August 7, 2024 • 32 mins
One thing Cher's career has never been is predictable.This week, hosts Rob Sheffield and Brittany Spanos celebrate Cher's incredible legacy with her 1998 hit and best-selling song "Believe" as the focal point. They are joined by artist and DJ Bright Light Bright Light who opened for Cher on tour several years ago and has been a lifelong fan of the legend.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Britney Spanis.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on
the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
so great.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today we're talking about Believe by Share, a song that
is actually perfect.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
The whole story, the whole greatness, the whole legacy of
the madness pop music. One perfect song.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This song made its debut on the twenty twenty one
list at three thirty seven, and on previous list, SHARE's
only entry was with Sunny for I Got You Babe.
It ranked a number four forty four on the two
thousand and four list, but actually did not make the
new list, but Believe did. And I think it's a
part of a grand story of Share and kind of
the mini ups and downs that she's had that have
(00:50):
led to kind of this newfound and very very appropriate
sort of appreciation for her solo career that's happened over
I think like the last decade really of the kind
of Share.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I have to say, Brittany and Believe are a cosmic pair.
I think SHARE's Belief is arguably the most Britney song
of all time. Yeah, just the esthetic, the legacy, everything
about it.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah. Do you remember where you were when you first
heard Believe?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Absolutely? Yes, it was when it came out, heard it
on the radio. The synthiness of the chorus, which we
will talk about, and the vocal and just that aspect
of the production was so new and exciting. But also
this was share singing, an intense share song about Sharre's life.
There were lots of those in the nineties, so many
of them. Yeah, and yet Believe seemed to be even
(01:40):
by her standards, on a whole other level.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, I very distinctly remember it was nineteen eighty nine
or two thousand when I first heard the song, and
it was after sort of again, this beginning of the
bubblegum pop era that was overtaking the world and my
world specifically. But I very distinctly remember going over to
a friend's house and her mom let us watch Spice World.
So we watch Spice World, but she said we can
(02:03):
only watch Spice Rol if she put something on after,
and she put on a share concert film from one
of her Vega shows, I Believe, and she was like
watch this pay attention to her wigs, and that line
changed my life. So that was my origin story of
Share was pay attention to her wigs, and I did.
I listened very carefully, and those wigs changed everything.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Wow, wherever you are right now, I want to thank
you for saying those words to a young Britney Spanish.
How much you changed the world. Since then, the whole
world has been paying attention to Brittany, paying attention to
this way.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So Share, I mean, there's so much that leads up
to Believe, and I feel like we really need to
get into the decades that built up to this, because
it was such a big deal for Share at fifty
two to release the song Believe and to have it
become the biggest song of her career, and there was
so much kind of you know, big moments and then
like big flops and then kind of disappearances and then
(02:56):
other things. So I feel like we need to really
really get into it. Share, of course, gets her start
in the sixties. She meets Sonny Bono. She's sixteen, he's
thirty two. He's working at phil Specter and they start
releasing music. A couple of years later, they get married, it's,
you know, not a great sort of age gap situation
that's happening then. But anyway, they get married when she's eighteen,
(03:18):
they start releasing music and they're pretty successful. Immediately they
have I Got You Babe, the beat goes on. The
songs are huge, huge sixties pop records, and of course
Share is starting her solo career.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
At the time too.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
She releases Bang Bang and you know, everything's real, real
groovy in the Sonny and Chair world. But then the
late sixties hit and they kind of fall off. You know,
they kind of aren't They're a little square to people.
What was your kind of remembering of the Sonny and
Share songs? Were they really really uncool when you were
when you were a little kid, or were they kind
(03:50):
of always kind of part of public consciousness?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
They were always there, They were on TV? Is the
thing like that? It was a huge thing for them
to be hosting a music variety show where other people
would come and do their music. So it wasn't even
that you loved Sonny and Share, although you did. They
were so funny on their show. They were a comedy duo,
but also who was going to show up that week
and do songs, who was going to do their hits.
(04:15):
There was a bit of all pop music in their show,
so it's almost like they were DJs as well as
performers in their own right, because somebody was going to
be on Sonny and Share Sunday night and they were
going to be doing their hits. So it was a
sort of weekly education in music.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, and of course that Variety show is such a
big part of bringing them back in the seventies and
making them popular again after their music kind of kind
of lost its touch on the charts. And also Share
solo career was really panned at this time, even though
some great albums were happening at that time. Of course,
her Jackson Highway album, which is all of her kind
of country and rock covers. I just want to give
a shout out to that because it's a very good
(04:51):
album and critics panned it, but I thought it was great.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Would you say that it has one of the all
time greatest versions of a Bob Dylan song?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I sure would.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I would agree with you. I would say that tonight
I'll be staying here with you.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Yeah version.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, outsong and outsold. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
The Bob Dylan Share Connection itself would be like three
held episodes. But it's also whild that Share was the
ultimate pop star in the seventies just because she would
do a little bit of everything. She would steal from everything. Also,
she was on TV and everybody knew her and she
had wide open taste. Everybody knows now the astounding performance
(05:27):
where David Bowie was a guest on The Share Show
and they did a medley of pop songs from the
fifties sixty seventies. They did this the most insane medley
of songs. It could only have been Bowie and Share. Yeah,
it's one of the freakiest things ever aired on network TV.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like, kind of looking back
on seventy Share is such a perfect kind of example
of how many ups and downs she went into her career,
because it's like the music was kind of that a down,
but then the variety shows what Sonny brings it up,
and their divorce kind of brings it up to because
they were the first divorced couple on TV to get
which is like such an insane kind of record type
of thing to have under your belt. But then without
(06:06):
their marriage, without the show, another kind of dip in
the Share career and then of course getting her back
on TV. She's married to Greg Alman now she does
her Share show. She's also beyond of course just the
Bowie duet, which is like one of my favorite things.
There's the West Side Story where she does every character
in West Side Story, which is like the most wonderful thing.
She also is very, very integral and helping bring Tina
(06:28):
Turner back. There's so many parallels between their careers and
kind of having the husband wife duo and sort of
the kind of trying to get the solo careers off
the ground in the seventies after divorces. But I've always
really loved kind of their connection that they had, but
especially share bringing Tina on to the Share show so
much and kind of sharing the wealth of this kind
(06:51):
of revival that she was seeing post divorce and able
to see for her solo career. And of course disco
is a big part of it too. She has her
kind of her disco revival. She fits right in with
that entire scene, and then she wants to go rock again.
