I Know That Song! The One At Start of Fast Times At Ridgemont High

This plays in the opening scene of the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where we meet the main characters in their natural habitat: the Ridgemont Mall. The song doesn't appear on the soundtrack but got a lot of attention from the film.

This all female rock band wrote all their own songs, and along with the Bangles and The Dixie Chicks, are one of the most successful all-girl bands to do so. They were signed to IRS Records by Miles Copeland, who managed The Police and was the brother of Police drummer, Stewart Copeland. 

They played this song, along with their song "Our Lips Are Sealed", when they were musical guests on Saturday Night Live, November 14, 1981. The group would often have a few drinks before their shows, but for SNL they didn't take the stage until about midnight, so all that early drinking caught up with them, resulting in a legendarily bad performance. 

Today’s song evolved in part out of the group covering a Smokey Robinson song that served as the group's namesake: "Going to a Go Go" 

Taking inspiration from that, and from the cadence of the opening theme of The Twilight Zone, lead guitarist Charlotte Caffey wrote this song and reluctantly offered it to the band, afraid that it would not be punk enough, but when the rest of the band heard the song, they loved it. It went on to become the biggest hit for this group, spending three weeks at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, right behind Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n Roll". 

Today’s song opens the musical “Head Over Heels, based on the music of Today’s band, which played on Broadway in 2018. When an oracle, played by Peppermint of RuPaul's Drag Race, foresees a beatless future for the Elizabethan-era townsfolk of Arcadia, they respond with the tune.

We Got The Beat. The Go-Go’s I Know That Song.


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