# RIP Doug Fieger **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 15, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059 "2010-02-15T12:20:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/1 "2010-02-15T12:20:30Z")
Doug Fieger the lead singer of “The Knack” (My Sharona) passed away at 57 after battling cancer. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/2 "2010-02-15T13:31:38Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > Doug Fieger the lead singer of “The Knack” (My Sharona) passed away at 57 after battling cancer. Apart from the Knack, the thing I’ll remember him for are his great guest vocals on the “Born to Laugh at Tornadoes” album was Was (Not Was). ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/3 "2010-02-15T13:51:56Z")
Damn. I really enjoyed his music. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/4 "2010-02-15T14:10:19Z")
Me, too - big time. I saw this and wanted to start a thread but couldn’t - glad to see someone else did. Man, that first album was pop perfection. A great Buddy Holly cover (Heartbeat) and some high-energy pop songs with enough bad-boy lyrics to reach my inner Beavis and Butthead. > [@](#): > > everybody plays her game > she got the style and the class and she get what she wants > yeah and everybody knows her name > she got the smile and the ass and the power to flaunt > 'cause she’s really in it just for herself - no she doesn’t care for nobody else > it’s just me me me me > she’s so selfish That’s pure pop Gold, Jerry. My band will rock My Sharona extra hard next time we play it… ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/5 "2010-02-15T15:11:28Z")
That’s two Knacks down to the big C. He was a very talented and intelligent man, and my condolences to his family and friends. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/6 "2010-02-15T15:33:04Z")
His brother is Jack Kevorkian’s attorney. Anyone smell a rat? RIP, Fieger. You made some great tunes…TRM ---
**Author:** ![In\_Winnipeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a8b319/32.png) [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/7 "2010-02-15T18:35:25Z")
**Get the Knack** was _definitely_ the summer album of 1979 in my neck of the woods; it seemed as though the local record stores couldn’t keep it in stock. _My Sharona_ was a great single and very much representative of the whole album, which seemed thematically to be about male teenage angst regarding sex. It must have struck a chord, the way it seemed to come out of nowhere, with an inherent smuttiness that us teenagers (at the time) exchanged knowing looks over with each other, even under the presence of the adults around us, as if they would never be capable of understanding what was going on, anyway. Ah, to be 18 and think you knew it all… ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/8 "2010-02-15T19:24:26Z")
The Knack and Doug Fieger have my eternal gratitude for doing one thing: delivering the mortal blow to disco. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/9 "2010-02-15T21:42:51Z")
Well I didn’t mean to make such a flippant thread title but I just wanted your attention. [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-doug-fieger15-2010feb15,0,6186924.story?track=rss](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-doug-fieger15-2010feb15,0,6186924.story?track=rss) Doug Fieger, 57, lead singer for the Knack has died of cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Magicicada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@Magicicada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magicicada)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/10 "2010-02-16T00:49:30Z")
Bye Doug…I was always one of the little girls who understood. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/11 "2010-02-16T00:59:40Z")
I’m ashamed to admit I never knew his name (or any of the other band members.) I was 12 in 1979 and \*Get the Knack \* ushered me from boyhood into adolescence. I’ve been playing \*My Sharona _on Rock Band 2 and it just has such a great fucking hook._ Good Girls Don’t \* taught me to dream about all the blooming young women in my school… . “She’s your adolescent dream, Schoolboy stuff, a sticky sweet romance. And she makes you want to scream, Wishing you could get inside her pants.” Juvenile? Maybe. _Exactly_ what was on my mind? Hell yes. ---
**Author:** ![BigBertha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@BigBertha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBertha)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/12 "2010-02-16T02:31:26Z")
I saw him some time last year on the Today Show. r.i.p. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/13 "2010-02-16T08:23:31Z")