She starts a band called Black Roses, right Pete Black Roses,
But that doesn't really pan out. People don't really get
black roses or the fact that Scher is a rock singer.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Now, I'm believable you actually you moved very quickly over
her marriage to Greg Ohman.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
In fact, I have a lot to say about it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It feels almost like it might be implying that the
marriage did not even last very long.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
The marriage did not last very long. But okay, did
you see the show, The Share Show on Broadway?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yes? I did. Okay, so Brittany, we will talk about
you and this probably music.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I cried several times during the musical. But my two
favorite things kind of happen around the same era of Share,
which is one the reason why she divorces Sonny is
because she has a conversation with Lucille Ball in the
show where it's like Lucille Ball is the one who's
telling her to divorce Sonny, and I really love that
being added in. There's no record of that actually ever
(07:57):
happening or being the reason why Sonny and Sher get
but it's a really great moment in the musical where
an actress just shows up and plays Lucy Oball, who
actually was friends with SHARE's mom at some point because
of her mom being an actress. But I love that
there's no record of this being a reason why Shared
Divorce is Sonny. But also the great just like Jesse
James duet that fictional Share and Greg Allman do in
(08:18):
the show is very important to me because it's so good.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Incredible couple, incredible couple.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I feel like you're going out of your way not
to mention any music that they happen to make together.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
You know, it's not my favorite in the I'll say
I love the fictional duet of them singing just like
Jesse James.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
There is an actual album and it is called All
Men and Women. That is the name of their duo.
This alone, I think, calls for a Share museum to
the hard Way, but by the due of All Men
and Woman is in itself legendary.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And an rip to that couple. Really just a great
rock pop couple in history.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Though.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Should we have a moment of silence for every day
the marriage lasted before the first time Share filed for.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Divorce, Yeah, exactly nine moments.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yes, yeah, they got it full nine days, beautiful nine days.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
They got married three days after her divorce was Sonny
was finalized.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
But then they got back together. They tried it again
three years they had a kid.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, like, yeah, it's just kind of beautiful. I always
love the way Greg Almond describes like their connection in
his amazing memoir Yeah, it's like very much worth reading
My Cross to Bear. But yeah, I love how he
shows up to pick up Share in a you a
long black limousine. Yeah, she thinks it's really cool. And
she sees him, She's like, fuck you, I'm not getting
in that funeral car. And she's like, we're taking my car,
(09:43):
We're taking my Mercedes's absolutely beautiful, like this, this is
absolutely this is the way a true great rock and
roll love story should begin. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
It was sort of a again like the Share Show's
doing well, weird marriage, music career kind of still fighting
that way of She's a very experimental person. She's someone
who likes trying out new things. She's never stopped doing that.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Absolutely, But the essence of Sharing the seventies is, like
you said, she would do anything. She had noted. There
was no concept in her mind of this is a
genre that maybe is not for me. Maybe it calls
for some expertise that I don't have. I shouldn't make
a southern rock album. I shouldn't make a hard rock
I shouldn't make a glam rock record. I shouldn't make
a disco album. I shouldn't do a medley of the
(10:27):
entire musical of West Side Story with me being every character.
There's absolutely no voice in Shar's head saying like you
should you know, maybe like sit this one out. She
is part of every story in pop music.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And the thing is she was proven right by history
that she could do everything. I feel like that's the
thing too, is like so much of that stuff has
had new lives, like breathe into it, where so many
people have looked back and been like, huh, Shar's voice
actually sounds great on like a glam rock record. Shar's
voice actually sounds really great singing like southern rock.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Her vocal range is really remarkable and really incredible, and
she just has the personality to pull off a lot
of stuff like the West Side Story video. I mean,
that's something that I feel like people rediscover and discover
for the first time every year and are kind of
blown away by how just kind of weird and insane
it is to have chosen to do that. And for
anyone who have thought to do that in the first place,
but also the fact that it's kind of really fun
(11:21):
to watch, Like if I watch that live, I would
also be talking about it for the rest of my life, you.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Know, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And this is just the beginning of the Share story. Yeah,
that she was.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
She was the eighties crazy.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That was a crazy Share decade.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
This was again very the foresight to try everything, to
dip a few hands and toes into as many things
as possible is something that Share again has been proven
extremely right by history, and she decides to try acting.
She auditions for some theater roles, some film roles, and
this ends up being one of the smartest moves she's
ever made, because she ends up winning an Oscar for Moonstruck.
(11:58):
Her film career, of course, starts to take off at
this point and ends up again being another revival for Share.
When the music the Black Roses Band doesn't really take
off the way she's hoping, When the music isn't really
kind of hitting the way it had been just a
few years prior, she ends up finding a home in Hollywood,
which makes so much sense for her because her personality
the Variety shows, her kind of performances on those shows
(12:19):
were such a big part of bringing her back into
the public sphere.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yes, and it has to be stressed she did it
the hard way. She did not waltz into vehicles for
her as a famous person. Her first big film role
was Silkwood, a very serious film. She is in a
supporting part. She is not playing a Share type of role.
It's a very complicated, very serious drama, very political drama.
(12:44):
Share is playing a minor character, and she's a lesbian character.
At a time when this was considered an absolute career
killer for a high profile actress or any actress to do,
and we could make a long list of actress in
the eighties would not play roles like this specifically because
of that. It cannot be stressed. What a bold, unprecedented,
(13:05):
uncalled for, unexpected and really unremarked upon at the time
move this was for her, so typical of her seriousness,
so typical of her ambition.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
The number of roles she's done, the number of iconic
films she's really attached her name to and made iconic
by how incredible her acting is. You know, she was
playing alongside actors that we consider to be the best
of all time, like someone like Meryl Streep is someone
that we can She's one of the most awarded actresses
in history. I mean, Share is holding her own with
Meryl Streep in that film. She is remarkable in it.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It was so astounding when she was in Mask in
nineteen eighty four and she is a biker mom. It's
a mask, but it was not what people are expecting
a Share type of movie role to be. She is
a very unglamorous, very tough, very gritty, very unsaintly working
class biker mom of a character who she's very protective of.
It was a very very different type.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, And I mean in peak Share, of course, she's
doing these roles where she is very much dressing herself
down and she is like deglamming. She is playing an
every woman in a lot of these roles and then
has like the biggest moment in her pop career at
that time. Yet with if I could turn back time,
I mean, this is like the peak kind of glam Share.
She's finding sort of her footing in the eighties, takes
(14:22):
over the eighties in a lot of ways at this point,
and is able to balance these two things at once.
This really remarkable Hollywood career where she's playing against what
people thought was her type, and also then being the
pop star she always has been that also is really
leaning into the rock vocalist that she really wanted to be,
that she was really toying with in the seventies that
(14:42):
kind of was not super accepted when she wasn't you know.
It was really kind of her her disco and sort
of radio pop moments that were more acceptable to people.
But this was her being able to be like a
little bit of a rock star, total pop star, and
you know, in a tiny onesie on like was it
air Force or whatever kind of military base, and like
(15:03):
the battleship.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
She's got the entire navy on this. She has turned
the entire US Navy into an entire battleship fleet of
her gay boyfriends. This is the proudest moment, Like she
is absolutely like, Hi, I'm sure I'm going to spend
this video wearing an outfit that is so obscene that
it would not have been considered possible to air on
(15:26):
MTV a couple years later, except at this point it
was so yeah out there fashion wise that they thought like, oh,
like we basically have shared just basically naked from the
waist down having sex with all these battleships, and you know,
the entire navy is like cheering her on and dancing
and this is like kind of an amazing move. Yeah,
she is very tattooed. Yeah, it's like it's completely nuts. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And after you know, she has all these incredible roles.
