This song was all the buzz in high school… for a week anyway, then it just disappeared from MTV. Largely because it sounded like he was spelling what was then the ultimate expletive, I’m sure.
I was recently told that it was not intentional. Anybody know the story behind this song?
Unintentional? I hardly think so. “If you see Kay” is one of the stalest puns in the English language. But contrary to popular legend, Soupy Sales never used it on TV it in the 1950s. I wasn’t able to find out much about any song by that title, except this. Bluesmen trying to pull one over on the uninitiated, perhaps?
I had a conversation about this song years ago with a friend. The artist in question was not Squeeze’s Paul Carrack, but a band called the Poster Children:
***g. Daisy Chain Reaction
Daisy Chain Reaction is our 2nd release, with Rick and Rose and new guitarist Jeff (who now plays bass in the band Hum) and new drummer Bob Rising (who afterwards played in the bands Seam and Hardvark.) This record was originally released on Twin/Tone Records (Soul Asylum and The Replacements’ old label), but after we signed to Sire in 1991, we had Sire buy it off of Twin/Tone because Twin/Tone was having distribution problems at the time. DCR was recorded by Steve Albini at Chicago Recording Company, but the “hit song” If You See Kay is actually from the 8-track demos that we did in Steve’s basement. Many people believe that “If You See Kay” is a cover; although I hear that there are other songs with the same name, be assured, this is our own song.
MTV played our video for If You See Kay a good number of times on 120Minutes. A funny trivia fact: we were originally going to make the video for the song Chain Reaction but Twin/Tone sent a tape of the wrong song to Bill Ward, the video director. Then Bill Ward suggested that we do a video for If You See Kay, since it was a shorter song, and he liked it better, and we agreed. We probably wouldn’t be where we are right now if this hadn’t happened.
Songs on this record: 1) Dee, 2) Cancer, 3) If You See Kay, 4) Love, 5) Freedom Rock, 6) Space Gun, 7) Water, 8) Want It, 9) Carver’s, 10) Chain Reaction, 11) Frustration, 12) Where We Live. All Songs By Poster Children. ***
From: http://www.posterchildren.com/albums/g.html
No direct explanation here, but perhaps this incredibly vague aside will help: The aforementioned drummer, Bob Rising, and I were acquaintances at one point and I seem to recall discussing this song with him. I seem to recall it was fairly obvious that If You See Kay meant F*CK. Of course, who ever listens to the drummer?
I guess you could search posterchildren.com (they’ve got interviews and stuff on der) for a more definitive answer.
I have an album by an American band called April Wine, Powr Play, that was released in the early 1980’s. It features a track called If You See Kay (yes, I got the joke too :rolleyes:}, which was completely new to me when I heard it. In fact I had never heard of any other song by the same name. This terack certainly isn’t blues, but the sentiment of the song is much the same.
DVous, does the April Wine version’s chorus go “If you see Kay, tell her I love her”? I think they used to play that video in the 80s on a free broadcast MTV wanna-be channel in Phoenix.
My Daddy has a few hundred player piano rolls from the 20s and 30s (yes Ampico for you aficiandos) and one of them is entitled “If You See Katy”, and it is the same silly pun.
Revtim, That’s definitely the chorus to the song I was asking about. However, I was familiar with April Wine in that day, although not with thier song, and I feel sure I would have recognized them when I saw the video had it been April Wine. The my guess would be The Poster Children, as mentioned above, since I was obviously way off with Paul Carrack.
DPWhite If you get a chance, could you email me sometime with the date/publisher of the piano roll? I keep records of this kind of thing. I don’t have any cites back that far. Thanks.
darkhawk, I assumed you were hearing this in high school recently, which I now realize may have been an incorrect assumption. What time frame were you referring to in you original post?
Revtim- Well… It still seems like yesterday, but I’m talking around '82 or '83. Sorry, I didn’t realize this was such a common phrase in song or I would have been more specific.
It was almost certainly the same song on the video channel in Phoenix, the time frame is right. All I remember is the punny lyric (once my sister pointed it out) and a scene of who I guess was Kay diving into a pool.
Not the most original video image, unfortunately.