The man who co-wrote Rihanna’s first number one single, SOS, has revealed that the song’s lyrics are actually the names of ’80s hits.
SOS was released on February 14, 2006 as the lead single from Rihanna’s second studio album, ‘A Girl Like Me’.
SOS topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three consecutive weeks, becoming RIhanna’s first number one single.
Nearly 20 years since its release, SOS co-songwriter Evan ‘Kidd’ Bogart shared some surprising trivia about the hit song in a new interview with podcaster Daniel Wall.
During an appearance at behind the wall In the podcast, Bogart said that the second verse of SOS is made up almost entirely of ’80s song titles “strung together like sentences,” including hits by Michael Jackson and English rock band Cutting Crew.
SOS co-songwriter Evan ‘Kidd’ Bogart shared some surprising trivia about the hit song in a new interview.
Grammy-winning Bogart, who co-wrote SOS with Jonathan Reuven ‘J.R.’ Totem, told Wall: “The whole second verse of that song is ’80s song titles strung together like sentences because I thought that would be super clever.”
Bogart, who won a Grammy for Beyoncé’s 2008 hit Halo, then shared the names of the songs and their lyrics that make up the verse in the order in which they appear.
‘Take On Me (by) A-ha,’ he began, before reciting the lines that made him SOS. ‘You know it inside, you feel it good. Take me away.’
This is followed by the lines “I could die in your arms tonight” from (I Just) Died In Your Arms by Cutting Crew, before Rihanna sings the title of Modern English hit I Melt With You and Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears. .
The last two ’80s songs to complete the verse are English pop star Kim Wilde’s You Keep Me Hangin’ On and Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel.
A clip of Bogart revealing the true meaning of Rihanna’s SOS lyrics went viral on TikTok, as fans couldn’t believe they had never noticed this “creative” detail.
One comment read: ‘That’s actually very creative. Pretty cool.’
Another person added: “He’s been waiting 20 years for the chance to tell us about the inside joke.”
During an appearance on the Behind The Wall podcast, Bogart said that the second verse of SOS is made up almost entirely of ’80s song titles “strung together like sentences.”
SOS was released on February 14, 2006 as the lead single from Rihanna’s second studio album, ‘A Girl Like Me’.
Bogart won a Grammy Award for his work on Beyonce’s 2008 hit, Halo.
A third user admitted they “always thought” the verse was “very random,” while a fourth person joked: “He conspicuously manifested the song’s success by using the number one song titles in the song.”
The Way You Make Me Feel from Jackson’s seventh studio album, Bad, peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on January 23, 1988.
Wilde’s You Keep Me Hang On topped the chart for a week in June 1987, but Tears for Fears’ hit Head Over Heels didn’t actually secure the top position, peaking at number three.
I Melt With You by British new-wave/post-punk band Modern English ranked at number seven on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart in 1983, but did not actually enter the top 10 of the Hot 100.
Cutting Crew’s biggest hit to date (I Just) Died reached number one in the United States, Canada, Norway and Finland, and the re-recorded version of Take On Me by Norwegian synth-pop band A-ha was released. shot to the number one position. on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 19, 1985.
Reacting to the revelation that SOS is riddled with references to ’80s songs, one TikTok user noted, “this song is as old as all the songs it referenced when SOS was new.”
Another person added that SOS was the “definition of an ’80s-inspired masterpiece” before Wall responded: “Definitely a masterpiece.”
Several people also highlighted the One Direction song Better Than Words as another popular example of a song that is “just song titles.”