But in the nineties, she ends up having the epstein
bar virus, which leaves are really fatigued and unable to
do both the jobs that she had been doing for
so long, and that she had been sort of really
working her ass off in both of those ses, but
suddenly it was very fatigued, started doing infomercials. You know,
is regarded as again kind of uncool at this point.
(16:06):
You know, this was a time, especially when it was
like the idea that she was passed her prime was
a very big part of how people saw her and
saw a lot of women her age coming into to
music or film or kind of moving on with their
careers at this point. So the nineties end up being
a slow period for Share. We don't really hear much
from Share in the nineties. She is again doing infomercials,
not acting as much as a brief aside. Before we
(16:29):
get to believe She does a writing camp in nineteen
ninety four, writes a bunch of songs that would end
up not being released for several years because you know,
this is kind of a Share is not the same
type of superstar that she had been just a decade prior.
But she writes a song inspired by Kirk Comaine's death
in nineteen eighty four. This was a songwriting era for Share.
She was doing some introspection writing some songs. But it's
(16:51):
a little fun fact I love from the nineties Share
that we didn't hear that song until Not Commercial comes
out in the early two thousands. Great album, one of
the first Internet only album releases. But you know, she
has her big return in nineteen ninety eight. Of course,
that's the same year that Sunny dies very tragically in
a ski accident. And I mean, this is you know,
(17:11):
this is a huge earth shattering moment for Sharing. This
is someone that she had known for most of her life.
At this point, even though they had divorced, they still
had a child together. They still kind of were in
and eye of each other's lives. They had done sort
of like a mini reunion on I Believe Letterman not
too long before he had died. They had really found
peace with each other before he had passed, So this
(17:31):
was a really obviously, very tragic and earth scattering moment
in SHARE's life. She delivered a very have you seen
the video of the eulogy, of course, like absolutely studying
and heartbreaking moment. So when a song like Believe comes out,
it feels very apt in a lot of ways, lyrically
about kind of what Share is going through in her
life and after a really major loss of someone very
(17:53):
transformative in her career end existence.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, this is Sharre in your fifties, and this is
someone who was not expected to still be famous in
her twenties, and she was considered washed up by the
time she was at the end of her teens, and
she certainly was not expected to be still going, still growing,
still experimenting, still relevant into her thirties. So for Shared
(18:18):
to be entering her fifties with a song like this, well,
I mean it's got to be kind of.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Thematic, yeah, And I mean this song is one of
the great dance songs of all time. This is a
song that's fitting into the dance pop renaissance at the
late nineties, the kind of euro dance club wave that's
happening across music. I mean, this is a pretty unexpected
sound for someone who is entering their fifties as a
pop star at this time. Instead of being like acting
(18:45):
washed up in the way that so much of the
industry thought that she was, She's like, actually, I'm gonna
make something that feels so current, more current than anything else,
and also invent auto tune or make auto tune popular
or whatever. But I'm saying she's invented I'm going to
say that she invented it. But she makes auto tune
something that people like Tea Pain and Kanye West would
make a big part of their music just a decade later.
(19:06):
You know, like, this is someone who was ahead of
the curve at you know, so many decades into her
career still and.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
The beautiful moment where her voice takes on. Just to
be clear, this this wasn't a vocoders like.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
The Yeah, it was the pitch correction.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, it was such a crazy sound.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, and also just I mean lyrically too,
the song is so great. I mean, it's like one
of the great sort of hopeful, optimistic, kind of ephoric
dance songs. Do you believe in life after Love, incredible line,
gutting line, what a question and again, like especially in
the context of that year for Sharing, in the context
of the nineties, for Share, I mean, this was a
time when she was at a truly I mean there
(19:45):
were low points in her career and in her life,
but she truly was dealing with major health issues, was
truly dealing with kind of an uncertain future for some time,
and then lost someone who was, for you know, at
one point, the love of her life and so one
who she considered to be sort of a great love
in her life, even with sort of how fraught the
relationship was towards the end and at times, you know,
(20:08):
even in the beginning, but you know, to kind of
have a soil like that very lyrically that looks back
on that and feels so apt to that moment and
then has sort of this larger than life existence is
pretty remarkable and incredible.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And it's well, the autotune. It's not being used to
fix flaws in her performance. It's something that's very flaunted
and it's used as a musical hook. It's not used to,
you know, to hide anything about her voice. It's the
part when she sings when she comes to a really
emotional and self doubting and questioning part of the song
and that little flutter like it takes harm and Yeah,
(20:43):
and it's almost like a little vocal pirouette that is
like very like blatantly digital. It's a really kind of
strange moment in terms of like the vocal where it
becomes very artificial, very robotic for a second and just
makes it seem more human. It's really kind of an
astoundingly beautiful moment. It's not meant to be like hidden
(21:04):
or anything. It's very it expresses a part of this
song that is so perfectly suited to SHARE's voice by
just really kind of robotically freakishly altering it.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, and the producer Mark Taylor talked about it and
how he just kind of wants to experiment with what
it would sound like on this song and see if
she was okay with it, and was kind of worried
that she wouldn't be okay with something that is and
had been known as pitch correction technology. And I mean
she ended up really loving what that did for this
song as well. And I mean that ended up being
something that would really change pop music and also again,
(21:36):
this became a Grammy Award winning.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Song for Share.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
This became and still is one of the biggest hits
of her career, the biggest hit of her career, I
mean one of the top selling songs of her career,
and I mean really sat on a new path of
what we think of stars in their fifties, women in
their fifties, and like how we can not see that
as sort of like the end of their career. This
is a totally new beginning. Everything has happened since then
(22:01):
is remarkable. I mean, Chare only gets more popular every
single year.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
She's had such.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
A string of songs and even movies that have continued
to keep her, you know, just being one of the
most beloved figures in entertainment history. Great Twitter account, just
in a really truly remarkable Twitter account.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Future historians will remember Twitter only as this weird little
fad that happened during SHARE's timeline. Yeah, like the Share story,
Twitter will be a minor footnote to like something that
happened that chair made worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, we are joining now by Rob Thomas, also known
as bright Light bright Light, who is a recording artist, producer,
and DJ. Thank you so much for joining us today
to talk about Believe and Share.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Well, it's not exactly a hoddship talking about this lady
or this song.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
So I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, I was wondering, do you remember the first time
you heard Share at all in your life?
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I think Share is always been there. My parents were
sort of big music fans, and they listened to the Beatles,
and like you know, Share was and sort of mixtapes
with that.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
She's just always on TV.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I was born in eighty two, so when I was
growing up, it was right in the peak of when
she had like film stardom, So I used to see
her in the background in like Moonstruck and which is
Vstwick and you know, all those films. But maybe like
the first time that I really paid attention to what
she was doing was sort of mid nineties with It's
a Man's World Record. And then when this song came out,
(23:31):
I ran to Woolworth's in Neath, which is my hometown,
to buy this on CD single.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
So she's always been like a presence in my life.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, what was it like to kind of hear this
pivot that Share had taken and also to then see
it blow up and kind of give her this how
room lives by that point, like or.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
It was wild to see that, unlike the other songs
that I had heard of hers, everyone was talking about
the song. Everyone in school was talking about it, like
straight kids, weird kids, bullies and like you know, the
popular kids. They were all talking about Believe and everyone
was playing it and you could hear it everywhere. It
was the first time I think I'd heard this sort
(24:10):
of like completely all engulfing wave around one artist who
everyone already knew and a song that everyone just loved.
