6 Half-Truths About Billy Ocean
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 01:00AM 
1) His real name is not Billy Ocean. It's Leslie Sebastian Charles. One would figure, because "Billy Ocean" is a pretty obvious stage name, one that is so ridiculously stagey that it would have been the name of that pop star guy that came to Bayside to make the anti-drug PSA but then, ironically, tried to get the Bayside gang to do drugs, had it not been taken, so instead they had to call him "Johnny Dakota." (What's completely appalling is that I knew the guy's name was "Johnny Dakota" off the top of my head.)

2) Multiple versions of "Caribbean Queen" were recorded for different regions of the world with the lyrics slightly changed. Such renditions were called "European Queen" and "African Queen." "Caribbean Queen," however, was still the worldwide hit.
Nevertheless, Billy Ocean was the first to remake products for different markets, directly leading to the American remake of The Office and the Communist Party of the United States.
3) Ween's "Ocean Man" is not about Billy Ocean. In theory.
4) Ocean's last top 40 hit in the U.S. was 1989's "License to Chill." The reason this was Ocean's last hit: because it was called "License to Chill." Wouldn't it be a horrible mix-up if he thought he had a license to kill, like James Bond, but he really only had a license to chill, because he's Billy Ocean, but before he finally read all that license paperwork he'd already killed like 40 people? This is precisely what happened, which is really why Billy Ocean has not been had a hit song in more than two decades - because he's in British spy prison.
Jimmy Buffett recorded an unrelated song called "License to Chill," which is precisely the kind of song that Jimmy Buffett, and only Jimmy Buffett, should make.
5) When "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" came out, my brother came up with a clever parody. "Get out of my dreams..." wait for it..."get into my pants." See, what he did there, was that he substituted "car" for "pants," playfully subverting the song's implication that once the girl was in the car that she would be doing the sex with a lyric that makes the sex happen immediately.
My other memory of this song is of a wallflowery pigeon-toed girl (the older sister of the pigeon-toed douchebag who told me there was no Santa) performing this song at the school talent show, which at my school meant "lip-synched to it." Well, and she wore sunglasses. Because that signified "cool."
I believe there were also hand-drawn cardboard convertibles. Which are also "cool."
6) Billy Ocean and Patrick Ewing are not the same person.

Top: Billy Ocean. Bottom: Patrick Ewing
LHS |
Post a Comment |
Billy Ocean,
Jimmy Buffett,
Ween 




