Toni Basil: Nobody (1982)

 |   |  <1 min read

Toni Basil: Nobody (1982)

Is there a more annoying song than Toni Basil's inanely catchy Mickey ("Oh Mickey you're so fine . . . hey Mickey" etc)?

It's the kind of song you wake up with banging around inside your head and you spend the rest of the day wondering what you did in a previous lifetime to deserve such hellish punishment.

It is in there with Racey's Some Girls ("some girls will, some girls won't").

Apparently inspired by Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees, it singlehandedly invented cheerleader-pop . . . and is more than a little salacious when you pay attention. 

You'd think such repetitive pop would be easy to write and that Basil -- who was one of the naked and out-of-it girls in Easy Rider and later a pop choreographer of some note -- would find repeated chart success with the formula.

But after Mickey that was it for her and Nobody, a sort of photocopy rewrite of Mickey in many ways, didn't even make the top 50 in Britain where she'd previously had a number one with that damnable song.

So be warned, watching the clip below could put you in a foul mood come morning.

But will you remember Nobody? Nobody does. 

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Patti Smith: So You Want to be a Rock'n'Roll Star (1979)

Patti Smith: So You Want to be a Rock'n'Roll Star (1979)

Although the Byrds' 1967 original of this much covered rock classic has a significant sarcasm to it, the lyrical bite was ameliorated by the Byrds' close harmony and airy delivery, and the... > Read more

Stephanie Dosen: Within You Without You (2007)

Stephanie Dosen: Within You Without You (2007)

For centuries a wide strain of folk music existed without the appellation “drone folk”, a convenience label which seemed to emerge some time in the Nineties. There was always an... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

YVES SAINT LAURENT (2013): Our man in Marrakech

YVES SAINT LAURENT (2013): Our man in Marrakech

While there's no argument about the genius of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, the jury is still out over his artwork. In my family, at least. After a visit to Jardin Majorelle in... > Read more

DON WALKER INTERVIEWED (2014): Cold Chisel, apples, pears and Engelbert

DON WALKER INTERVIEWED (2014): Cold Chisel, apples, pears and Engelbert

The droll, dry and fiercely intelligent Don Walker is consider by many to be among Australia's greatest songwriters -- if not the greatest – because of his songs for Cold Chisel, with the... > Read more