It was really amazing, I thought, because like I loved
like the Junior Vasquez remix of one by One, which
is you know, it's a man's world record, but that
wasn't really.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Like a hit.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So I'd heard her in a dance well before. By
hearing her in this, I think a very British centric
sound because of Brian Higgins, and it sounded like you
were in a British gay club, That's all it sounded like.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
To me.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
I think it was like helped by the popularity of
like queer as Folk, which was out for us in
like ninety seven ninety eight, I think, and people were
listening to like really gay music. You know, we had
like Gena Ge and we had Spice Girls and all
these things which are just like so camp that Share
released this anthem that just sounded like a British gay anthem. Yeah,
(25:05):
and it was like just amazing and just fabulous.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I always think so much about like where the nineties
started to like where the nineties ended up, especially kind
of like thinking about the popularity of like grunge and
like pop punk and all, and like you know to
the moving to the sound of like europop and like
the very kind of believe and like house music that
we would.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
End up with by the end of the nineties.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah, Like it was a fabulous thing for me. I
think it just made everybody on the same page for
a moment in British pop culture, and everyone loved it.
And you'd hear it in like coffee shops and clubs,
straight and gay clubs, and you would just hear it
on the radio everywhere and then like shopping centers, and
it felt like just so wild to see like one
(25:49):
song was literally everywhere, especially for like a heritage artist
quote unquote who traditionally like younger kids wouldn't gravitate towards
in terms of like buying like a new single or
being like, that's the cool new song. It was really
special and we've seen it happen a couple times since,
but to see somebody of that caliber at that stage
in their career have a number one hit pretty much
(26:11):
worldwide was just amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, it's well because sometimes when a song turns out
to be immortal, it's a surprise that it lasts a long.
Believe was a song that hearing it then you instantly
knew it was a song that it was going to
be with us forever. It's really a tone with song.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, it's a shame that she hates it. It's a
real shame that she hates it. It's well documented. I
don't know if you've read that interview where somebody says, like,
what was it like when Believe was everywhere?
Speaker 5 (26:38):
And she says it was a nightmare.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
It's just just the opposite of what you imagine someone
having a worldwide number one to be. And I really
hope that she's got a place in her heart for
it now because it is so special to so many people.
And we were just saying off camera that when I
DJ a lot. Almost every time that I DJ, somebody
requests the song and it's a very mixed bag about
what or age or demographic they are. That it doesn't
(27:04):
really seem to matter. Everyone still loves dancing to the song.
And when you play it and you hear the first.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Love love, people like ah ha.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
It's like, you know, people just like melt into like
it's like ephemeral things and they just they can't cope
with how they go feral as wild.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Do you remember the first time you ever danced to
in a club?
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I did go out a little bit underage, and I
remember this being played in H two O, which is
the gay club that we had in Swansea. I say
gay club, not LGBTQ plus space because it was back
then called the gay club. So just to backdate myself
and how old I actually am, and I remember we
had like three floors in that club. Downstairs was like
(27:44):
a bar which closed at eleven. Then there was like
a kind of pseudo bar restaurant in the middle, which
was a weird choice, and then upstairs would be the
big dance floor and you would hear it systematically on
each floor.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
You know, as you went from one to the other.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
You would hear it like in every single space in
the bar until you've got to the dance floor, and
then it'd be played at least once or twice at night.
So that was the space I heard it, and everyone
was like drunk by the marina in Swansea, you know,
drinking like these awful Alco pops. I don't know if
you have those here, but like smiron off ice and
things like that, smone off ice in your hand, smoke
(28:20):
machine is on. You just hear Share and everyone's just
like going absolutely crazy, and it was just such a
specific sound and such a specific moment in time, and
all the stuff that Brian Higgins did since that it
is just iconic as well. But thinking about this is
like a really pivotal moment for him, for chef, for.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Like British pop culture, for like pop music.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I think really because it's sort of changed agism in
a way, which is really cool. And I think it
made people focus on the song, not necessarily what they
thought about the artist, and the song kind of came
first for a while.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
It's really cool.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, that's all because Share, like you said, she'd already
built your legend in some was at that point it
didn't seem like she needed another iconic song, and yet
it really invented in your share.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yeah, it really did. I think like the sort of
wiggery was just wonderful. It was really cool, I think
because she was even if she wasn't having that much
fun with it, she presented like she was having a
blast and it was really infectious. Like the artwork was
this like shimmery, kind of like chintzy. It's like kind
(29:28):
of like trashy and fabulous. So like if you have
like a cheap fabric that makes a dress that feels great.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
So it was like a bit gaudy, a bit tasteless,
but also fabulous and so cool and like you just
wanted to be part of it. The wigs were just
so cool and so fun, and she looked amazing and
everyone was like.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
How could she possibly be that age?
Speaker 4 (29:48):
She sounds amazing on this record, Like the voice is
just wild, it's perfect, it's perfect for this the song,
the production is perfect.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
The vocoder, which is just like weird thing to have.
I don't know whose.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Decision that was, but it was genius, you know, because
everyone was like doing it in school.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
We'd be like really when we were in all lessons.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
It had so many little hooks that really got itself
into pop culture, and it was inescapable for like a
really long time and is now, but like it was
in its peak for for months and months and months
and months and months.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I think, well, it speaks to everybody. I was at
a punk rock show last week Mannequin Pussy and at
the end they were trying to shew everybody out, but
that song came on and.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Ever left a room, No one ever will, no one
ever was so good. It's not even my favorite song
on that record, but it is just one of the
best pop songs or pop dance songs of all time.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, I would love to hear more about that experience
of seeing a Share audience respawned to Share so many
times and kind of in across Europe on that tour, Like,
what was that.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Like for you?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
It was really wild. So for anyone that doesn't know
I opened for Share on too, I didn't nine. I
was with her, which I never thought.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
I would do.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
And it's the craziest sentence to say, but I toured
with her around Europe. I'd already seen the show in Brooklyn.
I bought tickets for that before I even thought that
I would get a look in to be the opening act.
So I'd seen the show from you know, the cheap
seats because I'm a bit of a cheap queen, and
it's just so much fun. And we were watching it
and you know, the video montages of like her movie career,
(31:25):
all of the tracks, even from this album, like strong
Enough and All Enoughing, which we're in the set list,
have just such an amazing reaction from the people. But
then when believe it was like the encore track, you know,
you just feel the room everyone just sort of like
starts lifting out of their seats and going into space
because it really is such an amazing song. And she
(31:45):
has hits from every decade, you know, and she has
fans from every conceivable living age bracket, which is really
amazing as well, and they all have their favorites from
different parts of her life. But there's really no denying that,
like this particular song is the moment where everyone is
(32:05):
like tens across the board.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Yeah, you know, amazing to watch him.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure
that's us could talk about share for the next several days.
