Another Shakin' Stevens single, another obscure-ish cover version; this time it's 'Green Door', made famous in the UK by Frankie Vaughan's 1956 number 2 hit (though Jim Lowe's original got to number 8 the previous month).
'Green Door' tells the tale of the singer's frustration at not knowing what kind of carry on is going down behind the eponymous coloured door. It's never explained, but it sounds like a hell of a party:
"There's an old piano and
they play it hot behind the green door
Don't know what they're doin'
But they laugh a lot behind the green door"
The problem here is that Stevens attacks the song with such straight enthusiasm it sounds like he doesn't really care all that much about 'what they're doin'' because he's having such a blast on his side of the door; it's actually the others who are missing out on the action and the "eyeball peepin' through a smokey cloud" belongs to someone watching him jealously, just dying to join in.
But that was 'Shakey' in the eighties, a one man party in a denim jacket. You didn't buy his singles to sit and watch through a keyhole, you were meant to get up and dance around with him and there was no need to stand on ceremony either. It's easy to dismiss this as a novelty cover version, but just like 'This Old House', the energy is infectious and only the most po of faces would be able to resist cracking a smile at it.
'Green Door' tells the tale of the singer's frustration at not knowing what kind of carry on is going down behind the eponymous coloured door. It's never explained, but it sounds like a hell of a party:
"There's an old piano and
they play it hot behind the green door
Don't know what they're doin'
But they laugh a lot behind the green door"
The problem here is that Stevens attacks the song with such straight enthusiasm it sounds like he doesn't really care all that much about 'what they're doin'' because he's having such a blast on his side of the door; it's actually the others who are missing out on the action and the "eyeball peepin' through a smokey cloud" belongs to someone watching him jealously, just dying to join in.
But that was 'Shakey' in the eighties, a one man party in a denim jacket. You didn't buy his singles to sit and watch through a keyhole, you were meant to get up and dance around with him and there was no need to stand on ceremony either. It's easy to dismiss this as a novelty cover version, but just like 'This Old House', the energy is infectious and only the most po of faces would be able to resist cracking a smile at it.
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