“My Sharona” will always be a piece of rock music history. The guitar solo was sheer perfection, and the stuttering refrain will always be etched in my memory. It was the perfect summer song. M-m-m-m-m-m-m-my, my, my, aye-aye, whoa! M-m-m-my Sharona M-m-m-my Sharona M-m-m-my Sharona M-m-m-my Sharona Fieger’s girlfriend at the time, Sharona Alperine, is the real-life inspiration for the song (for most of the album, actually) and appears on the [picture sleeve](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/85/Mysharonapicsleeve.jpg) of the 45 rpm single. And of course, the Knack kick-started Weird Al Yankovic’s career with “My Bologna,” his parody of “My Sharona.” ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/14 "2010-02-17T11:12:38Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > “My Sharona” will always be a piece of rock music history. The guitar solo was sheer perfection, and the stuttering refrain will always be etched in my memory. It was the perfect summer song. I thought it was a fine pop-rock tune with a kick-ass extended guitar solo. Maybe the guitar sounds a bit trite now, I’m not really the best judge of such things. As a young teen in 1979 though, it was something of a culture shock to me, having been soaked in disco for however many years. I kept turning the station when it came on the radio - the drums and vocals at the beginning didn’t appeal to me for some reason, and I never made it far enough into the song to hear the solo. I finally heard it when browsing the electronics section at Zayres - I actually remember the first time I heard it - and never turned it off thereafter. The beginning of the song grew on me after that, once I found out it was building to that payoff 🙂 “Good Girls Don’t” is a great tune as well, though lacking the kickass extended guitar solo. Really shitty harp-work on that tune, but sometimes shitty works(see Dylan, Bob or Young, Neil), or the rest of the tune is good enough to look past it. Feiger’s vocals have an interesting, tongue-twister-like cadence to them that just energetically propels the song forward until it’s all-too-quickly over. The lines just before the chorus are what I’m thinking of: \* so ya fantasize away, while your squeezin’ her Ya thought ya heard her sayin’ good girl’s don’t good girl’s don’t well she’ll be tellin’ you good girl’s don’t, but I do…\* t_here’s a ringin in your brain cause you coulda swore ya thought you heard her sayin’ good girl’s don’t good girl’s don’t well she’ll be tellin you good girl’s don’t, but I do…_ Fun music. Joyous music, reveling in what it is to be young. Party music, without being bland, or bereft of an original sound or idea. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/15 "2010-02-18T14:24:14Z")
It’s amazing how fresh some of these songs sound - “Good Girls Don’t” could have been released last year, to my ear. It doesn’t sound thirty years old. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/16 "2010-02-18T14:35:15Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > It’s amazing how fresh some of these songs sound - “Good Girls Don’t” could have been released last year, to my ear. It doesn’t sound thirty years old. Exactly - it’s just good guitar rock/pop. Songs like Let Me Out, Frustrated, Oh Tara and She’s So Selfish (love that song; great use of the Bo Diddley beat) all stand up. I think of that album as a more juvenile version of Joe Jackson or Elvis Costello - great songs (with a bit more teen sex obsessiveness), tightly and simply arranged that stand up. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/17 "2010-02-18T15:16:45Z")
> [@Southern\_Yankee](#): > > I’m ashamed to admit I never knew his name (or any of the other band members.) I was 12 in 1979 and \*Get the Knack \* ushered me from boyhood into adolescence. I’ve been playing \*My Sharona _on Rock Band 2 and it just has such a great fucking hook._ Good Girls Don’t \* taught me to dream about all the blooming young women in my school… . > > “She’s your adolescent dream, > Schoolboy stuff, a sticky sweet romance. > And she makes you want to scream, > Wishing you could get inside her pants.” > > Juvenile? Maybe. _Exactly_ what was on my mind? Hell yes. I didn’t pick this up at the time, but years later, I heard Fieger say he was dong a Johnny Cash imitation on that record. Now that I know that, I STILL don’t think he sounds a bit like Johnny Cash, but he DOES sound like a Yankee with a thin voice TRYING to sound like Johnny Cash. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/18 "2010-02-18T15:20:48Z")
To be fair, NOBODY sounds like Johnny Cash. They might have the baritone, they might have the talking vocal style, but nobody has the pure haunting soul that Cash had. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/19 "2010-02-18T15:25:27Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > To be fair, NOBODY sounds like Johnny Cash. They might have the baritone, they might have the talking vocal style, but nobody has the pure haunting soul that Cash had. When I sing that song, I lean on my fake Johnny Cash, fer sure. > [@](#): > > You’re alone with her at last - and you’re waiting 'till you think the time is right > ‘cuz you heard she’s \*\*\*pretty fast \*\*\*and you’re hopin’ that she’ll give you some tonight That “pretty fast” is just begging to get some Johnny Cash and Elvis “thankyouverymuch” Presley goin’ on… ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-doug-fieger/529059/20 "2010-02-19T03:22:17Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I think of that album as a more juvenile version of Joe Jackson or Elvis Costello - great songs (with a bit more teen sex obsessiveness), tightly and simply arranged that stand up. This is an excellent description. Great album. RIP Doug.