Thanks thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia Rinnan Hosted by Me, Britney Spannis
and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine,
(32:30):
Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
with music supervision by Eric Seiler.
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Britney Spanis.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on
the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
so great.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today we're talking about Believe by Share, a song that
is actually perfect.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
The whole story, the whole greatness, the whole legacy of
the madness pop music. One perfect song.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This song made its debut on the twenty twenty one
list at three thirty seven, and on previous list, SHARE's
only entry was with Sunny for I Got You Babe.
It ranked a number four forty four on the two
thousand and four list, but actually did not make the
new list, but Believe did. And I think it's a
part of a grand story of Share and kind of
the mini ups and downs that she's had that have
(00:50):
led to kind of this newfound and very very appropriate
sort of appreciation for her solo career that's happened over
I think like the last decade really of the kind
of Share.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I have to say, Brittany and Believe are a cosmic pair.
I think SHARE's Belief is arguably the most Britney song
of all time. Yeah, just the esthetic, the legacy, everything
about it.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah. Do you remember where you were when you first
heard Believe?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Absolutely? Yes, it was when it came out, heard it
on the radio. The synthiness of the chorus, which we
will talk about, and the vocal and just that aspect
of the production was so new and exciting. But also
this was share singing, an intense share song about Sharre's life.
There were lots of those in the nineties, so many
of them. Yeah, and yet Believe seemed to be even
(01:40):
by her standards, on a whole other level.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, I very distinctly remember it was nineteen eighty nine
or two thousand when I first heard the song, and
it was after sort of again, this beginning of the
bubblegum pop era that was overtaking the world and my
world specifically. But I very distinctly remember going over to
a friend's house and her mom let us watch Spice World.
So we watch Spice World, but she said we can
(02:03):
only watch Spice Rol if she put something on after,
and she put on a share concert film from one
of her Vega shows, I Believe, and she was like
watch this pay attention to her wigs, and that line
changed my life. So that was my origin story of
Share was pay attention to her wigs, and I did.
I listened very carefully, and those wigs changed everything.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Wow, wherever you are right now, I want to thank
you for saying those words to a young Britney Spanish.
How much you changed the world. Since then, the whole
world has been paying attention to Brittany, paying attention to
this way.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So Share, I mean, there's so much that leads up
to Believe, and I feel like we really need to
get into the decades that built up to this, because
it was such a big deal for Share at fifty
two to release the song Believe and to have it
become the biggest song of her career, and there was
so much kind of you know, big moments and then
like big flops and then kind of disappearances and then
(02:56):
other things. So I feel like we need to really
really get into it. Share, of course, gets her start
in the sixties. She meets Sonny Bono. She's sixteen, he's
thirty two. He's working at phil Specter and they start
releasing music. A couple of years later, they get married, it's,
you know, not a great sort of age gap situation
that's happening then. But anyway, they get married when she's eighteen,
(03:18):
they start releasing music and they're pretty successful. Immediately they
have I Got You Babe, the beat goes on. The
songs are huge, huge sixties pop records, and of course
Share is starting her solo career.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
At the time too.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
She releases Bang Bang and you know, everything's real, real
groovy in the Sonny and Chair world. But then the
late sixties hit and they kind of fall off. You know,
they kind of aren't They're a little square to people.
What was your kind of remembering of the Sonny and
Share songs? Were they really really uncool when you were
when you were a little kid, or were they kind
(03:50):
of always kind of part of public consciousness?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
They were always there, They were on TV? Is the
thing like that? It was a huge thing for them
to be hosting a music variety show where other people
would come and do their music. So it wasn't even
that you loved Sonny and Share, although you did. They
were so funny on their show. They were a comedy duo,
but also who was going to show up that week
and do songs, who was going to do their hits.
(04:15):
There was a bit of all pop music in their show,
so it's almost like they were DJs as well as
performers in their own right, because somebody was going to
be on Sonny and Share Sunday night and they were
going to be doing their hits. So it was a
sort of weekly education in music.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, and of course that Variety show is such a
big part of bringing them back in the seventies and
making them popular again after their music kind of kind
of lost its touch on the charts. And also Share
solo career was really panned at this time, even though
some great albums were happening at that time. Of course,
her Jackson Highway album, which is all of her kind
of country and rock covers. I just want to give
a shout out to that because it's a very good
(04:51):
album and critics panned it, but I thought it was great.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Would you say that it has one of the all
time greatest versions of a Bob Dylan song?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I sure would.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I would agree with you. I would say that tonight
I'll be staying here with you.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Yeah version.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, outsong and outsold. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
The Bob Dylan Share Connection itself would be like three
held episodes. But it's also whild that Share was the
ultimate pop star in the seventies just because she would
do a little bit of everything. She would steal from everything. Also,
she was on TV and everybody knew her and she
had wide open taste. Everybody knows now the astounding performance
(05:27):
where David Bowie was a guest on The Share Show
and they did a medley of pop songs from the
fifties sixty seventies. They did this the most insane medley
of songs. It could only have been Bowie and Share. Yeah,
it's one of the freakiest things ever aired on network TV.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like, kind of looking back
on seventy Share is such a perfect kind of example
of how many ups and downs she went into her career,
because it's like the music was kind of that a down,
but then the variety shows what Sonny brings it up,
and their divorce kind of brings it up to because
they were the first divorced couple on TV to get
which is like such an insane kind of record type
of thing to have under your belt. But then without
(06:06):
their marriage, without the show, another kind of dip in
the Share career and then of course getting her back
on TV. She's married to Greg Alman now she does
her Share show. She's also beyond of course just the
Bowie duet, which is like one of my favorite things.
There's the West Side Story where she does every character
in West Side Story, which is like the most wonderful thing.
She also is very, very integral and helping bring Tina
(06:28):
Turner back. There's so many parallels between their careers and
kind of having the husband wife duo and sort of
the kind of trying to get the solo careers off
the ground in the seventies after divorces. But I've always
really loved kind of their connection that they had, but
especially share bringing Tina on to the Share show so
much and kind of sharing the wealth of this kind
(06:51):
of revival that she was seeing post divorce and able
to see for her solo career. And of course disco
is a big part of it too. She has her
kind of her disco revival. She fits right in with
that entire scene, and then she wants to go rock again.
She starts a band called Black Roses, right Pete Black Roses,
But that doesn't really pan out. People don't really get
black roses or the fact that Scher is a rock singer.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Now, I'm believable you actually you moved very quickly over
her marriage to Greg Ohman.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
In fact, I have a lot to say about it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It feels almost like it might be implying that the
marriage did not even last very long.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
The marriage did not last very long. But okay, did
you see the show, The Share Show on Broadway?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yes? I did. Okay, so Brittany, we will talk about
you and this probably music.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I cried several times during the musical. But my two
favorite things kind of happen around the same era of Share,
which is one the reason why she divorces Sonny is
because she has a conversation with Lucille Ball in the
show where it's like Lucille Ball is the one who's
telling her to divorce Sonny, and I really love that
being added in. There's no record of that actually ever
(07:57):
happening or being the reason why Sonny and Sher get
but it's a really great moment in the musical where
an actress just shows up and plays Lucy Oball, who
actually was friends with SHARE's mom at some point because
of her mom being an actress. But I love that
there's no record of this being a reason why Shared
Divorce is Sonny. But also the great just like Jesse
James duet that fictional Share and Greg Allman do in
(08:18):
the show is very important to me because it's so good.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Incredible couple, incredible couple.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I feel like you're going out of your way not
to mention any music that they happen to make together.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
You know, it's not my favorite in the I'll say
I love the fictional duet of them singing just like
Jesse James.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
There is an actual album and it is called All
Men and Women. That is the name of their duo.
