hypersongs

Key Largo

Released in September 1981 on Kat Family, his only top-40 hit.
Bertie Higgins, from Just Another Day in Paradise (1981)

Higgins and Sonny Limbo wrote it and Limbo and Scott MacLellan produced. The single, with "White Line Fever" on the B-side, came out in September 1981, 3:05 as the single edit against 3:20 on the album. Higgins said in the book Behind the Hits that it was a plea for her return. The lyric recalls a first winter in a poorly heated home watching the Late, Late Show with Casablanca and Key Largo, the 1948 film, and Limbo suggested the Bogart line here's looking at you, kid, which is actually from Casablanca.

It reached number 8 on the Hot 100 in early 1982, with 17 weeks in the top 40 and number 1 for two weeks on the adult contemporary chart; it was number 2 in Australia, 3 in Canada, 6 in Ireland and 8 in New Zealand. The video was directed by David Jean Schweitzer around Tarpon Springs, with Patty Wolfe in the lead, and was in early MTV rotation. VH1 placed him 75th on its 100 greatest one-hit wonders of the 80s. Re-recordings include a country version in 2014.

Sources

  1. Key Largo (song), Wikipedia
  2. Bertie Higgins, Wikipedia
  3. Key Largo, Songfacts