Is She Really Going Out with Him?
The debut single, about watching couples and wondering what the women see in the men: it missed the top 100 in 1978 and reached the top twenty in Britain and America on reissue.
Joe Jackson, from Look Sharp! (1978)
- Written by
- Joe Jackson
- Released
- October 1978 (reissued July 1979)
- Producer
- David Kershenbaum
- Length
- 3:33
- Album
- Look Sharp!
The song
Jackson built the song around a phrase he had heard in a Damned song, which had taken it from the Shangri-Las' Leader of the Pack. He set out to write a funny little song about watching couples and wondering what the women could see in the men, and was surprised when people heard anger in it. A man once accused him of racism over the opening line about pretty women out walking with gorillas. It was one of the first songs recorded with the new band, and Jackson recalled that the band said it had the makings of a hit, though he protested that he would not know a hit from a hole in his head. The final version was cut with David Kershenbaum in August 1978 after the A&M signing, with Gary Sanford on guitar, Graham Maby on bass and David Houghton on drums.
AllMusic's Steve Huey praised the rhythm section, and the song works as a call and response: Jackson sings "Look over there" and the band answers "Where?", a line audiences often supply themselves at concerts.
Release and afterlife
The first single came out in October 1978 with You Got the Fever on the B-side, and an American pressing that used (Do the) Instant Mash instead. It missed the top hundred in both countries, as did the next two singles from the album, Sunday Papers and One More Time. After Look Sharp! began to gain attention it was reissued in July 1979 as A&M AMS 7459 and reached thirteen in Britain and twenty-one in America, where it spent fifteen weeks on the Hot 100. It reached nine in Canada, made the top ten in Ireland and the top twenty in Australia and New Zealand. A live a cappella version issued as a single in 1988 in parts of Europe went to number three in the Netherlands. The song also appears in the 1998 film There's Something About Mary.
Jackson has been modest about it. He has written that people still tell him it is the best thing he has done, and that he is not ashamed of it but sincerely hopes they are not right. Dave Lifton of Ultimate Classic Rock ranked it second among his songs. It has been a setlist staple, in arrangements that include an acoustic version and an a cappella doo-wop version, both on Live 1980/86, and a live recording from the Hammersmith Palais was the B-side of the 1981 Beat Crazy single. The reunited band played it on Later... with Jools Holland in 2003.
On stage
- 1979-05-12, Whisky a Go Go, Hollywood KMET-FM Los Angeles broadcast from his first American tour, preserved at the Internet Archive
- 2003, Later... with Jools Holland performed by the reunited Joe Jackson Band
Covers and versions
- Goldfinger (1998) Darrin's Coconut Ass: Live from Omaha, an in-studio recording
- Sugar Ray (2003) In the Pursuit of Leisure; used as the theme of the sitcom I'm with Her
- Kid Courageous (2006) first single from the album Dear Diary; reached 25 on the ARIA singles chart
More songs by Joe Jackson
Sunday Papers, It's Different for Girls, Jumpin' Jive, Steppin' Out, Breaking Us in Two, Real Men, A Slow Song, You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want), Fools in Love, Got the Time
Sources
- Is She Really Going Out with Him?, Wikipedia
- Internet Archive: Joe Jackson, Whisky a Go Go 1979, Internet Archive
- In the Pursuit of Leisure, Wikipedia
- Kid Courageous, Wikipedia