This alone, I think, calls for a Share museum to
the hard Way, but by the due of All Men
and Woman is in itself legendary.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And an rip to that couple. Really just a great
rock pop couple in history.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Though.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Should we have a moment of silence for every day
the marriage lasted before the first time Share filed for.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Divorce, Yeah, exactly nine moments.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yes, yeah, they got it full nine days, beautiful nine days.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
They got married three days after her divorce was Sonny
was finalized.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
But then they got back together. They tried it again
three years they had a kid.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, like, yeah, it's just kind of beautiful. I always
love the way Greg Almond describes like their connection in
his amazing memoir Yeah, it's like very much worth reading
My Cross to Bear. But yeah, I love how he
shows up to pick up Share in a you a
long black limousine. Yeah, she thinks it's really cool. And
she sees him, She's like, fuck you, I'm not getting
in that funeral car. And she's like, we're taking my car,
(09:43):
We're taking my Mercedes's absolutely beautiful, like this, this is
absolutely this is the way a true great rock and
roll love story should begin. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
It was sort of a again like the Share Show's
doing well, weird marriage, music career kind of still fighting
that way of She's a very experimental person. She's someone
who likes trying out new things. She's never stopped doing that.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Absolutely, But the essence of Sharing the seventies is, like
you said, she would do anything. She had noted. There
was no concept in her mind of this is a
genre that maybe is not for me. Maybe it calls
for some expertise that I don't have. I shouldn't make
a southern rock album. I shouldn't make a hard rock
I shouldn't make a glam rock record. I shouldn't make
a disco album. I shouldn't do a medley of the
(10:27):
entire musical of West Side Story with me being every character.
There's absolutely no voice in Shar's head saying like you
should you know, maybe like sit this one out. She
is part of every story in pop music.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And the thing is she was proven right by history
that she could do everything. I feel like that's the
thing too, is like so much of that stuff has
had new lives, like breathe into it, where so many
people have looked back and been like, huh, Shar's voice
actually sounds great on like a glam rock record. Shar's
voice actually sounds really great singing like southern rock.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Her vocal range is really remarkable and really incredible, and
she just has the personality to pull off a lot
of stuff like the West Side Story video. I mean,
that's something that I feel like people rediscover and discover
for the first time every year and are kind of
blown away by how just kind of weird and insane
it is to have chosen to do that. And for
anyone who have thought to do that in the first place,
but also the fact that it's kind of really fun
(11:21):
to watch, Like if I watch that live, I would
also be talking about it for the rest of my life, you.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Know, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And this is just the beginning of the Share story. Yeah,
that she was.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
She was the eighties crazy.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That was a crazy Share decade.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
This was again very the foresight to try everything, to
dip a few hands and toes into as many things
as possible is something that Share again has been proven
extremely right by history, and she decides to try acting.
She auditions for some theater roles, some film roles, and
this ends up being one of the smartest moves she's
ever made, because she ends up winning an Oscar for Moonstruck.
(11:58):
Her film career, of course, starts to take off at
this point and ends up again being another revival for Share.
When the music the Black Roses Band doesn't really take
off the way she's hoping, When the music isn't really
kind of hitting the way it had been just a
few years prior, she ends up finding a home in Hollywood,
which makes so much sense for her because her personality
the Variety shows, her kind of performances on those shows
(12:19):
were such a big part of bringing her back into
the public sphere.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yes, and it has to be stressed she did it
the hard way. She did not waltz into vehicles for
her as a famous person. Her first big film role
was Silkwood, a very serious film. She is in a
supporting part. She is not playing a Share type of role.
It's a very complicated, very serious drama, very political drama.
(12:44):
Share is playing a minor character, and she's a lesbian character.
At a time when this was considered an absolute career
killer for a high profile actress or any actress to do,
and we could make a long list of actress in
the eighties would not play roles like this specifically because
of that. It cannot be stressed. What a bold, unprecedented,
(13:05):
uncalled for, unexpected and really unremarked upon at the time
move this was for her, so typical of her seriousness,
so typical of her ambition.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
The number of roles she's done, the number of iconic
films she's really attached her name to and made iconic
by how incredible her acting is. You know, she was
playing alongside actors that we consider to be the best
of all time, like someone like Meryl Streep is someone
that we can She's one of the most awarded actresses
in history. I mean, Share is holding her own with
Meryl Streep in that film. She is remarkable in it.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It was so astounding when she was in Mask in
nineteen eighty four and she is a biker mom. It's
a mask, but it was not what people are expecting
a Share type of movie role to be. She is
a very unglamorous, very tough, very gritty, very unsaintly working
class biker mom of a character who she's very protective of.
It was a very very different type.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, And I mean in peak Share, of course, she's
doing these roles where she is very much dressing herself
down and she is like deglamming. She is playing an
every woman in a lot of these roles and then
has like the biggest moment in her pop career at
that time. Yet with if I could turn back time,
I mean, this is like the peak kind of glam Share.
She's finding sort of her footing in the eighties, takes
(14:22):
over the eighties in a lot of ways at this point,
and is able to balance these two things at once.
This really remarkable Hollywood career where she's playing against what
people thought was her type, and also then being the
pop star she always has been that also is really
leaning into the rock vocalist that she really wanted to be,
that she was really toying with in the seventies that
(14:42):
kind of was not super accepted when she wasn't you know.
It was really kind of her her disco and sort
of radio pop moments that were more acceptable to people.
But this was her being able to be like a
little bit of a rock star, total pop star, and
you know, in a tiny onesie on like was it
air Force or whatever kind of military base, and like
(15:03):
the battleship.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
She's got the entire navy on this. She has turned
the entire US Navy into an entire battleship fleet of
her gay boyfriends. This is the proudest moment, Like she
is absolutely like, Hi, I'm sure I'm going to spend
this video wearing an outfit that is so obscene that
it would not have been considered possible to air on
(15:26):
MTV a couple years later, except at this point it
was so yeah out there fashion wise that they thought like, oh,
like we basically have shared just basically naked from the
waist down having sex with all these battleships, and you know,
the entire navy is like cheering her on and dancing
and this is like kind of an amazing move. Yeah,
she is very tattooed. Yeah, it's like it's completely nuts. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And after you know, she has all these incredible roles.
But in the nineties, she ends up having the epstein
bar virus, which leaves are really fatigued and unable to
do both the jobs that she had been doing for
so long, and that she had been sort of really
working her ass off in both of those ses, but
suddenly it was very fatigued, started doing infomercials. You know,
is regarded as again kind of uncool at this point.
