“Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes is about a guy who is so bored with his current partner that he seeks out a woman who advertised in the personals about liking, among other things, piña coladas. They meet only for the dude to figure out the woman is his current partner.
“Babooshka” by Kate Bush is about a wife disguises herself as another woman, the eponymous Babooshka, and sends her husband love letters. The husband, intrigued, agrees to meet the woman, who strikes him as—to borrow from the lyrics—“uncanny, how she reminds him of his little lady.”
They’re the same song written from different perspectives.
The plot of Robert F. Young’s “Doll-Friend” features a husband who goes to a dance-hall and becomes entranced with the personality of the dance android’s operator, who turns out to be his wife sneaking out.
Not me; I’m looking to get paralyzed in a crazy foreign war and then ineffectually threaten to get my gun and put my cheating wife in the ground if only I could get out of this chair.
One wishes for a realistic rewrite in which, at the end reveal, the girlfriend gives the guy a resounding slap, says “We are done, you cheating bastard”, and walks away never to return.
True, they were both cheating. I just hate the cutesy ending.
It should have ended up in a blazing fight and irrevocable breakup.
At least, that’s what would likely happen in real life.
I see some key differences in these songs. In “Escape”, both the man and the woman are seeking a new lover; they’re both surprised when they discover the person they’re meeting is their current lover. In “Babooshka”, the woman knows she is writing to her husband. Then, in a very implausible ending, he doesn’t recognize his wife when they meet.
Shortly after Pina Colada came out, our local alternative newspaper (remember them?) ran an ad in the personals section (remember those?). I can’t remember the entire ad, but I remember its opening and closing.
If you like pink Ford Granadas
You’re into bondage and pain
(something something something something) Get in touch with my ex-wife.
