The man who co-wrote Rihanna‘s first number one single SOS has revealed the song’s lyrics are actually the names of hit Eighties songs.
SOS was released on February 14, 2006, as the lead single of 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.
Almost 20 years since its release, SOS’s co-songwriter Evan ‘Kidd’ Bogart shared a surprising bit of trivia about the hit song in a new interview with podcaster Daniel Wall.
During an appearance on the Behind The Wall podcast, Bogart said the second verse of SOS is almost entirely comprised of Eighties song titles ‘strung together as sentences’, including hits by Michael Jackson and English rock band Cutting Crew.
SOS’ co-songwriter Evan ‘Kidd’ Bogart shared a surprising bit of trivia about the hit song in a new interview
Grammy-winner Bogart, who co-wrote SOS with Jonathan Reuven ‘J.R’. Totem, told Wall: ‘The whole second verse of that song is Eighties song titles strung together as sentences because I thought it would be super clever.’
Bogart, who won a Grammy for Beyonce’s 2008 hit Halo, then shared the names of the songs, and their lyrics, that make up the verse in the order that they appear.
‘Take On Me [by] A-ha,’ he began, before reciting the lines that made it into SOS. ‘You know inside, you feel it right. Take me on.’
That is followed by the lines ‘I could just die up in your arms tonight’ from Cutting Crew’s (I Just) Died In Your Arms, before Rihanna sings the title of Modern English’s hit I Melt With You and Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears.
The final two Eighties songs that round out the verse are You Keep Me Hangin’ On by English pop star Kim Wilde and Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel.
A clip of Bogart revealing the real meaning of Rihanna’s SOS lyrics went viral on TikTok, as fans couldn’t believe they’d never noticed this ‘creative’ detail.
One comment read: ‘That’s actually really creative. Pretty cool.’
Another person added: ‘He has been waiting 20 years to have the opportunity to tell us about the inside joke.’
During an appearance on the Behind The Wall podcast, Bogart said the second verse of SOS is almost entirely comprised of Eighties song titles ‘strung together as sentences’
SOS was released on February 14, 2006, as the lead single of 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’ that verse was ‘so random’, while a fourth person quipped: ‘He high-key manifested the song’s success by using the #1 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 Hanging On topped the chart for one week in June 1987 but the Tears for Fears hit Head Over Heels didn’t actually secure the top position, peaking at number three.
British new-wave/post-punk band Modern English’s I Melt With You ranked at number seven on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart in 1983, but didn’t actually break into the Hot 100 top 10.
Cutting Crew’s biggest hit to date (I Just ) Died peaked at number one in the United States, Canada, Norway, and Finland, and Norwegian synth-pop band A-ha’s re-recorded version of Take On Me skyrocketed to the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 19, 1985.
Reacting to the revelation that SOS is littered with references to Eighties songs, one TikTok user noted: ‘this song is as old as all the songs it referenced when SOS was new.’
Another person added SOS was the ‘definition of an “80s Inspired Masterpiece”‘ before Wall replied: ‘Definitely a masterpiece.’
Several people also highlighted the One Direction song Better Than Words as another popular example of a song ‘just be song titles’.