(16:06):
You know, this was a time, especially when it was
like the idea that she was passed her prime was
a very big part of how people saw her and
saw a lot of women her age coming into to
music or film or kind of moving on with their
careers at this point. So the nineties end up being
a slow period for Share. We don't really hear much
from Share in the nineties. She is again doing infomercials,
not acting as much as a brief aside. Before we
(16:29):
get to believe She does a writing camp in nineteen
ninety four, writes a bunch of songs that would end
up not being released for several years because you know,
this is kind of a Share is not the same
type of superstar that she had been just a decade prior.
But she writes a song inspired by Kirk Comaine's death
in nineteen eighty four. This was a songwriting era for Share.
She was doing some introspection writing some songs. But it's
(16:51):
a little fun fact I love from the nineties Share
that we didn't hear that song until Not Commercial comes
out in the early two thousands. Great album, one of
the first Internet only album releases. But you know, she
has her big return in nineteen ninety eight. Of course,
that's the same year that Sunny dies very tragically in
a ski accident. And I mean, this is you know,
(17:11):
this is a huge earth shattering moment for Sharing. This
is someone that she had known for most of her life.
At this point, even though they had divorced, they still
had a child together. They still kind of were in
and eye of each other's lives. They had done sort
of like a mini reunion on I Believe Letterman not
too long before he had died. They had really found
peace with each other before he had passed, So this
(17:31):
was a really obviously, very tragic and earth scattering moment
in SHARE's life. She delivered a very have you seen
the video of the eulogy, of course, like absolutely studying
and heartbreaking moment. So when a song like Believe comes out,
it feels very apt in a lot of ways, lyrically
about kind of what Share is going through in her
life and after a really major loss of someone very
(17:53):
transformative in her career end existence.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, this is Sharre in your fifties, and this is
someone who was not expected to still be famous in
her twenties, and she was considered washed up by the
time she was at the end of her teens, and
she certainly was not expected to be still going, still growing,
still experimenting, still relevant into her thirties. So for Shared
(18:18):
to be entering her fifties with a song like this, well,
I mean it's got to be kind of.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Thematic, yeah, And I mean this song is one of
the great dance songs of all time. This is a
song that's fitting into the dance pop renaissance at the
late nineties, the kind of euro dance club wave that's
happening across music. I mean, this is a pretty unexpected
sound for someone who is entering their fifties as a
pop star at this time. Instead of being like acting
(18:45):
washed up in the way that so much of the
industry thought that she was, She's like, actually, I'm gonna
make something that feels so current, more current than anything else,
and also invent auto tune or make auto tune popular
or whatever. But I'm saying she's invented I'm going to
say that she invented it. But she makes auto tune
something that people like Tea Pain and Kanye West would
make a big part of their music just a decade later.
(19:06):
You know, like, this is someone who was ahead of
the curve at you know, so many decades into her
career still and.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
The beautiful moment where her voice takes on. Just to
be clear, this this wasn't a vocoders like.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
The Yeah, it was the pitch correction.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, it was such a crazy sound.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, and also just I mean lyrically too,
the song is so great. I mean, it's like one
of the great sort of hopeful, optimistic, kind of ephoric
dance songs. Do you believe in life after Love, incredible line,
gutting line, what a question and again, like especially in
the context of that year for Sharing, in the context
of the nineties, for Share, I mean, this was a
time when she was at a truly I mean there
(19:45):
were low points in her career and in her life,
but she truly was dealing with major health issues, was
truly dealing with kind of an uncertain future for some time,
and then lost someone who was, for you know, at
one point, the love of her life and so one
who she considered to be sort of a great love
in her life, even with sort of how fraught the
relationship was towards the end and at times, you know,
(20:08):
even in the beginning, but you know, to kind of
have a soil like that very lyrically that looks back
on that and feels so apt to that moment and
then has sort of this larger than life existence is
pretty remarkable and incredible.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And it's well, the autotune. It's not being used to
fix flaws in her performance. It's something that's very flaunted
and it's used as a musical hook. It's not used to,
you know, to hide anything about her voice. It's the
part when she sings when she comes to a really
emotional and self doubting and questioning part of the song
and that little flutter like it takes harm and Yeah,
(20:43):
and it's almost like a little vocal pirouette that is
like very like blatantly digital. It's a really kind of
strange moment in terms of like the vocal where it
becomes very artificial, very robotic for a second and just
makes it seem more human. It's really kind of an
astoundingly beautiful moment. It's not meant to be like hidden
(21:04):
or anything. It's very it expresses a part of this
song that is so perfectly suited to SHARE's voice by
just really kind of robotically freakishly altering it.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, and the producer Mark Taylor talked about it and
how he just kind of wants to experiment with what
it would sound like on this song and see if
she was okay with it, and was kind of worried
that she wouldn't be okay with something that is and
had been known as pitch correction technology. And I mean
she ended up really loving what that did for this
song as well. And I mean that ended up being
something that would really change pop music and also again,
(21:36):
this became a Grammy Award winning.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Song for Share.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
This became and still is one of the biggest hits
of her career, the biggest hit of her career, I
mean one of the top selling songs of her career,
and I mean really sat on a new path of
what we think of stars in their fifties, women in
their fifties, and like how we can not see that
as sort of like the end of their career. This
is a totally new beginning. Everything has happened since then
(22:01):
is remarkable. I mean, Chare only gets more popular every
single year.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
She's had such.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
A string of songs and even movies that have continued
to keep her, you know, just being one of the
most beloved figures in entertainment history. Great Twitter account, just
in a really truly remarkable Twitter account.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Future historians will remember Twitter only as this weird little
fad that happened during SHARE's timeline. Yeah, like the Share story,
Twitter will be a minor footnote to like something that
happened that chair made worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, we are joining now by Rob Thomas, also known
as bright Light bright Light, who is a recording artist, producer,
and DJ. Thank you so much for joining us today
to talk about Believe and Share.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Well, it's not exactly a hoddship talking about this lady
or this song.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
So I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, I was wondering, do you remember the first time
you heard Share at all in your life?
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I think Share is always been there. My parents were
sort of big music fans, and they listened to the Beatles,
and like you know, Share was and sort of mixtapes
with that.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
She's just always on TV.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I was born in eighty two, so when I was
growing up, it was right in the peak of when
she had like film stardom, So I used to see
her in the background in like Moonstruck and which is
Vstwick and you know, all those films. But maybe like
the first time that I really paid attention to what
she was doing was sort of mid nineties with It's
a Man's World Record. And then when this song came out,
(23:31):
I ran to Woolworth's in Neath, which is my hometown,
to buy this on CD single.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
So she's always been like a presence in my life.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, what was it like to kind of hear this
pivot that Share had taken and also to then see
it blow up and kind of give her this how
room lives by that point, like or.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
It was wild to see that, unlike the other songs
that I had heard of hers, everyone was talking about
the song. Everyone in school was talking about it, like
straight kids, weird kids, bullies and like you know, the
popular kids. They were all talking about Believe and everyone
was playing it and you could hear it everywhere. It
was the first time I think I'd heard this sort
(24:10):
of like completely all engulfing wave around one artist who
everyone already knew and a song that everyone just loved.
