Back in 1985, today’s singer was pretty much at the top of his form. He had just charted his 4th Gold Record and his career was hot.
One day, while ad-libbing to a drum machine track, he just started using nonsense words to get the melody and pacing down. One of those words was the title of today’s song. He had planned to go back later and re-write the real lyrics to complete the song, but he found that nothing worked better than the nonsense word, so it stayed in and the record became his 5th Gold Record.
This kind of word play wasn't really unusual for today’s singer. When he was the drummer and frontman for the band Genesis and they were stuck on a song title, he would just use the sections of a song they had lettered and the order they played them in. That's where the title of the song ‘Abacab’ came from. (CLIP)
While today’s singer is the second richest drummer in the world, there are no actual drums on today’s song. Instead, he put together the groove on the old Roland TR-909 drum machine. And the horns, which many people felt raised this song to another level, and is the ONLY part today’s singer says he likes about this song, are from Earth, Wind & Fire’s Phenix Horns.
When this was released in 1985, critics quickly pointed out that this song's similarity with Prince's hit "1999." (CLIP)
He himself owned up to the influence right away, telling Billboard: “I loved that song. I bought it when it first came out and I used to listen to it on the road. I just took the tempo … I locked it into the drum machine. That was the end of it.” Confirming he was a “big fan,” he added, “I’d love to sound like Prince.”
Phil Collins...Sussidio...I Know That Song