrics, but overall, hard to believe he's the same guy guilty of the clunkers quoted upthread.

omggggggggggggggggg that video

Rupert Holmes looks like a motherfucker with some dark secrets

also, halfway to ferrell-as-goulet, crossed with jeff lynne

yeah if someone like Ferrell recreated that performance with total accuracy, they wouldn't have to do anything to 'play it for laughs'

i think of so very many things when i watch that.

― scott seward, Saturday, August 10, 2013 8:16 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm glad some of you watched that. i didn't want to be all alone in the world. needed to share.

https://vine.co/v/hhEl5Q2e3OF

That video is special. Thanks Scott.

that song about the cannibals was pretty good (really)

Is THAT what he meant by ''Lunch Hour''? Wow, yeah, dude had some issues...

i found it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGNdvKvbxYQ

it's catchy as hell

If you like eating some people
And getting caught by the cops

that video scott posted is EVERYTHING

― some dude, Sunday, August 11, 2013 6:33 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

QFT

Amazing.

Can't wait to watch the videos ITT when I get home. I've been blasting through pretty much everything that charted in '80-'81 lately and this guy is all over the place. He certainly found his niche and rode it for all it's worth. So much CLEVERNESS! Listening to 'I Don't Need You' just now, which is basically 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love' recast as a novelty song.

'Escape' is kind of perfect because it's about an awful, shallow couple rekindling their romance by rediscovering how awful and shallow they both are.

is this the video Scott posted?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rui30alanCs

We shouldn't forget Anal Cunt's version of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DGSW0mnsZE

He invented the yuppie.

Unregistered: Yes.

Imagine meeting the date you've set up from the personal ads and discovering it's only your husband, singer/songwriter Rupert Holmes.

Opening narration to "Him" is soooooooooo fantastic. Gotta say, song is ripe for a cover, in the Facebook era - feel like there must be a lot more puzzling-out and realizing of affairs than back in Rupe's day.

"Timothy" was pulled from this album:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5161XcG3KfL._SY300_.jpg

which as you can see was also called "Timothy". Or was it called "Give Up Your Guns"? (which was another single from the album?)

Neither title was as anywhere near as macabre as what was printed on the rear cover: "Dinner Music"

http://assets.rootsvinylguide.com/pictures/the-buoys-timothy-lp-acid-psych_2215274

So which of these three is the proper album title? This can usually be gleaned by checking the album spine. But the spine reads simply, "The Buoys".

So we have here an album with FOUR titles!

Interviewed on the latest Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

Very fun interview, to boot

Disappointed the 'Widesceen' album isn't streaming.

Born in Cheshire I see.

Currently working on a musical about Andy Warhol, he claims

What was the video Scott posted four years ago that was getting the rave reviews?

I can't find it, but it was a version of "Him" where Rupert introduces it by directly speaking to the camera about what inspired him to write such a song.

To make up for it, here's Rupert and the Village People.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxn5GElNM9I

Update to thread: "Lunch Hour" is now on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh_QdKdQgYg

The video link shows on my phone, but not the work 'puter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rui30alanCs

That's the one.

Hearing "Lunch Hour" for the first time: best thing evah, at least today.

whoa lunch hour is the best song ive ever heard!

Ok, so he hasn't died or been implicated

haha lunch hour ffs

lunch hour is all time

He was on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast this week!
https://www.gilbertpodcast.com/rupert-holmes-returns/

HIM. HIM. HIMMMMMMM.

I can't really argue - it's schlock and rather lazy despite the emphasis he tries to throw into the title - but man it gets in my head sometimes. You're sooooo wrong on Key Largo though!

Admittedly, this bit on Higgins is great: "with the backing track generating the frisson of a toupee in a bucket of water" - lol

this guy, man…quite the life.

Over the decades, the playwright, novelist and singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes has collected quite the haul of trophies and treasures. They include — deep breath, now — two Tony Awards (for the book and score of his 1985 musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”), two Edgar Awards, 16 gold records, and 15 platinum records, including for his 1979 earworm “Escape.” (You undoubtedly know it as “The Piña Colada Song”).

In his home studio, Mr. Holmes has a framed thank-you note from Barbra Streisand, for his contributions to her 1975 album “Lazy Afternoon,” as a composer and co-producer, and a signed Rosebud matchbook from Orson Welles, whom he met on a talk show. He also has a piano bench that belonged to Marvin Hamlisch, a gift from Mr. Hamlisch’s widow.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/realestate/rupert-holmes-upstate-ny-home.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Haha, what.

https://i.imgur.com/89pSElm.png

New York's newest escape room experience, Escape the Piña Colada Song.

—produced an album for Sparks

True, and he inspired one of their more poignant verses:

I can dance like Rupert Holmes
I can sing like Rupert Holmes
But I can't be Rupert Holmes

And she said, "Oh. It's you."

That line is best read in the voice Jerry Seinfeld uses when he sees Newman.