Musical Monday - Happy Talk by Captain Sensible

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: July 3, 1982 through July 10, 1982.

Happy Talk is a song originally composed for the 1949 Broadway musical South Pacific by Rogers and Hammerstein. In the play, set during World War II, Bloody Mary uses the song to help her daughter Liat woo American Lieutenant Cable, overcoming Liat's inability to speak English and Cable's inability to speak Tonkin with the lyrics of a song about talking to each other.

With that background, this seems like an odd choice of a song to become a top hit in the U.K. in the early 1980s. After all, a song about a U.S. serviceman fighting the Japanese falling in love with a Polynesian girl who he cannot speak to or understand seems like something that wouldn't really resonate with the average person in the U.K. in 1982. I suppose it isn't that surprising that a Rogers and Hammerstein song became a pop hit - Jay and the Americans had a hit with Some Enchanted Evening in the 1960s.

Given the songs that dominated the U.K. pop charts in the early 1980s, there seems to have been some sort of weird nostalgia craze running through the culture. It would still be some time before the 1980s found their own voice. I guess it could have been stranger. You've Got to Be Carefully Taught could have been the pop hit from South Pacific that hit the top of the U.K. charts in 1982.

Previous Musical Monday: I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

Subsequent Musical Monday: Fame by Irene Cara

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Fame by Irene Cara

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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