Bubbling Under: Grace Jones- "Pull Up To The Bumper"

In your long black limousine...

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each edition I cover a song or artist that just missed charting on the Hot 100. This week: Grace Jones

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I actually can’t believe it took me this long to write about Grace Jones. I’ve idolized her since I was a nine-year-old boy watching A View To A Kill on TV with my dad. Usually, I hate the antagonists, but Grace Jones didn’t make me angry as May Day. I thought she was insanely stylish and fascinating.

Grace Jones hit the Bubbling Under charts three times in her musical career. Once during her disco diva phase for a cover of “La Vie En Rose”, and twice in the early 1980s. Because I prefer her output from the second two times, we’re taking a trip to 1981.

Right away, I’m going to stress that I get why this wasn’t a pop hit over here. Not only is it nothing like what mainstream audiences were listening to in 1981, the lyrics are all double entendres.

I tend to like melody over lyrical content, and it took me years to realize how provocative the lyrics to this are:

Pull up to my bumper baby
In your long black limousine
Pull up to my bumper baby
And drive it in between

I know Grace Jones shocked people. She was just being herself, though, and didn’t really care if it caused a reaction. The thing is, though, if you look past that, she is incredibly underrated as a performer. “Pull Up To The Bumper” is one of the greatest dance tracks of the early 1980s, and it still holds up to this day. One could play “Pull Up To The Bumper” alongside current popular tracks, and people who hadn’t heard this before would be none the wiser.

“Pull Up To The Bumper” did turn out to be a huge R&B hit. Again, it sounds nothing like a lot of what was on the R&B charts at the time, either. Sure, Prince and Rick James were around by this point, but “Pull Up To The Bumper” sounds several years ahead melodically, and everyone else was still slightly disco tinged.

It wasn’t a huge UK hit at the time either, but when the track was released again in 1985 to promote Jones’ Island Life compilation album, it did finally hit a solid #12. I would gather that the video I remember Much More Music showing on TV in the early 2000s was the one shot to promote this re-release.

Even though “Pull Up To The Bumper” was the third single to be pulled from Jones’ 1981 album Nightclubbing, it’s the best known (and likely the biggest) hit to have been pulled from the album.

The first single, the Sting-written “Demolition Man” didn’t go anywhere. “Demolition Man” was written but not recorded for their Zenyattà Mondatta album. The story goes that Jones requested a song by Sting for the album.

Jones released her version early in 1981 before The Police finally got around to issuing theirs on their Ghost In The Machine album, which was released that October.

I prefer Grace Jones’ version, to be honest.

"I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)" was the other big single culled from Nightclubbing. The track is essentially a lyrical version of Astor Piazzolla’s 1974 recording “Libertango”.

The single was a hit in Europe but didn’t cross over into the UK and North America. In ‘Murica, “Pull Up To The Bumper” was the lead-off single, followed by a cover of Bill Withers’ “Use Me” and the self-written “Feel Up”.

“Feel Up” feels like an even funkier sibling to “Pull Up To The Bumper”. There are aspects of it that remind me of Belle Stars’ later version of “The Clapping Song”.

Both of these are pretty cool choices for singles, but I get why neither took off. A year later, Jones once again had another Bubbling Under entry with “Nipple To The Bottle”, but I’m jumping ahead of myself, and that’s a post for another week.

Another single off Nightclubbing, a cover of Vanda and Young’s “Walking In The Rain” was a hit in a few countries, including the UK (#34).

Jones tended to cover songs and make them into her own creations with her signature sound. This was no exception.

The original version of “Walking In The Rain” was recorded by Vanda and Young’s Flash and The Pan. It was originally the B-Side to their hit "Hey St. Peter” which was released in 1976 and reissued throughout the late 70s to the point that it charted in other countries as late as 1979.

Because these guys had a similar sing-talky sound to Jones and the fact that it sounds ahead of its time musically, having her cover this was a no-brainer.

Again, Jones’ version is slightly sped up and has a little more melody to it. Even though the original sounded close to her style already, she takes a track that was a B-side for another artist and makes it her own to the point where most people probably don’t even realize this was a cover.

That is the work of a true genius.

Next Week: Beyond The Guess Who returns with a look at late 80s dance pop act Kon Kan.