It was really amazing, I thought, because like I loved
like the Junior Vasquez remix of one by One, which
is you know, it's a man's world record, but that
wasn't really.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Like a hit.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So I'd heard her in a dance well before. By
hearing her in this, I think a very British centric
sound because of Brian Higgins, and it sounded like you
were in a British gay club, That's all it sounded like.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
To me.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
I think it was like helped by the popularity of
like queer as Folk, which was out for us in
like ninety seven ninety eight, I think, and people were
listening to like really gay music. You know, we had
like Gena Ge and we had Spice Girls and all
these things which are just like so camp that Share
released this anthem that just sounded like a British gay anthem. Yeah,
(25:05):
and it was like just amazing and just fabulous.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I always think so much about like where the nineties
started to like where the nineties ended up, especially kind
of like thinking about the popularity of like grunge and
like pop punk and all, and like you know to
the moving to the sound of like europop and like
the very kind of believe and like house music that
we would.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
End up with by the end of the nineties.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah, Like it was a fabulous thing for me. I
think it just made everybody on the same page for
a moment in British pop culture, and everyone loved it.
And you'd hear it in like coffee shops and clubs,
straight and gay clubs, and you would just hear it
on the radio everywhere and then like shopping centers, and
it felt like just so wild to see like one
(25:49):
song was literally everywhere, especially for like a heritage artist
quote unquote who traditionally like younger kids wouldn't gravitate towards
in terms of like buying like a new single or
being like, that's the cool new song. It was really
special and we've seen it happen a couple times since,
but to see somebody of that caliber at that stage
in their career have a number one hit pretty much
(26:11):
worldwide was just amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, it's well because sometimes when a song turns out
to be immortal, it's a surprise that it lasts a long.
Believe was a song that hearing it then you instantly
knew it was a song that it was going to
be with us forever. It's really a tone with song.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, it's a shame that she hates it. It's a
real shame that she hates it. It's well documented. I
don't know if you've read that interview where somebody says, like,
what was it like when Believe was everywhere?
Speaker 5 (26:38):
And she says it was a nightmare.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
It's just just the opposite of what you imagine someone
having a worldwide number one to be. And I really
hope that she's got a place in her heart for
it now because it is so special to so many people.
And we were just saying off camera that when I
DJ a lot. Almost every time that I DJ, somebody
requests the song and it's a very mixed bag about
what or age or demographic they are. That it doesn't
(27:04):
really seem to matter. Everyone still loves dancing to the song.
And when you play it and you hear the first.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Love love, people like ah ha.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
It's like, you know, people just like melt into like
it's like ephemeral things and they just they can't cope
with how they go feral as wild.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Do you remember the first time you ever danced to
in a club?
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I did go out a little bit underage, and I
remember this being played in H two O, which is
the gay club that we had in Swansea. I say
gay club, not LGBTQ plus space because it was back
then called the gay club. So just to backdate myself
and how old I actually am, and I remember we
had like three floors in that club. Downstairs was like
(27:44):
a bar which closed at eleven. Then there was like
a kind of pseudo bar restaurant in the middle, which
was a weird choice, and then upstairs would be the
big dance floor and you would hear it systematically on
each floor.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
You know, as you went from one to the other.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
You would hear it like in every single space in
the bar until you've got to the dance floor, and
then it'd be played at least once or twice at night.
So that was the space I heard it, and everyone
was like drunk by the marina in Swansea, you know,
drinking like these awful Alco pops. I don't know if
you have those here, but like smiron off ice and
things like that, smone off ice in your hand, smoke
(28:20):
machine is on. You just hear Share and everyone's just
like going absolutely crazy, and it was just such a
specific sound and such a specific moment in time, and
all the stuff that Brian Higgins did since that it
is just iconic as well. But thinking about this is
like a really pivotal moment for him, for chef, for.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Like British pop culture, for like pop music.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I think really because it's sort of changed agism in
a way, which is really cool. And I think it
made people focus on the song, not necessarily what they
thought about the artist, and the song kind of came
first for a while.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
It's really cool.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, that's all because Share, like you said, she'd already
built your legend in some was at that point it
didn't seem like she needed another iconic song, and yet
it really invented in your share.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yeah, it really did. I think like the sort of
wiggery was just wonderful. It was really cool, I think
because she was even if she wasn't having that much
fun with it, she presented like she was having a
blast and it was really infectious. Like the artwork was
this like shimmery, kind of like chintzy. It's like kind
(29:28):
of like trashy and fabulous. So like if you have
like a cheap fabric that makes a dress that feels great.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
So it was like a bit gaudy, a bit tasteless,
but also fabulous and so cool and like you just
wanted to be part of it. The wigs were just
so cool and so fun, and she looked amazing and
everyone was like.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
How could she possibly be that age?
Speaker 4 (29:48):
She sounds amazing on this record, Like the voice is
just wild, it's perfect, it's perfect for this the song,
the production is perfect.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
The vocoder, which is just like weird thing to have.
I don't know whose.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Decision that was, but it was genius, you know, because
everyone was like doing it in school.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
We'd be like really when we were in all lessons.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
It had so many little hooks that really got itself
into pop culture, and it was inescapable for like a
really long time and is now, but like it was
in its peak for for months and months and months
and months and months.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I think, well, it speaks to everybody. I was at
a punk rock show last week Mannequin Pussy and at
the end they were trying to shew everybody out, but
that song came on and.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Ever left a room, No one ever will, no one
ever was so good. It's not even my favorite song
on that record, but it is just one of the
best pop songs or pop dance songs of all time.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, I would love to hear more about that experience
of seeing a Share audience respawned to Share so many
times and kind of in across Europe on that tour, Like,
what was that.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Like for you?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
It was really wild. So for anyone that doesn't know
I opened for Share on too, I didn't nine. I
was with her, which I never thought.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
I would do.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
And it's the craziest sentence to say, but I toured
with her around Europe. I'd already seen the show in Brooklyn.
I bought tickets for that before I even thought that
I would get a look in to be the opening act.
So I'd seen the show from you know, the cheap
seats because I'm a bit of a cheap queen, and
it's just so much fun. And we were watching it
and you know, the video montages of like her movie career,
(31:25):
all of the tracks, even from this album, like strong
Enough and All Enoughing, which we're in the set list,
have just such an amazing reaction from the people. But
then when believe it was like the encore track, you know,
you just feel the room everyone just sort of like
starts lifting out of their seats and going into space
because it really is such an amazing song. And she
(31:45):
has hits from every decade, you know, and she has
fans from every conceivable living age bracket, which is really
amazing as well, and they all have their favorites from
different parts of her life. But there's really no denying that,
like this particular song is the moment where everyone is
(32:05):
like tens across the board.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Yeah, you know, amazing to watch him.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure
that's us could talk about share for the next several days.
Thanks thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia Rinnan Hosted by Me, Britney Spannis
and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine,
(32:30):
Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
with music supervision by Eric Seiler.
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