Song Of The Day 1/10/2015: Debby Boone - "Hasta Mañana"

B-Sides Week '15: Until "The Macarena" came along -- again, Los del Rio, thanks a ton for that one, you shouldn't have... no, really, you shouldn't have -- the movie theme "You Light Up My Life" was the biggest single ever by an artist who never again appeared on the charts. Debby Boone, daughter of Pat, plebeian in voice, teeth all a-glisten, bathed in chart-topping klieg lights for 10 weeks with this recording, which wasn't even in the movie, believe it or not. Someone named Kasey Cisyk sang the original version, which was lip-synched in the film by Didi Conn (Frenchy from Grease). Somehow Boone's people got a hold of the song and covered it, and somehow it came out right around the same time as the movie. Boone got the popular acclaim, Cisyk got a royalty check, and Conn was a beauty school dropout. It's a cruel business.

Considering how quickly Boone came and went, "Hasta Mañana," the B-side of "You Light Up My Life," turned out to be pretty prophetic, eh? It started out as an ABBA song, and is one of those very typical Europop songs in that it tries to erect some kind of sound or style that will resonate with literally every other country on the continent. Also you should be able to raise a stein while singing. It's sort of the '70s rewrite of Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again," as heard in Dr. Strangelove and the final episode of The Colbert Report. In fact, it outright steals the first lines from that song: "'Til we meet again, don't know where, don't know when." Hopefully by the time they all meet again someone will have had the good sense to pick up the thesaurus.

There's the last song of your B-Sides Week. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll meet again, however I happen to know where and when: in the dark alley by the AM/PM after I run out of painkillers.